Tradition
VIEW:14 DATA:01-04-2020
TRADITION.See Law (in NT), § 1.
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
Edited by James Hastings, D.D. Published in 1909
Greek paradosis, instructions "delivered" (1Co_15:3) as inspired, whether orally or in writing, by the apostles (2Th_2:15; 2Th_3:6; 2Th_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 (1Co_11:2 margin; 2Th_2:15; 2Th_3:6) has tradition a good sense; in ten a bad sense, man's uninspired tradition (Mat_15:2-3; Mat_15:6; Mar_7:3; Mar_7:5; Mar_7:8-9; Mar_7:13; Gal_1:14; Col_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."
Tradition clogs heavenly perceptions. Paradosis is one of the only two nouns in 2,000 in the Greek Testament which numerically equals 666, the mark of the beast (Rev_13:18). Tradition is the grand corrupter of doctrine, as "wealth" (euporia; Act_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 (Gal_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 (Deu_13:1-6), accordance with the existing Old Testament revelation (Act_17:11).
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 (1Co_2:12-16; 1Jn_2:20; 1Jn_2:27; Joh_1:33; Joh_3:34; Joh_15:26; Joh_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" (2Ti_3:15-17). The apostles never appeal to human tradition, always to Scripture (Act_15:2; Act_15:15-17; Act_17:11; Act_24:14; 1Co_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.
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 2Th_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 (Rev_22:18). By adding human tradition Rome becomes parent of antichrist. How remarkable it is that from this very chapter (2Th_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.
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?" (Joh_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.
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.
Fausset's Bible Dictionary
By Andrew Robert Fausset, co-Author of Jamieson, Fausset and Brown's 1888.
See CABBALA.
Biblical and Theological Dictionary by Richard Watson
PRINTER 1849.
In any society traditions develop as beliefs and practices are handed on from one generation to the next. The Jews of Jesus day had many traditions. Some of these had been taught in the law of Moses (Luk_2:27; Luk_2:41-42), and others had grown up over the centuries (Luk_1:9). Many of the later traditions had been developed and taught by the scribes and Pharisees, and brought Jesus into conflict with the Jewish religious leaders (Mat_23:4-16; see SCRIBES; PHARISEES).
Jesus was not opposed to Jewish traditions. In fact, he kept some of them himself (Luk_4:16; Joh_10:22-23). But he was opposed to the teaching of traditions as binding on people. The Jewish leaders taught human traditions as if they were Gods commandments; worse still, they rejected the genuine commandments of God in order to keep their traditions (Mar_7:7-13; cf. Col_2:8).
The tradition that Christians are to keep is twofold. First, they must keep the teaching passed down from Jesus through the apostles and recorded in the New Testament (Act_2:42; 1Co_11:23; 1Co_15:3; 2Ti_1:13-14; Jud_1:3; see GOSPEL). Second, they must maintain the standard of behaviour demanded by that teaching (1Co_11:1-2; Php_4:9; 2Th_2:15; 2Th_3:6; see OBEDIENCE).
Bridgeway Bible Dictionary by Don Fleming
PRINTER 1990.
tra-dish?un: The Greek word is παράδοσις, parádosis, ?a giving over,? either by word of mouth or in writing; then that which is given over, i.e. tradition, the teaching that is handed down from one to another. The word does not occur in the Hebrew Old Testament (except in Jer 39 (32):4; 41 (34):2, used in another sense), or in the Septuagint or the Apocrypha (except in 2 Esdras 7:26, used in a different sense), but is found 13 times in the New Testament (Mat_15:2, Mat_15:3, Mat_15:6; Mar_7:3, Mar_7:5, Mar_7:8, Mar_7:9, Mar_7:13; 1Co_11:2; Gal_1:14; Col_2:8; 2Th_2:15; 2Th_3:6).
1. Meaning in Jewish Theology:
The term in the New Testament has apparently three meanings. It means, in Jewish theology, the oral teachings of the elders (distinguished ancestors from Moses on) which were reverenced by the late Jews equally with the written teachings of the Old Testament, and were regarded by them as equally authoritative on matters of belief and conduct. There seem to be three classes of these oral teachings: (a) some oral laws of Moses (as they supposed) given by the great lawgiver in addition to the written laws; (b) decisions of various judges which became precedents in judicial matters; (c) interpretations of great teachers (rabbis) which came to be prized with the same reverence as were the Old Testament Scriptures.
It was against the tradition of the elders in this first sense that Jesus spoke so pointedly to the scribes and Pharisees (Mat_15:2 f; Mar_7:3 f). The Pharisees charged Jesus with transgressing ?the tradition of the elders.? Jesus turned on them with the question, ?Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God because of your tradition?? He then shows how their hollow traditionalism has fruited into mere ceremonialism and externalism (washing of hands, vessels, saying ?Corban? to a suffering parent, i.e. ?My property is devoted to God, and therefore I cannot use it to help you,? etc.), but He taught that this view of uncleanness was essentially false, since the heart, the seat of the soul, is the source of thought, character and conduct (Mar_7:14 f).
2. As Used in 1 Corinthians and 2 Thessalonians:
The word is used by Paul when referring to his personal Christian teachings to the churches at Corinth and Thessalonica (1Co_11:2; 2Th_2:15; 2Th_3:6). In this sense the word in the singular is better translated ?instruction,? signifying the body of teaching delivered by the apostle to the church at Thessalonica (2Th_3:6). But Paul in the other two passages uses it in the plural, meaning the separate instructions which he delivered to the churches at Corinth and Thessalonica.
3. As Used in Colossians:
The word is used by Paul in Col_2:8 in a sense apparently different from the two senses above. He warns his readers against the teachings of the false teachers in Colosse, which are ?after the tradition of men.? Olshausen, Lightfoot, Dargan, in their commentaries in the place cited., maintain that the reference is to the Judaistic character of the false teachers. This may be true, and yet we must see that the word ?tradition? has a much broader meaning here than in 1 above. Besides, it is not certain that the false teachings at Colosse are essentially Jewish in character. The phrase ?tradition of men? seems to emphasize merely the human, not necessarily Jewish, origin of these false teachings.
The verb παραδίδωμι, paradı́dōmi, ?to give over,? is also used 5 times to express the impartation of Christian instruction: Luk_1:2, where eyewitnesses are said to have handed down the things concerning Jesus; 1Co_11:2, 1Co_11:23 and 1Co_15:3 referring to the apostle's personal teaching; 2Pe_2:21, to instruction by some Christian teacher (compare 1Pe_1:18).
Literature.
Broadus, Allen, Meyer, commentaries on Mat_15:2 f; Swete, Gould, commentaries on Mk (Mar_7:3 f); Lightfoot, Meyer, commentaries on Gal_1:14; Lightfoot, Olshausen, Dargan (American Commentary), commentaries on Col_2:8; Milligan, commentary on 1 and 2 Thess (2Th_2:15 and 2Th_3:6); Weber, Jewish Theology (Ger., Altsyn. Theol.); Pocock, Porta Mosis, 350-402; Schurer, HJP, II, i, section 25; Edersheim, Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, II, chapter xxxi; Josephus, Ant., XIII, x, 6.
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
PRINTER 1915.
(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.
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 (Mat_15:2-3; Mar_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 (2Th_2:15; 2Th_3:6).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
CYCLOPEDIA OF BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL
press 1895.
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
Edited by James Hastings, D.D. Published in 1909
Greek paradosis, instructions "delivered" (1Co_15:3) as inspired, whether orally or in writing, by the apostles (2Th_2:15; 2Th_3:6; 2Th_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 (1Co_11:2 margin; 2Th_2:15; 2Th_3:6) has tradition a good sense; in ten a bad sense, man's uninspired tradition (Mat_15:2-3; Mat_15:6; Mar_7:3; Mar_7:5; Mar_7:8-9; Mar_7:13; Gal_1:14; Col_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."
Tradition clogs heavenly perceptions. Paradosis is one of the only two nouns in 2,000 in the Greek Testament which numerically equals 666, the mark of the beast (Rev_13:18). Tradition is the grand corrupter of doctrine, as "wealth" (euporia; Act_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 (Gal_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 (Deu_13:1-6), accordance with the existing Old Testament revelation (Act_17:11).
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 (1Co_2:12-16; 1Jn_2:20; 1Jn_2:27; Joh_1:33; Joh_3:34; Joh_15:26; Joh_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" (2Ti_3:15-17). The apostles never appeal to human tradition, always to Scripture (Act_15:2; Act_15:15-17; Act_17:11; Act_24:14; 1Co_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.
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 2Th_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 (Rev_22:18). By adding human tradition Rome becomes parent of antichrist. How remarkable it is that from this very chapter (2Th_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.
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?" (Joh_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.
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.
Fausset's Bible Dictionary
By Andrew Robert Fausset, co-Author of Jamieson, Fausset and Brown's 1888.
See CABBALA.
Biblical and Theological Dictionary by Richard Watson
PRINTER 1849.
In any society traditions develop as beliefs and practices are handed on from one generation to the next. The Jews of Jesus day had many traditions. Some of these had been taught in the law of Moses (Luk_2:27; Luk_2:41-42), and others had grown up over the centuries (Luk_1:9). Many of the later traditions had been developed and taught by the scribes and Pharisees, and brought Jesus into conflict with the Jewish religious leaders (Mat_23:4-16; see SCRIBES; PHARISEES).
Jesus was not opposed to Jewish traditions. In fact, he kept some of them himself (Luk_4:16; Joh_10:22-23). But he was opposed to the teaching of traditions as binding on people. The Jewish leaders taught human traditions as if they were Gods commandments; worse still, they rejected the genuine commandments of God in order to keep their traditions (Mar_7:7-13; cf. Col_2:8).
The tradition that Christians are to keep is twofold. First, they must keep the teaching passed down from Jesus through the apostles and recorded in the New Testament (Act_2:42; 1Co_11:23; 1Co_15:3; 2Ti_1:13-14; Jud_1:3; see GOSPEL). Second, they must maintain the standard of behaviour demanded by that teaching (1Co_11:1-2; Php_4:9; 2Th_2:15; 2Th_3:6; see OBEDIENCE).
Bridgeway Bible Dictionary by Don Fleming
PRINTER 1990.
tra-dish?un: The Greek word is παράδοσις, parádosis, ?a giving over,? either by word of mouth or in writing; then that which is given over, i.e. tradition, the teaching that is handed down from one to another. The word does not occur in the Hebrew Old Testament (except in Jer 39 (32):4; 41 (34):2, used in another sense), or in the Septuagint or the Apocrypha (except in 2 Esdras 7:26, used in a different sense), but is found 13 times in the New Testament (Mat_15:2, Mat_15:3, Mat_15:6; Mar_7:3, Mar_7:5, Mar_7:8, Mar_7:9, Mar_7:13; 1Co_11:2; Gal_1:14; Col_2:8; 2Th_2:15; 2Th_3:6).
1. Meaning in Jewish Theology:
The term in the New Testament has apparently three meanings. It means, in Jewish theology, the oral teachings of the elders (distinguished ancestors from Moses on) which were reverenced by the late Jews equally with the written teachings of the Old Testament, and were regarded by them as equally authoritative on matters of belief and conduct. There seem to be three classes of these oral teachings: (a) some oral laws of Moses (as they supposed) given by the great lawgiver in addition to the written laws; (b) decisions of various judges which became precedents in judicial matters; (c) interpretations of great teachers (rabbis) which came to be prized with the same reverence as were the Old Testament Scriptures.
It was against the tradition of the elders in this first sense that Jesus spoke so pointedly to the scribes and Pharisees (Mat_15:2 f; Mar_7:3 f). The Pharisees charged Jesus with transgressing ?the tradition of the elders.? Jesus turned on them with the question, ?Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God because of your tradition?? He then shows how their hollow traditionalism has fruited into mere ceremonialism and externalism (washing of hands, vessels, saying ?Corban? to a suffering parent, i.e. ?My property is devoted to God, and therefore I cannot use it to help you,? etc.), but He taught that this view of uncleanness was essentially false, since the heart, the seat of the soul, is the source of thought, character and conduct (Mar_7:14 f).
2. As Used in 1 Corinthians and 2 Thessalonians:
The word is used by Paul when referring to his personal Christian teachings to the churches at Corinth and Thessalonica (1Co_11:2; 2Th_2:15; 2Th_3:6). In this sense the word in the singular is better translated ?instruction,? signifying the body of teaching delivered by the apostle to the church at Thessalonica (2Th_3:6). But Paul in the other two passages uses it in the plural, meaning the separate instructions which he delivered to the churches at Corinth and Thessalonica.
3. As Used in Colossians:
The word is used by Paul in Col_2:8 in a sense apparently different from the two senses above. He warns his readers against the teachings of the false teachers in Colosse, which are ?after the tradition of men.? Olshausen, Lightfoot, Dargan, in their commentaries in the place cited., maintain that the reference is to the Judaistic character of the false teachers. This may be true, and yet we must see that the word ?tradition? has a much broader meaning here than in 1 above. Besides, it is not certain that the false teachings at Colosse are essentially Jewish in character. The phrase ?tradition of men? seems to emphasize merely the human, not necessarily Jewish, origin of these false teachings.
The verb παραδίδωμι, paradı́dōmi, ?to give over,? is also used 5 times to express the impartation of Christian instruction: Luk_1:2, where eyewitnesses are said to have handed down the things concerning Jesus; 1Co_11:2, 1Co_11:23 and 1Co_15:3 referring to the apostle's personal teaching; 2Pe_2:21, to instruction by some Christian teacher (compare 1Pe_1:18).
Literature.
Broadus, Allen, Meyer, commentaries on Mat_15:2 f; Swete, Gould, commentaries on Mk (Mar_7:3 f); Lightfoot, Meyer, commentaries on Gal_1:14; Lightfoot, Olshausen, Dargan (American Commentary), commentaries on Col_2:8; Milligan, commentary on 1 and 2 Thess (2Th_2:15 and 2Th_3:6); Weber, Jewish Theology (Ger., Altsyn. Theol.); Pocock, Porta Mosis, 350-402; Schurer, HJP, II, i, section 25; Edersheim, Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, II, chapter xxxi; Josephus, Ant., XIII, x, 6.
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
PRINTER 1915.
(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.
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 (Mat_15:2-3; Mar_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 (2Th_2:15; 2Th_3:6).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
CYCLOPEDIA OF BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL
press 1895.
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