 Re: holy tradition
I recall a discussion with Watchman on this general topic which prompts me to repeat my point of view. In law, we often say that a document is not "self authenicating" which means there must be some authority beyond the four corners of the text that imports validity to the document.
There are very few people who are ever willing to ask themselves this question: Would it not be true that the authority who decided what makes up the "canon" of inspired scripture and what does not-has ultimate authority to validate not only the resulting text that survives such a selective process but also the corresponding authority to guide the faithful regarding not only the authenication but intrepretation and translation thereof. That authority, of course, is the Church.
The Bible whether Old Testament or New Testament was drawn from oral tradition. Can you imagine St. Paul exhorting his listeners to ignore every sermon he gave unless and until it was reduced to writing. The Christian and apostolic tradition came before a single line of new testatment scripture was written. It was from that pool that Holy Scripture was drawn and it was from that same pool that the Holy Spirit guided the Church to declare the Canon. It must be disconcerting in the extreme to realize as any seriuos scholar must that not a single line of either Old Testament or New Testament scripture survives in original form. There is no segment of Christianity that teaches that translators or copyists were or are inspired but only the original authors. The only documents we now read, therefore, are the uninspired texts of translators and copyists and, of course, history is replete with examples of errors in translations and copying. What then keeps scripture reliable? The answer is, once again, the teaching authority of the same Church that authenicated scripture to begin with-relying upon as the Church always has, the Christian and apostolic tradition from which holy writ was drawn.
It does very little good , therefore, for people to rest their entire case on dogma or doctrine tethered exclusively to scripture. The numerous differences in intrepretation-often with respect to the very same text and often within the same confession of faith underscore the problem. The Baptist, for example, will disagree among themselves regarding the ordination of women and each relys entirely on scripture to support their opposite points of view.
My views in no way are meant to suggest that scripture is without value. Quite the contrary - it is enormously valuable. It represents an enbodiment of the finest religious tradition ever known i.e. the Judiac Christian tradition culminating in Christ and continuing in His Church (which can often be defined as Christ extended into time). My only point is that the written text of any given scriptural translation must always be viewed within the context of the tradition from which it was derived. To divorce ourselves from tradition is to invite chaos and ulitmately error in discerning the spiritual truth that lies within the words.
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Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam!
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