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The idea that all revealed truth is to be found in "66 books" is not only
not in Scripture, it is contradicted by Scripture (1 Corinthians 11:2, 2
Thessalonians 2:15, 2 Thessalonians 3:6, 1 Timothy 3:15, 2 Peter 1:20-21,
2 Peter 3:16). It is a concept unheard of in the Old Testament, where the
authority of those who sat on the Chair of Moses (Matthew 23:2-3) existed.
In addition to this, for 400 years, there was no defined canon of
"Sacred Scripture" aside from the Old Testament; there was no "New
Testament"; there was only Tradition and non-canonical books and letters.
Once Scripture was defined from the many competing books, Bibles were hand-copied
and decorated by monks, were rare and precious, so precious they had to be
chained down in the churches so that they would not be stolen. Do you think
that the lack of printing presses affected the salvation of those who could
not peruse Scripture as we have the luxury of doing?
"If 2 Timothy 3:16-17
is teaching Sola Scriptura today, then it had to be teaching Sola Scriptura
in the first century, since there cannot be two diametrically opposed
interpretations of the same verse. But if 2 Timothy 3:16-17 was teaching
Sola Scriptura in the first century, then that would mean that St. Paul is
contradicting himself, since in the first century he was also promoting inspired
oral tradition as another source of divine revelation to the Bible."
Robert Sungenis |
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And given the level
of bickering back and forth about what Scripture means, do you believe that
God expects each of us to be a scholar of Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Chaldean
to understand His word and the message of salvation? No! This is why He,
in His wisdom, started a Church with teaching authority through Peter, the
earthly father of the New Covenant and whose successors sit on the Chair
of Peter, just as Abraham was the earthly father of the Old Covenant and
his successors sat on the Chair of Moses.
Though we are not to "Judaize" because as Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, warned
in the 1st century, " Christianity did not embrace Judaism, but Judaism
Christianity," Christianity can only be fully grasped by understanding it
for what it is: the Old Covenant growing into the New Covenant, the fulfillment
of the Old Testament religion, the organic result of the coming of the expected
Messiah Who was Himself from the Tribe of Judah. Tradition and earthly authority
have always been an extremely important part of this:
Malachi 2-7
For the priest's lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law
at his mouth: for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts.
1
From a Jewish website:
An oral explanation
had to accompany the Written Torah. Otherwise, much of it would be
incomprehensible. For example:
Exodus 16:29
"See that the L--rd has given you the Sabbath;…let no man go out of
his place on the seventh day." What is the meaning of the term
“place”? The Oral Tradition stipulates that a Jew is forbidden
to walk more than 0.7 miles beyond his city's perimeter.
Exodus 31:15
"Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn
rest, holy to the L--rd; whoever does work on the Sabbath day shall be put
to death." What constitutes work? The Oral Tradition explains that those
activities involved in building the portable Tabernacle in the wilderness
are prohibited on the Sabbath.
Deuteronomy 6:8
"And you shall bind them for a sign upon your hand, and they shall be for
frontlets between your eyes." Without the Oral Tradition, one would never
know that this verse is speaking of the tefillin worn by Jewish men during
morning prayer. These black, leather boxes contain verses from the Hebrew
Bible and are strapped to one's arm and forehead.
Deuteronomy 6:9
"And you shall write them upon the doorposts of your house, and upon your
gates." This refers to mezuzoth, parchments inscribed with Biblical verses,
which are placed in small containers and affixed to the doorposts of Jewish
homes.
Numbers 29:1
"In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall have a holy
convocation: you shall do no servile work—it shall be a day of blowing
for you." This description of Rosh Hashanah does not specify what exactly
is to be blown on the Jewish New Year, but the Oral Tradition does: a shofar
(ram's horn).
Numbers 29:7
"On the tenth day of this seventh month you shall have a holy convocation
and afflict yourselves; you shall do no work...." Only the Oral Tradition
teaches us that “afflicting yourselves” on Yom Kippur means abstaining
from all food and drink.
Deuteronomy 12:21
"If the place where the L--rd, your G--d, shall choose to put His Name be
too far from you, then you shall slaughter of your herd and of your flock,
which the L--rd has given you, as I have commanded you.... "The method of
ritual slaughter is not found anywhere in the Written Torah, but it is part
of the Oral Tradition.
If no oral explanation had been taught to the nation from the outset, the
uniform observance of the Torah's commandments would have been impossible!
Acts
8:30-31
And Philip ran thither to him, and heard him read the prophet Esaias, and
said, Understandest thou what thou readest? And he said, How can I, except
some man should guide me? And he desired Philip that he would come up and
sit with him. |
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Now, the Old Covenant
is fulfilled, and the authority of the Old Covenant priesthood has passed
on to the New Covenant priesthood. The Pharisees after the Babylonian Captivity
corrupted the Oral Tradition (and "sages" and rabbis later usurped the role
of the priests); our Lord spoke against those "traditions of men" -- but
He did not speak against the authority itself of thse who sat on Moses' seat;
quite the opposite:
Matthew 23:2-3
[Jesus speaking] The scribes and Pharisees sit on Moses' seat; so practice
and observe whatever they tell you, but not what they do; for they preach,
but do not practice.
In the same way,
post-Vatican II hierarchs have authority but are now behaving abominably
and corrupting the Sacred Tradition of the Catholic Church -- those traditions
we are commanded to keep:
2 Thessalonians
2:15
Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye
have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle.
2 Thessalonians 3:6
Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that
ye withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly, and not
after the tradition which he received of us.
Our Lord founded
a Church (Matthew 16:18-19), not a book, which was to be the pillar and ground
of Truth (1 Timothy 3:15). We can know what this Church teaches by looking
not only at Sacred Scripture, but into History and by reading what the earliest
Christians have written, what those who've sat on the Chair of Peter have
spoken consistently with Scripture and Tradition, and what they've solemnly
defined. To believe that the Bible is our only source of Christian
Truth is unbiblical and illogical. As Cardinal Gibbons in "Faith of our Fathers"
wrote:
Let us see sir,
whether an infallible Bible is sufficient for you. Either you are infallibly
certain that your interpretation of the Bible is correct or you are not.
If you are infallibly certain then you assert for yourself and of course
for every reader of the Scripture, a personal infallibility which you deny
to the Pope [those who sit on the Chair of Peter] and which we claim only
for him. You make every man his own pope.
If God, as you assert, has left no infallible interpreter of His word, do
you not virtually accuse Him of acting unreasonably? or would it not be most
unreasonable for Him to have revealed His truth to man without leaving Him
a means of ascertaining its precise import? Do you not reduce God's Word
to a bundle of contradictions, like the leaves of the Sybil, which gave forth
answers suited to the wishes of every inquirer?
Of the hundred and more Christian sects [we have thousands of denominations
today] now existing in this country, does not each take the Bible as its
standard of authority and does not each member draw from it a meaning different
from that of his neighbor? Now, in the mind of God the Scriptures can have
but one meaning. Is not this variety of interpretations the bitter fruit
of your principle, an infallible Bible is enough for me, and does it not
proclaim the absolute necessity of some authorized and unerring
interpreter?
Some Protestants
like to use 2 Timothy 3:16-17 as a "proof-text" that Sola Scriptura is a
Biblical principle:
All scripture is
given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof,
for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may
be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.
2 Peter
3:16
As also in all his [Paul's] epistles, speaking in them of these things; in
which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned
and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own
destruction. |
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No Catholic, of
course, disagrees with these verses, or with any verses of Sacred Scripture.
Of course Scripture is profitable! We Catholics see it as one of the three
pillars of the very Church (the other two being Sacred Tradition and the
Magisterim -- the teaching authority of the Church). But Protestants are
obviously reading into this text what they want to see. Imagine you are a
soldier. Now read this:
"All Army teaching
guides are given by inspiration of the experts, and are profitable for doctrine,
for reproof, for correction, for instruction in the life of a soldier: That
the soldier may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all a soldier needs
to do."
Would you take
it to mean that the soldier, then, no longer needs a Drill Sergeant for training
him, weaponry, ammunition, armor, communications equipment, etc.? Saying
that X is profitable or necessary and that X helps one become thoroughly
furnished for something doesn't say at all that Y is also not profitable
or necessary and that Y helps one become thoroughly furnished for something.
And how can Protestants square their reading of 2 Timothy 3:16-17 with Ephesians
4:11-12, which reads:
And he gave some,
apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and
teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry,
for the edifying of the body of Christ:
2 Peter 1:20
Knowing this first,no prophecy of the scripture is of any private
interpretation.
Timothy 3:15
But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself
in the house of God, which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and
ground of Truth. |
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According to these
verses, what is needed for the perfecting of the saints are the apostles,
prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers! How could this possibly be
if all we need is the "Bible alone"?
Another point is that the "Scripture" St. Paul was referring to is the Old
Testament, the only formally recognized Scripture in existence. Should we
discard the New Testament because the Old Testament contains the New within
it?
And here is a little something to think on for those who believe in sola
scriptura: Ignatius, appointed as Bishop of Antioch by Peter, came up against
some Jews who resorted to the same mind-set in order to disprove Christ's
Messiahship. In his first century letter to the Philadelphians he wrote:
"When I heard some saying, If I do not find it in the ancient Scriptures,
I will not believe the Gospel; on my saying to them, It is written, they
answered me, That remains to be proved."
Footnote
1 Note: there is a huge difference between the
teaching authority of the Church that is guided by the Holy Spirit, and the
"traditions of men" -- the Mishnah -- as practiced by the Pharisees
(not Old Testament Israelites) and which are preserved for us in the Babylonian
Talmud (the Bavli) and in Kabbalistic practices (the very word "Kabbalah"
comes from the Hebrew Qof-Bet-Lamed, meaning literally "to receive
or accept," but translated as "tradition.") It was these pre-Talmudic rabbinical
laws and Babylonian magical practices -- and the very idea that we can work
our way into Heaven -- that Jesus fought against, and it was those who honored
them that He accused of hypocrisy. The Pharisaic rabbis went beyond Torah
and priestly authority, making up laws out of Babylonian, Zoroastrian,
and other pagan, magical practices -- even contradictory ones.
In A.D. 77, the Jewish historian Josephus wrote in Antiquities (13:10),
“What I would now explain is this: the Pharisees have delivered to the
people a great many rituals by succession from their fathers which are not
written in the laws of Moses; and for that reason the Sadducees reject them,
and say that we are to accept those rituals to be obligatory which are in
the written word, but are not to observe what are derived from the [Babylonian]
tradition [Mishnah] of our forefathers.” The Talmud that preserves these
Babylonian "traditions of men" can only be known by reading the original
Hebrew or by reading the works of an honest, non-racist, Godly person who
does, because neo-Nazi types use such writings to imply some sort of bogus
"racial contagion" inherent in those of Jewish ancestry and because English
editions are often edited so as to not cause scandal and to keep the Truth
hidden. Parts that were removed from the Talmud (sections which assert, for
ex., that Jesus was a demonic sorcerer Who is boiling in excrement in Hell,
that Mary was a whore, that Gentiles are animals, that it is OK to steal
from Gentiles and to not pay them for their labor, etc.) were published
separately in Hesronot Ha-shas, which was circulated secretly among
rabbis.
Bottom line: the differences between Old Testament religion, rooted in Torah
and priestly authority, and Pharisaic Judaism -- the brand of Judaism
that survives today and which is rooted in the Babylonian Talmud and
rabbinical authority -- are so great as to make them worlds apart,
often diametrically opposed. The authority of the Jewish priesthood transferred
to the priesthood of the New Covenant, not to rabbis; there have been no
sacrifices, no Temple, etc., in Judaism since A.D. 70 -- and after Christ's
once and for all sacrifice at Calvary, there is only ONE Scriptural sacrifice
to be made anyway (the Eucharist). See Malachi 1:10-11, John 6, etc.
Relevant Scripture
Malachi
2-7
For the priest's lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law
at his mouth: for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts.
Matthew 2:23
And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled
which was SPOKEN by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene. [Here, Matthew
is quoting an oral Tradition that the Messiah will be called a Nazarene.
This is NOT in the OT; it was only TRADITION]
Matthew 23:2-3
[Jesus speaking] "The scribes and Pharisees sit on Moses' seat; so practice
and observe whatever they tell you, but not what they do; for they preach,
but do not practice" [i.e., His problem with the Pharisees was not because
of law, authority or tradition; His issue with them was with their hypocrisy,
their putting the Law before Love, and the pre-Talmudic practices!]
John 5:39-40
Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they
are they which testify of me. And ye will not come to me, that ye might have
life. [NIV: You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by
them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about
me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.]
Acts 8:30-31
And Philip ran thither to him, and heard him read the prophet Esaias, and
said, Understandest thou what thou readest? And he said, How can I, except
some man should guide me? And he desired Philip that he would come up and
sit with him.
1 Corinthians 11:2
Now I praise you, brethren, that ye remember me in all things, and keep the
ordinances, AS I DELIVERED THEM TO YOU.
1 Corinthians 4:14–15
I do not write this to make you ashamed, but to admonish you as my beloved
children. For though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have
many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel
2 Thessalonians 2:15
Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the TRADITIONS which ye have been
taught, whether by WORD, or our epistle.
2 Thessalonians 3:6
Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that
ye withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly, and not
after the TRADITION which he received of us.
1 Timothy 3:15
But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself
in the house of God, which is the CHURCH of the living God, the PILLAR AND
GROUND OF TRUTH.
2 Timothy 2:2
And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same
commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.
2 Timothy 3:16-17
All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine,
for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man
of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works. [At the
time this verse was written, the only "scripture" around was the Old Testament.
Was Paul telling Timothy he needed nothing but the Old Testament? And in
what way does "profitable" mean "sufficient"?]
Hebrews 5:12
For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach
you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become
such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat.
2 Peter 1:20-21
Knowing this first, that NO PROPHECY OF THE SCRIPTURE IS OF ANY PRIVATE
INTERPRETATION. 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.
2 Peter 3:16
As also in all his [Paul's] epistles, speaking in them of these things; in
which are some things hard to be understood, WHICH THEY THAT ARE UNLEARNED
AND UNSTABLE WREST, as they do also the other scriptures, UNTO THEIR OWN
DESTRUCTION.
2 John 1:12
Having many things to write unto you, I would not write with paper and ink:
but I trust to come unto you, and speak face to face, that our joy may be
full.
3 John 1:13-14
I had many things to write, but I will not with ink and pen write unto thee:
But I trust I shall shortly see thee, and we shall speak face to face. Peace
be to thee. Our friends salute thee. Greet the friends by name.
Further Reading
 Tradition, Bible or
Both?
What's Your Authority
for
That?
Oral Tradition in the
New
Testament
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