Difference between revisions of "Tradition"

<p> Greek paradosis , instructions "delivered" (&nbsp;1 Corinthians 15:3) as inspired, whether orally or in writing, by the apostles (&nbsp;2 Thessalonians 2:15; &nbsp;2 Thessalonians 3:6; &nbsp;2 Thessalonians 3:10). The only oral tradition designed by God to be obligatory on the church in all ages was soon committed to writing in the apostolic age, and recognized as inspired by the churches then having the gift of discerning spirits. Only in three passages (&nbsp;1 Corinthians 11:2 margin; &nbsp;2 Thessalonians 2:15; &nbsp;2 Thessalonians 3:6) has tradition a good sense; in ten a bad sense, man's uninspired tradition (&nbsp;Matthew 15:2-3; &nbsp;Matthew 15:6; &nbsp;Mark 7:3; &nbsp;Mark 7:5; &nbsp;Mark 7:8-9; &nbsp;Mark 7:13; &nbsp;Galatians 1:14; &nbsp;Colossians 2:8). Jesus charges the [[Jews]] with "making the commandment of God of none effect through your tradition." Hilary the deacon says, "a surfeit to carnal sense is human tradition." </p> <p> Tradition clogs heavenly perceptions. Ρaradosis is one of the only two nouns in 2,000 in the Greek Testament which numerically equals 666, the mark of the beast (&nbsp;Revelation 13:18). Tradition is the grand corrupter of doctrine, as "wealth" (euporia; &nbsp;Acts 19:25, the other equivalent of 666) is of practice. Only those words of the apostles for which they claim inspiration (their words afterward embodied in canonical writing) are inspired, not their every spoken word, e.g. Peter's dissimulation (&nbsp;Galatians 2:11-14). Oral inspiration was needed until the canon of the written word was completed. The apostles' and evangelists' inspiration is attested by their miracles; their New Testament Scriptures had the additional test without which even miracles would be inconclusive (&nbsp;Deuteronomy 13:1-6), accordance with the existing Old Testament revelation (&nbsp;Acts 17:11). </p> <p> When the canon was complete the infallibility was transferred from living men's inspired sayings to the written word, now the sole unerring guide, interpreted by the Holy Spirit; comparison of Scripture with Scripture being the best commentary (&nbsp;1 Corinthians 2:12-16; &nbsp;1 John 2:20; &nbsp;1 John 2:27; &nbsp;John 1:33; &nbsp;John 3:34; &nbsp;John 15:26; &nbsp;John 16:13-14). The most ancient and universal tradition is the all-sufficiency of Scripture for salvation, "that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works" (&nbsp;2 Timothy 3:15-17). The apostles never appeal to human tradition, always to Scripture (&nbsp;Acts 15:2; &nbsp;Acts 15:15-17; &nbsp;Acts 17:11; &nbsp;Acts 24:14; &nbsp;1 Corinthians 15:3-4). If tradition must be followed, then we ought to follow that oldest tradition which casts away all tradition not in, or provable by, Scripture. </p> <p> We receive the Christian Lord's day and infant baptism not on the inherent authority of the fathers, but on their testimony as witnesses of facts which give force to the infiltrations of Scripture. Tradition can authenticate a fact, but not establish a doctrine. Paul's tradition in &nbsp;2 Thessalonians 2:15 is inspired, and only continued oral in part until the Scripture canon was completed by John; altogether different from Rome's supplementary oral tradition professing to complete the word which is complete, and which we are forbidden to add to, on penalty of God's plagues written therein (&nbsp;Revelation 22:18). By adding human tradition Rome becomes parent of antichrist. How remarkable it is that from this very chapter (&nbsp;2 Thessalonians 2:15), denouncing antichrist, she draws her argument for tradition which fosters antichristianity. Because the apostles' oral word, whenever they claim inspiration, was as trustworthy as the written word, it does not follow that the oral word of those neither apostles nor inspired is as trustworthy as the written word of those who were apostles or inspired. </p> <p> No tradition of the apostles except their written word can be proved genuine on certain evidence. The danger of even a genuine oral tradition ''(Which [[Scarcely]] Any Of The So-Called Traditions Are)'' is illustrated in the "saying" that went abroad among the brethren that John should not die, though Jesus had not said this, but "if I will that he tarry until I come, what is that to thee?" (&nbsp;John 21:22-23). We are no more bound to accept the fathers' interpretation ''(Which By The Way Is The [[Reverse]] Of Unanimous; But Even [[Suppose]] It Were So)'' of Scripture, because we accept the New Testament canon on their testimony, than to accept the Jews' interpretation of the Old Testament because we accept the Old Testament canon on their testimony; if we were, we should be as bound to reject Jesus, with the Jews, as to reject primitive Scripture [[Christianity]] with the apostate church. </p> <p> See the Church of [[England]] Articles 6, 8, 20, 22-34, on the due and the undue place of tradition in the church. What were once universal traditions ''(E.G. The [[Epistles]] For Centuries [[Ascribed]] To 11 Popes, From Anacletus, A.D. 101, To [[Victor]] I, A.D. 192, Now Universally Admitted To Be Spurious)'' are no longer so regarded. Whately likened tradition to the Russian game a number sit in a circle, the first reads a short story in the ear of his next neighbour, he repeats it orally to the next, and so on; the last writes it as it, reaches him; the amusement is, when read and compared with the original story it is found wholly metamorphosed, and hardly recognizable as the same story. </p>

<div> '''1: παράδοσις ''' (Strong'S #3862 — Noun [[Feminine]] — paradosis — par-ad'-os-is ) </div> <p> "a handing down or on" (akin to paradidomi, "to hand over, deliver"), denotes "a tradition," and hence, by metonymy, (a) "the teachings of the rabbis," interpretations of the Law, which was thereby made void in practice, &nbsp;Matthew 15:2,3,6; &nbsp;Mark 7:3,5,8,9,13; &nbsp;Galatians 1:14; &nbsp;Colossians 2:8; (b) of "apostolic teaching," &nbsp;1 Corinthians 11:2 , RV, "traditions" (AV, "ordinances"), of instructions concerning the gatherings of believers (instructions of wider scope than ordinances in the limited sense); in &nbsp;2 Thessalonians 2:15 , of Christian doctrine in general, where the Apostle's use of the word constitutes a denial that what he preached originated with himself, and a claim for its [[Divine]] authority (cp. paralambano, "to receive," &nbsp;1 Corinthians 11:23; &nbsp;15:3 ); in &nbsp;2 Thessalonians 3:6 , it is used of instructions concerning everyday conduct. </p>

<p> <strong> [[Tradition]] </strong> . See Law (in NT), § <strong> 1 </strong> . </p>

<p> (παράδοσις ), Jewish The Jews pretend that, besides their written law contained in the Pentateuch, God delivered to Moses an oral law, which was handed down from generation to generation. The various decisions of the Jewish doctors or priests on points which the law had either left doubtful or passed over in silence were the true sources of their traditions. They did not commit their numerous traditions (which appear to have been a long time in accumulating) to writing before their wars against the Romans under [[Hadrian]] and Severus. The Mishna, the Gemara, and perhaps the Masorah were collected by the rabbins of [[Tiberias]] and later schools. (See [[Rabbinism]]). </p> <p> Many of their false traditions were in direct opposition to the law of God; hence our Savior often reproached the Pharisees with preferring them to the law itself. He also gives several instances of their superstitious adherence to vain observances, while they neglected essential things (&nbsp;Matthew 15:2-3; &nbsp;Mark 7:3-13). The only way in which we can know satisfactorily that any tradition is of divine authority is by its having a place in those writings which are generally acknowledged to be the genuine productions of inspired men. All traditions which have not such authority are without value, and tend greatly to detract and mislead the minds of men (&nbsp;2 Thessalonians 2:15; &nbsp;2 Thessalonians 3:6). </p> <p> In this respect, however, a notable division existed among the Jews themselves, which has been transmitted to the modern representatives of the two great parties. The leading tenet of the Sadducees was the negation of the leading tenet of their opponents. As the Pharisees asserted, so the Sadducees denied, that the Israelites were in possession of an oral law transmitted to them by Moses. The manner in which the Pharisees may have gained acceptance for their own view is noticed elsewhere in this work, (See [[Pharisee]]); but, for an equitable estimate of the Sadducees, it is proper to bear in mind emphatically how destitute of historical evidence the doctrine was which they denied. That doctrine is, at the, present day, rejected, probably by almost all, if not by all, Christians; and it is, indeed, so foreign to their ideas that the greater number of Christians have never even heard of it, though it is older than Christianity, and has been the support and consolation of the Jews under a series of the most cruel and wicked persecutions to which any nation has ever been exposed during an equal number of centuries. It is likewise now maintained all over the world by those who are called the orthodox Jews. </p> <p> It is therefore desirable to know the kind of arguments by which, at the present day, in a historical and critical age, the doctrine is defended. For this an opportunity has lately been given by a learned French Jew, grand-rabbi of the circumscription of [[Colmar]] (Klein, Le Judaisme, ou la Veriti sur le Talmud [Mulhouse, 1859]), who still asserts as a fact the existence of a [[Mosaic]] oral law. To do full justice to his views, the original work should be perused. But it is doing no injustice to-his learning and ability to point out that not one of his arguments has a positive historical value. Thus he relies mainly on the inconceivability (as will be again noticed in this article) that a divine revelation should not have explicitly proclaimed the doctrine of a future state of rewards and punishments, or that it should have promulgated laws left in ‘ such an incomplete form and requiring so much explanation, and so many additions as the laws in the Pentateuch. Now arguments of this kind may be sound or unsound; based on reason or illogical; and for many they may have a philosophical or theological value; but they have no pretence to he regarded as historical, inasmuch as the assumed premises, which involve a knowledge of the attributes of the [[Supreme]] Being and the manner in which he would be likely to deal with man, are far beyond the limits of historical verification. </p> <p> The nearest approach to a historical argument is the following (p. 10): "In the first place, nothing proves better the fact of the existence of the tradition than the belief itself in the tradition. An entire nation does not suddenly forget its religious code, its principles, its laws, the daily ceremonies of its worship to such a point that it could easily be persuaded that a new doctrine presented by some impostors is the true and only explanation of its law and has always determined and ruled its application. Holy [[Writ]] often represents the Israelites as a stiff-necked people impatient of the religious yoke; and would it not be attributing to them rather an excess of docility, a too great condescension, a blind obedience, to suppose that they suddenly consented to troublesome and rigorous innovations which some persons might have wished to impose on them some fine morning? Such a supposition destroys itself, and we are obliged to acknowledge that the tradition is not a new invention, but that its birth goes back to the origin of the religion; and that, transmitted from father to son as the word of God, it lived in the heart of the people, identified itself with the blood, and was always considered as an inviolable authority." But, if this passage is carefully examined, it will be seen that it does not supply a single fact worthy of being regarded as a proof of a Mosaic oral law. Independent testimony of persons contemporary with Moses that he had transmitted such a law to the Israelites would be historical evidence; the testimony of persons in the next generation as to the existence of such an oral law which their fathers told them came from Moses would have been secondary historical evidence: but the belief of the Israelites on the point twelve hundred years after Moses cannot, in the absence of any intermediate testimony, be deemed evidence of a historical fact. </p> <p> Moreover, it is a mistake to assume that they who deny a Mosaic oral law; imagine that this oral law was at some one time as one great system introduced suddenly among the Israelites. The real mode of conceiving what occurred is far different. After the return from, the Captivity, there existed probably among the Jews a large body of customs and decisions not contained in the Pentateuch; and these had practical authority over the people long before they were attributed to Moses. The only phenomenon of importance requiring explanation is, not the existence of the customs sanctioned by the oral law, but the belief accepted by a certain portion of the Jews that Moses had divinely revealed those customs as laws to the Israelites. To explain this historically from written records is impossible, from the silence on the subject of the very scanty historical Jewish writings purporting to be written between the return from the [[Captivity]] in B.C. 536 and that uncertain period when the canon was finally closed, which probably could not have been very long before the death of [[Antiochus]] Epiphanies, B.C. 164. For all this space of time, a period of about three hundred and seventy-two years, a period as long as from the accession of Henry VIII to the present day, we have no Hebrew account, nor, in fact, any contemporary account, of the history of the Jews in Palestine, except what may be contained in the short works entitled Ezra and Nehemiah. The last named of these works does not carry the history much later than one hundred years after the return from the Captivity; so that there is a long and extremely important period of more than two centuries and a half before the heroic rising of the [[Maccabees]] during which there is a total absence of contemporary Jewish history. In this dearth of historical materials, it is idle to attempt a positive narration of the circumstances under which the oral law became assigned to Moses as its author. It is amply sufficient if a satisfactory suggestion is made as to how it might have been attributed to Moses; and in this there is not much difficulty for any one who bears in mind how notoriously in ancient times laws of a much later date were attributed to Minos, Lycurgus, Solon, and Numa. </p> <p> Under this head we may add that it must not be assumed that the Sadducees, because they rejected a Mosaic oral law, rejected likewise all traditions and all decisions in explanation of passages in the Pentateuch. Although they protested against the assertion that such points had been divinely settled by Moses, they probably, in numerous instances, followed practically the same traditions as the Pharisees. (See [[Sadducee]]). </p>