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Addendum to "Oral Word of God?"
In the meanwhile of my drafting the previous response to Bellisario, Messrs. Swan and Hays have already forced Bellisario to admit that there is no new revelation. Accordingly, he has attempted to rely on a yet more flimsy branch. That flimsy branch is essentially that there are oral teachings of Jesus that were not placed…
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Oral Word of God? Response to Bellisario
Matthew Bellisario (Roman Catholic) has been trying to argue with my friend Steve Hays (Reformed) over in the comment box of Beggars All Reformation (link to comment box). Bellisario’s argument, which seems to be a common “street” argument these days, boils down to this: 1) The Word of God was proclaimed orally at some past…
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Oral Tradition, The Early Church, and Paul Pavao's Astonishment
I had written (in this previous post): That’s rather the point about the early church fathers – they did not transmit an oral apostolic tradition to us, rather they were our predecessors in trying to search out the meaning of Scripture. Where they do a good job they are to be commended, and where they…
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Irenaeus and the Reliability of "Early" Oral Tradition
People sometimes like to think that if you go back to the earliest fathers you’ll get very good accounts of extra-scriptural tradition. There is a certain amount of intuition to back this up. After all, the earliest fathers were closer in time to the gospel accounts than we are. Intuition is wrong – at least…