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.
Now you are beginning to articulate my mindset -- the Scripture proclaims ideas that are eternally true and inerrant. The Scripture transcends all time and culture in its message, not in physical facts.
Sola Scriptura for me is just as you describe Holy Tradition is for you. Sola Scriptura is the ultimate "documented" memory
Unfortunately that is wrong. Read Didache. Written before the end of the first century AD, (while the Gospels were still being written, and the Gospel of John not even in the works yet!), it tells us a lot about Christian practices and early Christianity in general.
For instance, it describes baptism as being done by triple immersion into a "living" water (when possible), or by triple pouring over the head if a baptismal pool were not available. It also requires that the person baptized and those participating in baptism fast for two days, on Wednesdays and Fridays and not on "Mondays and Thursdays as the hypocrites do," here making reference to the Jewish custom of fasting on Mondays and Thursdays. The Baptism is to be made in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.
ALL of these customs are still practiced in the Orthodox Church, so we can be pretty certain that in that respect the Orthodox Church, and the Orthodox Church alone, remained unchanged in the last 2,000 years.
What is important here is that none of this is described in any of the three Gospels that existed until then, nor in John's Gospel that followed. So, here we have a definite example of the Holy Tradition working in the Church while the Gospels were in the making.
It shows that not everything in the Bible (sola scriptura) is the "ultimate memory."
The Didache, however, also shows that the Church did change and even invent some things as time passed. For instance, it talks only of bishops and deacons, but not of presbyters (priests). Yet +Ignatius mentions as early as 107 AD that the Church already had a full three-tier clergy, bishops, priests and deacons. Today we even have subdeacons.
One could object that this is not theology, yet Didache also describes something that does affect our theology very much: concerning the Eucharist. First the order of the Eucharistic offering is reversed from the current practice: wine first, bread second. It is unclear why the Church reversed the order except that the habit may have become entrenched in the primitive Church before the Gospels account of the Mystery (Last) Supper in which they place breaking of the bread first, and drinking the wine second, contrary to the Jewish custom of wine first and then bread.
It is difficult to believe that Jesus, Who was a pious Jew, would have reversed it. Perhaps the Gospel writers decided to do so to distinguish Christian "Eucharist" from the Jewish custom.
More importantly, the Didache (which means "Teaching") talks about the Eucharist as simply being the "breaking of the Bread" and "drinking of the Wine" and not of Christ's Real Presence (i.e. physicial, bodily presence), or it's life-giving mysteries.
So, from this work we can see that some of the practices have indeed been preserved by the Church before the New Testament was completed and are therefore part of the Holy Tradition and the "combined memory" of the Church that exists besides, and in parallel, and in spiritual congruity with the Scriptures, thus rendering a very strong argument against the Lutheran sola scriptura error.
At the same time, there is some substance to the Protestant claims that the Church was not delivered ready-made (just as the NT was not!), and that human intervention and interpretations had a lot to do not only with the ecclasiastical structure and praxis, but with some of the passages that we know from the Gospels, such as the deliberate reversal of the Jewish custom of drinking the wine before the bread.
The modern translations give an illusion of timelessness through the employ of modern idiom. There would be nothing wrong with that if (1) their batting ratio were 100% and (2) if the reader knew that there is some scriptural reality that is not reflected by the modern translation and were ready to seek further guidance by recoursing to the authority of the Church. This is why Cathollics read the awful in all but ease of reading NAB and profit from it, -- because they know that the ultimate truth of the scripture is in the mind of the Church, and the NAB is but a reflection of it.
But the exact opposite is happening when a modern translation is read by a Protestant with an anti-Catholic mindset (not all Protestants have that mindset). Then these 2% falsities become a prooftext to drive one further away from the scripture by driving one further away from the mind of the Church. Combined with the notion that the NIV is The Only Scripture Beyond Which There Is Nothing But Evil Popery the end result is worse than if no scripture reading were attempted.