I did not say that it was.
I agree that you didn’t say that, but I’m looking to the end game. At some point there must be a reason for the attempt to justify the oral tradition as equal to the written, and ultimately it must be to convince folks like me that some of the uniquely Roman Catholic doctrines have roots that go back to the beginning, even though they are not found directly in the text of Scripture.
Transubstantiation is a good example of this. I am aware of the alleged Biblical arguments for some sort of real presence (John 6 et al), and many in the Lutheran and Reformed traditions actually have a concept of real presence. But these are quite unlike transubstantiation. Transubstantiation did not appear historically until, at the earliest, Radbertus, a 9th Century monk. And it did not reach its final form until Aquinas fused it with the Aristotelian notions of accidence and substance, though they were inverted from the sense given by Aristotle. From there it was made official by Trent, complete with an anathema to any who dissented.
Anyway, without getting into all that, the point is, the doctrines that divide us are not simply disputes about specific passages in Scripture. They are disputes about whether certain later doctrinal developments NOT obvious from Scripture should have the power to bind the Christian conscience. To establish that level of authority, the Roman Catholic apologist must first establish these extra-Biblical traditions as having authority equal to Scripture. Then these traditions can become the source of almost any novel doctrine, no matter how alien to the original text.
What Paul had taught him was just as inspired as what had been written.
Actually, this is the point. We absolutely know the written words were theopneustos, God-breathed. Paul’s private conversations with Timothy are never assigned such a character. Paul doubtless spoke true words to Timothy, and he was an apostle and full of the Spirit, but to the best of my knowledge, only the written Scriptures are ever described as God-breathed. Consider the parallel teaching in Peter:
2Pe 1:16-21 For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty. (17) For he received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. (18) And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount. (19) We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts: (20) Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. (21) For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
In this passage Peter, encouraging his flock to remain faithful, reminds them of the certainty of the truth about Jesus, saying yes, we were eyewitnesses of Christ in His transfiguration glory, and even better than that, we have the more sure word of prophecy. And why does he say these written prophecies are such a strong guarantee of truth? Because they didn’t come from the private disclosures of the prophet’s own mind, however truthful and holy was that mind. Rather, they have their certainty because these words were the record of truth intentionally created by the Holy Spirit for use by future generations of believers, like Peter’s flock, and he provided it to them without burying parts of his truth in an undocumented stream of oral tradition that could be manipulated into saying anything.
This was the case for several centuries after the last of Apostles died.
Not really. Not if you accept some of the recent dating for various papyri, in particular the Magdalen Papayrus, a fragment of Matthew (in Greek BTW) which some scholars believe is a mid-First Century product. See article here: http://ancientroadpublications.com/Studies/BiblicalStudies/FirstCenturyMSS.html
*****Again, the fact that Timothy was in the unique position to have assurance of the truth directly from Paul orally is not a valid justification for claiming the general principle of an oral tradition with parallel authority to Scripture. *****
Why? Is the New Testament not the written record of the oral teachings of Christ and after His ascension the Apostles? If we can extrapolate that this passage now includes the written words we know as the New Testament, why is the future oral tradition not also similarly recognized?
Why accept an argument that doesn't close the loop? We are never told that these private, unrecorded conversations of the apostles are theopneustos, God-breathed records created apart from the Scriptures. I have no problem with oral teaching becoming written teaching and thereby becoming the accepted record of the truths of Christian faith. But we would not even know of these oral teachings had they not been written down. That’s how God chose to preserve them. Again, the objective here is to see how God works. He likes to have these things written down. Certainly there is a time of transition, when the work of creating the text takes place. But once He has given it to us in writing, it seals it as theopneustos, God-breathed, which is only ever applied to Scripture, as far as I am aware.
Actually, that is not what I see in all those *****it is written***** passages. Nearly every single one is used by Jesus as testimony to Him and His mission. He uses Scripture to establish His identity and thus His authority to do and say the things He did..
Well this is really a good idea for a book, though I can’t imagine it’s never been done. It would be wonderful to catalog every conflict Jesus had with the Pharisees and study out how Jesus used the Scriptures to dismantle their oral traditions. Seriously, this was a strong repeating pattern in the ministry of Christ. Here’s just one of the more famous examples:
Mat 12:2-8 But when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto him, Behold, thy disciples do that which is not lawful to do upon the sabbath day. (3) But he said unto them, Have ye not read what David did, when he was an hungred, and they that were with him; (4) How he entered into the house of God, and did eat the shewbread, which was not lawful for him to eat, neither for them which were with him, but only for the priests? (5) Or have ye not read in the law, how that on the sabbath days the priests in the temple profane the sabbath, and are blameless? (6) But I say unto you, That in this place is one greater than the temple. (7) But if ye had known what this meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless. (8) For the Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath day.
Boom Boom Boom. They make a fuss over Jesus’ disciples eating leftovers on the Sabbath and He hits them three times with their ignorance of Scripture, although He could have hit them many more times, for their errors were legion. Yes there was a real prohibition on work, even on preparing food, but not eating. So Christ was already acting within the confines of God’s written law, but He was being utterly dismissive of the oral tradition. And then he goes further and tells them they don’t understand enough about the true meaning of the law to apply it correctly anyway, that God was not the person they thought He was, all based on Scripture. Powerful.
And this sort of thing doesn’t turn up with just using “it is written.” You also have to pick up the “have you not read,” and “what does this mean,” and so forth. It would make a fascinating study.
*****Think of it this way. An old prospector who has actually been to King Solomon’s mines tells a young man, look, the mines are real, I’ve seen them myself. It’s all true. But here’s a diary, written in King Solomon own words, and in it everything you need to know to find the mines and make good use of them. And sonny I mean everything, every map, every trap, every hidden passage, every vein of ore, every piece of equipment and how to use it, it’s all there. I’m old, and when I’m gone, it’ll be up to you. But you can do this, because you have the diary.*****
Sorry, but this example doesn’t work because Scripture does not and cannot record every possible heresy and theological question that has arisen since the death of the Apostles.
You are making my point for me. I have repeatedly said Sola Scriptura does not imply the Bible contains all possible knowledge. What we have contended, and what I have attempted to illustrate with the story of the diary, is that it contains enough information to achieve the desired result. Remember, God is sovereign. He is a genius of the highest possible magnitude. He is perfectly capable of putting together a book that has enough essential information in it about the Gospel of Jesus Christ, that for a thousand generations it would serve perfectly as the core of Christian truth.
I have used this illustration elsewhere, but it might be useful to mention it again. Human dna is a finite set of information. It does not contain all possible data on everything. But it contains everything required to make a human. And it even has an error trapping mechanism, to prevent mutation, by having extra copies of genes laying around to replace genes that get damaged. The dna remains always the same, but the human grows, from childhood to maturity, all from the guidance of a tiny little book in every cell of their body. It’s an amazing, brilliant design. Would God be any less brilliant in designing propagation of the message about His redemptive love for us in Christ?
One last thought. I notice you have not responded to the sufficiency argument raised from “artios,” and “exartismenos,” the completeness of preparation that is produced by theopneustos (God-breathed) Scriptures. Again, not understood to exist in a vacuum, but alive, driven by the sovereign purposes of God the Father, and sufficient, when brought home to the heart by the work of the Holy Spirit, to lead lost souls to salvation by faith in Christ, and to guide them into maturity as believers. Anything beyond what is written, however well intentioned, is optional at best, and to be rejected if it conflicts with what is written. This is the pattern given to us by Christ in His own example, and nothing in the rest of Scripture contradicts it, but only confirms it.
Peace,
SR
*****Transubstantiation did not appear historically*****
It was articulated but the concept existed. Jesus said it was a hard thing to hear. It is also a hard thing to explain. That is why we walk by faith and not by sight.
*****Anyway, without getting into all that, the point is, the doctrines that divide us are not simply disputes about specific passages in Scripture. They are disputes about whether certain later doctrinal developments NOT obvious from Scripture should have the power to bind the Christian conscience. To establish that level of authority, the Roman Catholic apologist must first establish these extra-Biblical traditions as having authority equal to Scripture. Then these traditions can become the source of almost any novel doctrine, no matter how alien to the original text.****
In a way, our disputes are about specific passages in Scripture. These doctrinal developments come from debate over the nature of Jesus, the Good News and Scripture itself. In all these debates, it was the Church who settled the issue. I can’t list all the heresies, they are a matter of record, but when they came, the final authority rested with the Church weighing Tradition and Scripture to proclaim what was True.
Is Jesus God, truly God? The same God as God the Father? Was Jesus human, truly human? Is the Holy Spirit God? Did Jesus truly die? If so, did God die? Did God raise Jesus, or did He raise Himself? Is baptism necessary? Should children/infants be baptized? Do we keep the Sabbath or celebrate the Lord’s Day? Did Jesus bodily rise from the dead? What is the structure of the Church? What sacred writings are actually Scripture? Why these and not others?
We find very different answers to all of these questions. Some are Truth, some are heresy; all with claims to be derived from Scripture. Which are Truth? Which are heresy?
Scripture tells us that there are those who wrest its words to suit themselves, to their own destruction and the destruction of others? In that statement alone, Scripture is telling us that we need to have a sure guide to what the Truth is that Scripture is telling us.
Oral Tradition has been established as equal to Scripture and the matter is settled in the mind of Catholics. The Church, the bulwark and pillar of Truth, has spoken. The Church is not the Truth, but the one who supports, defends and preserves It.
There are no novel doctrines. No doctrines alien to the Truth. There is nothing the Church teaches that contradicts Jesus or the written word. I know that not everyone believes that, but it is what I believe and I have come to that belief through study and prayer and not by being brainwashed or bullied into it.
******2Pe 1:16-21 For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty. (17) For he received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. (18) And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount. (19) We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts: (20) Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. (21) For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. ******
I appreciate what you are trying to say here but I reiterate what I said previously. Here Peter is doing exactly what the Church does. He is teaching here and promising that what he is saying is true. Not because Scripture prophesied Jesus, but because Jesus fulfilled what was prophesied. It again a matter of authority and by whose authority Peter preaches.
*****Not really. Not if you accept some of the recent dating for various papyri, in particular the Magdalen Papayrus, a fragment of Matthew (in Greek BTW) which some scholars believe is a mid-First Century product.*****
It does not negate my point to show that very early on there were writings of the Apostles. We don’t know how early and how much these writings were copied and shared. Also, which were considered Scripture? We know that Peter recognized that some things Paul wrote were scripture, but we don’t know of which ones he was speaking. And, then of course, it all comes back to who determined what was Scripture.
I have to quit here for now but will try to resume tomorrow.
Thank you for the time you took to respond. It is appreciated.
******And sonny I mean everything,*****
That is from your first post with the story of the diary, which I included in my response. Either the Bible does or does not contain the ability to know everything. I have not argued that it is not sufficient; I believe it is when one has been taught how to read and understand it.
I also wonder if it is really true that one could pick up the Bible and without any guidance from anyone else, clearly understand the full story of salvation which comes from Jesus. I don’t know anyone who has done such a thing but I guess it’s possible.
Remember the Ethiopian Eunuch who an angel of the Lord sends Phillip to find. Scripture tells us that he was returning home from worshiping in Jerusalem and reading Isaiah when Phillip asked him if he understood what he was reading. His answer is how can I unless someone explains it.
There are differing opinions on whether this man was a Jew or a Gentile since Scripture doesn’t say. Some assume he could not have been a Jew given his nationality and race. Others believe he was Jew but excluded from temple because he was a eunuch. It doesn’t matter because as Jew or a Gentile, he did not know of whom the prophet was speaking and needed someone to explain.
That is why oral tradition and authoritative teachings are necessary. If one cannot take up Scripture on one’s own and come to the necessary knowledge to have faith in Jesus, then that makes the Bible only a part of the deposit of faith.
Here is the question that must be answered to some satisfaction in my mind....Had there never been anything written by the Apostles, would we still have sufficient knowledge of Jesus to know that He is Lord and that our salvation comes from Him?
This comes back to the first few years when the Apostles had not written anything and still went out into the world proclaiming the Good News.
Let’s not forget that when evangelizing the Gentiles, appealing to Scripture would have been meaningless as the Gentiles did not know Scripture. And if Scripture was used, they would have had to explain a good deal of it to them.
Paul, in Athens appeals to his listeners without using any of the OT. Instead he quotes their own prophets when he says, For ‘In him we live and move and have our being....
and.....We too are His offspring. He could not have depended on the OT because his listeners were followers of Greek philosophers.
In summary, the Bible is indeed God breathed and profitable for all the things which Paul lists in Timothy, but it is not self explanatory or accessible to everyone, since not everyone can read or full understand what they are reading.
Regarding the pharisees and Jesus encounters with them. I cannot stress enough that when Jesus speaks to them, He calls them out for their hypocrisy or their failure to understand the Scripture they knew so well. Why wasn’t Scripture sufficient for them to know Jesus? Why did He so often have to spell it out for them? Because they were so engrossed with the written word they could not see their Savior when He moved among them.
Again, I must stop here, but I will address the “sufficiency” point you made at a later time. I need to go back and reread that post.
Hope you have a great evening:)