But, FK, the Tradition is also "text," as in context of the times and culture in which the OT and NT Scriptures were written.
Simply learning generic English of today may not give you the ability to read Shakespeare without explanatory notes and without cultural and social backgrounds of the characters involved in the story. You would have to read it in context of the times in which it was written.
Tradition is simply an ubroken written collection of what the Church believed starting with the very first days after the Pentecost onward, in the social and political realities of the time, documents describing the mindset, the rituals, etc.
When you look at your loved ones, you know a lot about them, because you have a memory of them. Sola scriptura, to us, is like looking at them for the first time, read their resumes, and claiming to know them. Impossible! The Holy Tradition is a documented "memory" of the Church. The Church knows the faith as you know your family.
The only way the current generations may get a good understanding of what happened, say, in Vietnam almost 40 years ago, is to read tons of volumes describing everything about that era, to gain mastery of political realities of the world, mindset, technology, social perceptions in general and in particular, etc.
Your approach is that all one needs to do is read a reliable weekly magazine story about that era, or a lengthy summary in an encyclopedia, and you will get the whole picture! That's what sola scriptura is; incomplete; impossible.
Yes, I can agree with you in principle. But that brings us to the issue of the timelessness of the Bible, and what the translations have meant throughout the ages. I freely admit that I am probably in a small minority of all posters here who prefer to use the NIV. My impression is that versions like this were made to handle just this sort of problem. The main objection that I have seen to the NIV is that it is not word-for-word, which, of course, is true.
However, it has always been my habit here that, when I read a verse from another poster from another translation which I have not already memorized, that I look it up in my NIV. In all of those times (a few hundred) the number of times I have thought that the verse actually said something materially different from my version has been less than 2%. I don't think that's so bad, since it doesn't even necessarily mean that the other translation was "better". The whole point of going idea-for-idea is to compensate for the contexts and culture differences, etc.
When you look at your loved ones, you know a lot about them, because you have a memory of them. Sola scriptura, to us, is like looking at them for the first time, read their resumes, and claiming to know them. Impossible! The Holy Tradition is a documented "memory" of the Church. The Church knows the faith as you know your family.
Sola Scriptura for me is just as you describe Holy Tradition is for you. Sola Scriptura is the ultimate "documented" memory. :) And likewise, when I see Tradition that appears not to match with scripture, then that is like looking at my loved ones for the first time.
The Church knows the faith as you know your family.
And I would say the Bible knows my faith like I know my family.
[On an analogy of using the Sola Scriptura approach to learning about Vietnam:] Your approach is that all one needs to do is read a reliable weekly magazine story about that era, or a lengthy summary in an encyclopedia, and you will get the whole picture! That's what sola scriptura is; incomplete; impossible.
Well, that's not a bad summary of our disagreement. I happen to believe that when God puts His holy word to page, that He is both complete AND possible. In fact, perfect. When fallible men start adding or subtracting from God's word, I think that's asking for trouble.