Sunday, February 03, 2008

All flesh is grass

ANONYMOUS SAID:

“It's amazing the contortions protestants go through to try and prove that verses like 2 Th 2:15 don't mean what they actually say.”

i) And what does this verse actually say:

“So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word of by our letter.”

This is a command…to whom? To me? Did he address 1 Thessalonians to me? No. Did he speak to me personally? No. Was I in the audience when he spoke? No.

Is Paul, in this verse, enjoining *me* (Steve Hays) to adhere to the written and oral traditions which *he* taught me by his spoken word or earlier letter? No. False on both counts.

Is Paul enjoining me to follow a 5C bishop of Thessalonica—or 8C bishop of Constantinople, or 18C bishop of Moscow—who claims to be handing down an oral Pauline tradition? No. Since the text never says that, it can’t very well mean what it never said.

So, if we’re serious about what this verse “actually says,” or “actually means,” then the command is not directed to me. It’s directed to mid-1C members of the church of Thessalonica. It is not referring to Christians in general. It isn’t referring to apostolic succession. It isn’t referring to subapostolic oral traditions allegedly of Pauline origin.

That’s what it says. That’s all it says. It can’t mean more than it says. No contortions. Couldn’t be more straightforward.

ii) Of course, there are commands in Scripture which do apply beyond their immediate audience. But there’s no automatic presumption that any or every divine command is binding on all Christians at all times and places. That, rather, depends on the nature of the command, the wording of the command, and/or the context in which it’s given.

So our Orthodox apparatchik has misstated the actual content of the verse in the very process of alleging that we don’t allow the verse to mean what it actually says.

“Even if the "scholarly" meanderings actually have merit, what does it say about the perspicuity of scripture that you've got to jump through this many hoops to prove your point?”

This is a straw man version of perspicuity. Here’s a classic statement of perspicuity:

“All things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all: yet those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed for salvation are so clearly propounded, and opened in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them” (WCF 1.7).

Notice the careful qualifications: “not alike plain in themselves”; “nor alike clear unto all”; “in the due use of the ordinary means”; “for salvation.”

Our Orthodox apparatchik is too ignorant of the theological position he’s rejected to know what he’s rejected.

“First we're told that if Paul taught extra-scriptural things, ‘Let them produce the documentation’."

Yes, that’s a necessary first step. If you claim the existence of oral apostolic tradition, you need to document your claim. How else could you establish the existence of oral apostolic tradition?

After all, we are not immediate disciples of the apostles. So we didn’t get it by word of mouth from *them*. Hence, the only possible way of establishing the claim would be through documentation.

“Then if we do produce the documentation we are told ‘if they so produce the date, then they must admit that the tradition is not unwritten but written, proving the sufficiency of written things for faith and practice in the Church.’__Classic case of ‘have you stopped beating your wife’. The questions are phrased so that however you answer, you are supposedly condemned.”

No, not a wife-beating question, but a classic dilemma. Any *literary* reference to oral tradition involves a written source. Apart from this *textual* witness to oral tradition, we have no other source of information. So we ultimately depend on the primacy of textuality over orality—even to attest the existence of oral tradition.

“But does Gene's rule of faith submit to the same questioning? To whom were the holy scriptrues passed to, and where is the proof that every book of holy scripture is authentic?”

Two problems for our Orthodox apparatchik:

i) Trying to turn tables on the Protestant, even if successful, would only create epistemic *parity* between the opposing positions. But our Orthodox apparatchik is contending for the *superiority* of the Orthodox rule of faith.

ii) Our opponent is asking a question which various Tbloggers have already answered on multiple occasion. It’s not as if we never made a case for the Protestant canon.

“We can point to what Fathers taught such and such a holy tradition, and Gene can point to who quoted such and such a book of the bible. Stalemate all around, EXCEPT for the fact that we acknowledge that Fathers as part of our authority, whereas Gene cannot.”

i) One of the problems with high-church opponents is that they constantly superimpose their own position on the other side. Because *their* case for the canon of Scripture is entirely dependent on external attestation, they impute that to us. But as I’ve said on many occasions, and documented in various ways, there are internal as well as external lines of evidence for the canon.

ii) The fact that the Orthodox “acknowledge” the authority of the church fathers is not an argument for why anyone should share their assessment.

iii) Likewise, high-churchmen constantly confuse *authority* with *testimony*. One doesn’t have to treat a historical witness as an authority to treat him as a source of information. Modern historians make use of Tacitus and Josephus as historical sources without treating them as authority-figures. But high-churchmen cannot think outside their box even to address the opposing position on its own grounds.

“Again, can Gene's rule of faith stand to this scrutiny? Where is the infallible list of rules by which to adjudicate what scripture is, and to decide what scripture means? There is none for a protestant, outside of their own opinion.”

Same problem as before. Even if this tit-for-tat were successful, establishing parity between his rule of faith and ours falls short of establishing the superiority of his own rule of faith.

“Now despite the supposed ‘lack of rules’, we hold that the rule of faith is determined by the understanding of the whole people of God.”

Notice that this is a description of the Orthodox position rather than a reason to believe it.

“Supposedly this rule isn't clear enough for Gene, but its worked for millennia with no problem.”

So his defense of the Orthodox rule of faith is purely pragmatic? Well, many things “work.” Islam “works.” It’s been in continuous existence since the 7C AD. Hinduism “works.” It antedates the NT church by centuries.

“While everything a person does has a private element, the overall attitude is decidedly not private.”

No, an attitude is decidedly private. An attitude is a state of mind. Psychological. Subjective. It can be publicly manifested, but the attitude itself is inherently private.

“And it also, by its very nature promotes the unity of the church because the hermeneutic and unity go hand in hand.”

i) That’s a circular appeal. Orthodoxy doesn’t promote unity. Instead, you simply have like-minded believers who constitute a subset of Christendom—just as members of the NRA believe in the Second Amendment, while members of NARAL believe in abortion on demand. This is a self-selected unity.

ii) Remember, too, that in the past, this unity was coercive. Dissent was illegal.

iii) Unity is morally neutral. All depends on what you’re united behind.

“Unlike sola scriptura which by its very nature is divisive.”

So, according to our Orthodox apparatchik, unity is good, but division is bad. Let’s take a few examples of each:

UNITY

Genesis 11:1-4

1 Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. 2 As men moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there.
3 They said to each other, "Come, let's make bricks and bake them thoroughly." They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. 4 Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth."

Acts 4:25-27

25You spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of your servant, our father David: " 'Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? 26The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the Lord and against his Anointed One.' 27Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed.

DIVISION

Matthew 10:34-36

34"Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35For I have come to turn " 'a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law— 36a man's enemies will be the members of his own household.'

Matthew 25:31-33

31"When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. 32All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

Luke 2:34

34Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother: "This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against,

John 3:19-21

19This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. 21But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God."

1 Peter 2:6-9

6For in Scripture it says: "See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame." 7Now to you who believe, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe, "The stone the builders rejected _ has become the capstone," 8and, "A stone that causes men to stumble _ and a rock that makes them fall." They stumble because they disobey the message—which is also what they were destined for.
9But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.

Moving along:

“Except that we don't have any writings with Paul's signature on them in his own hand. So apparently we shouldn't trust the scriptures since they might be phony.”

i) Our Orthodox apparatchik is quoting Gene out of context. Gene made that point to help establish the correct *interpretation* of 2 Thes 2:15—not to verify the letter for himself.

ii) BTW, does the Orthodox church have signed or notarized copies of the church fathers or the conciliar canons?

“Think about this for a second. What might a protestant substitute for this truth-check of Paul's hand-writing? Maybe some internal witness? So why didn't Paul mention this better method?”

Actually, Paul does mention the witness of the Spirit as a form of attestation (1 Thes 1:5; cf. 1 Cor 2:4-5). So this is an especially stupid objection for our Orthodox apparatchik to level.

But because he elevates the tradition of men over the word of God, he doesn’t even know his way around the text of Scripture.

“Maybe the scholarly internal evidence that a particular document was Pauline? Paul didn't mention that one either.”

Actually, Paul does mention the criterion of internal consistency (Gal 1:8-9).

Anyway, Gene already answered the question that our Orthodox apparatchik is posing: “He [Paul] had already told them, for example, that the day of the Lord would be preceded by a falling away, and the unveiling of the man of lawlessness. ‘Do you not remember that while I was still with you, I was telling you these things’" (2:5). There was no excuse for them to be troubled by a phony letter, for they had heard the actual truth from his own mouth already.”

In this case, that was the test. What he already taught them in person as well as what he had committed to writing in 1 Thessalonians.

Moving along:

“Instead, his advice was to hold to the deposit of faith he had given them, both written and oral. That was to be the test of truth.”

Which is sound advice–if I were a member of the Thessalonian church where I heard him preach in person.

“If a protestant wants to argue something else is now the test of truth, firstly they need to document this new test. Secondly they need to explain why Paul didn't recommend this test. Then the protestant should tell us when this test went into effect. 10 minutes after Paul left Thessalonica? Hardly, since Paul held them to it after he left.”

What’s ironic about this challenge is that anyone who is conversant with the history of the canon will realize that both the Eastern church and Western church did apply literary criticism to the question of canonicity. So if this is method is invalid, then it invalidates the very church to which our Orthodox apparatchik has sworn his fealty.

“For me, I fail to see the exegetical argument that just because the brothers were "called through our gospel", we can therefore assume that Paul's teachings to be held to must be limited to the gospel. Frankly that is a completely unwarranted and illogical conclusion to come to.”

The illogic lies in the illogical reaction of our Orthodox apparatchik. Gene simple made the observation that "In context 2 Thessalonians 2:15 is epexegetical to 2:14 and refers directly to the gospel itself."

Is that an incorrect observation? Is that a mistaken analysis of the syntactical relation between v14 & v15? Why does our Orthodox apparatchik get so worked up over an innocent point of Greek syntax linking v14 to v15 via the ara oun (“so then”) construction?

“We are told that 2 Thessalonians was written after Matthew (How can Gene rely on an extra-scriptural tradition as an essential argument for his hermeneutic in how to interpret scripture? How Orthodox of him!)”

This is just another think-headed equivocation over the use of historical evidence. Is there some overriding reason why high-churchmen are incorrigibly obtuse about drawing this elementary distinction?

“We are told that the church of the apostles is not the ‘normative’ state of the church. However, scripture knows nothing about a non-apostolic church.”

Our Orthodox apparatchik is equivocating again. “Non-apostolic” in what sense? The Apostles were mortal. They knew they were mortal. That’s one reason you have a very primitive form of church office in the NT. They would not be around. But their writings would outlive them. And it was the duty of pastors to preach from the Scriptures.

“All scripture can inform us about is the apostolic church. If we need to start forming extra-scriptural suppositions about what is to happen in a non-apostolic church, then sola scriptura has immediately failed.”

This is another ignorant claim. The NT contains NT prophecies.

“Paul says to hold to his teachings whether written or oral. In other words, he is putting his oral and written instruction on the same level. If his writings are the word of God, so must his oral teaching have been. Since the Word of God stands forever, the perpetuity is obvious.”

Another fatal equivocation since our opponent’s allusion to Isa 40:8 is a *literary* allusion to a text of Scripture.

“No cut off date or condition is given. Therefore, we should not assume one. If you joined the church in Thessalonica 10 minutes after Paul left, you ought not doubt what the church conveyed to you as Paul's teachings. Neither should you doubt a year later, or 5 years or 10 or 20 or 50 or 500. To pick one of those cut offs is completely arbitrary.”

I see. And if I can’t precisely distinguish between stage 1 cancer, stage 2 cancer, stage 3 cancer, and stage 4 cancer, then any distinction between stage 1 cancer and stage 4 cancer is “completely arbitrary.”

If I can’t pinpoint the precise moment of death, then any distinction between vitality and putrescence, triage and murder is “completely arbitrary.”

If I can’t distinguish the precise point at which one color shades into another, then any distinction between black and white is “completely arbitrary.”

The fact is that space and time are inherently continua, so there are always borderline cases between one transition and another.

28 comments:

  1. "Was I in the audience when he spoke? No."

    So I guess if you joined the Church ten minutes after Paul went on his way, you'd be under no obligation to believe anything.

    Uh huh, dream on.

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  2. An anonymous poster wrote:

    "So I guess if you joined the Church ten minutes after Paul went on his way, you'd be under no obligation to believe anything."

    Why don't you interact with what Steve has argued on this subject, in this thread and elsewhere, instead of presenting us with a false choice that he's never suggested? As Steve has explained repeatedly, different people have had different degrees of access to apostolic teaching. The fact that a person who "joined the Church ten minutes after Paul went on his way" had a lesser degree of access to Paul's teaching than a Thessalonian who was part of the church when Paul was there doesn't mean that the former is "under no obligation to believe anything". He wouldn't have had the same access to Pauline teaching that some other people had, but he would still have had a large degree of access to it. Steve has made this sort of distinction many times, such as by contrasting Clement of Rome with John of Damascus. Both men are considered church fathers and lived much earlier than we do, but Clement of Rome was significantly closer to apostolic teaching than John of Damascus. Steve hasn't suggested the sort of all-or-nothing choice that you're reading into his comments.

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  3. “ANONYMOUS SAID:

    “So I guess if you joined the Church ten minutes after Paul went on his way, you'd be under no obligation to believe anything.”

    To begin with, that’s not your original argument. Here is your initial objection:

    “It's amazing the contortions protestants go through to try and prove that verses like 2 Th 2:15 don't mean what they actually say.”

    Okay, so what does it say? Does Paul tell his audience to stand firm in the traditions which you were taught by a third party? By someone other than Paul? Does Paul tell his audience to stand firm in the traditions of St. John Chrysostom?

    No, he says stand firm in said traditions on condition that one either *heard* it from *him* or *read* it from *him*.

    So you have abandoned your original argument. You are disregarding the specific conditions stipulated in your prooftext. Paul’s command is a conditional command, contingent on one or both conditions, depending on which is operative.

    And since we can’t very well hear it from him today, we can only read it from him today. Since no one can hear after he died, his mortality is constitutes an implicit cutoff with respect to the condition of Pauline orality. That leaves the condition of Pauline textuality in tact. Sola Scriptura by default.

    Hence, Protestants are strictly faithful to the terms of 2 Thes 2:15.

    You then fall back on a common sense argument. But this was not your original argument.

    And the problem with your common sense argument is that there is, in fact, a common sensical difference between 10 minutes ago and 500 years ago. So as soon as we judge your common sense argument by common sense, it fails.

    When you can't stay true to your original argument, and when you can't stay true to your fallback argument, why should anyone else take you seriously?

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  4. The Orthodox may use the Fathers as their authority, but they pick and choose that which they like. It is clear to me, for example (as I will argue in my closing statement in my debate with Dyer), that even many of the Eastern Fathers held to the *jurisdictional* universal primacy of the Pope. But, of course, the Orthodox do not like this. What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

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  5. He wouldn't have had the same access to Pauline teaching that some other people had, but he would still have had a large degree of access to it.

    Firstly, HOW would they have access? Could it be by following the oral teachings just like 2 Th says? Nah, that's too obvious.

    Secondly, who said they wouldn't have had the same access to Pauline teaching? That assumes that people forgot what Paul said as soon as he left. Which is a pity, because it means Paul wasted most of his time.

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  6. Does Paul tell his audience to stand firm in the traditions which you were taught by a third party?

    If you join the Church ten minutes after Paul leaves, and the Church tells you what Paul taught, then those teachings ARE what Paul taught.

    If you disagree, then you are accepting absurdity - that hundreds of people could join the church and reject all its teachings because hey, they didn't hear it first hand. Is that Paul's intention that all the newcomers can go off believing whatever they like until maybe if they're lucky Paul pays a visit? Or is his intention that they hold to the traditions he taught the Church?

    The whole concept of paradosis, is that it is a thing passed on. By saying to hold to the paradosis it's already implied that you are to pass them on.

    No, he says stand firm in said traditions on condition that one either *heard* it from *him* or *read* it from *him*.

    No, it says to stand firm in the traditions that Paul passed on orally or in writing. It doesn't say you have to be the first hand recipient of the thing passed on. That defeats the whole purpose of having things passed on.

    there is, in fact, a common sensical difference between 10 minutes ago and 500 years ago

    Really. And where exactly is the common sense cut off? Not in sola scriptura, that's for sure, unless you want to quote me the verse that tells us the cutoff.

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  7. No, it says to stand firm in the traditions that Paul passed on orally or in writing

    No, Orthodox, and, Orthodox, we know that this is you, so you may as well stop trying to masquerade as "Anonymous"- we know this because you're repeating yourself the way you always repeat yourself - this is what it says:

    14It was for this He called you through our gospel, that you may gain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

    15So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught, whether by word of mouth or by letter from us.

    You are isolating the text. The "traditions" in mind refer to the gospel that Paul taught them. Specifically, he is talking about information related to the Second Coming of Christ.

    Where in the Orthodox Church can we find information about the Second Coming that differs from what is in 1 Thessalonians? If you want to say that "traditions" is something broader,then why aren't you a member of the Thessalonian Orthodox Church? What traditions are these? If you can document it, it's written. If written, then why isn't it Scripture? You have yet to answer these questions. Instead you change your arguments as you go and repeat them once answered, which is another indicator this is you.

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  8. If you join the Church ten minutes after Paul leaves, and the Church tells you what Paul taught, then those teachings ARE what Paul taught.


    That's true up to a point, but here 2000 odd years hence, how are you in a position to verify that what the Orthodox church says today is the same as what Paul taught in the church of Thessalonica in the mid first century?

    In reality, what you have isn't "what Paul taught." Rather, you have what the Church says Paul taught. So, it's the word of "the Church" and, for you, it's not just the Church @ Thessalonica, but the Eastern Orthodox Church, by way of the Patriarchate, the Greek Fathers, icons, creeds, etc. So, let's just be honest about where this actually cashes out.

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  9. Orthodox said:
    ---
    If you join the Church ten minutes after Paul leaves, and the Church tells you what Paul taught, then those teachings ARE what Paul taught.
    ---

    If you join a Whorehouse ten minutes after Paul witnessed to it, and the Whorehouse tells you what Paul taught, then those teachings ARE what Paul taught.

    Note that the "authority" of the presentor of Paul's teaching is not the presentor, but instead Paul's teachings in any scenario.

    You may now continue repeating yourself and ignoring all comments that torpedo your human-invented traditions, Orthodox.

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  10. “anonymous said...

    “If you join the Church ten minutes after Paul leaves, and the Church tells you what Paul taught, then those teachings ARE what Paul taught”

    i) You’re equivocating. It would Pauline teaching, but Paul is not the teacher. In 2 Thes 2:15, Paul is the teacher. And that immediate linkage is what verifies the teaching as Pauline.

    ii) Moreover, this is just your diversionary hypothetical. It’s irrelevant to the exegesis of the verse.

    “If you disagree, then you are accepting absurdity - that hundreds of people could join the church and reject all its teachings because hey, they didn't hear it first hand.”

    Once again, your diversionary hypothetical has nothing to do with the verse actually commands.

    “Is that Paul's intention that all the newcomers can go off believing whatever they like until maybe if they're lucky Paul pays a visit? Or is his intention that they hold to the traditions he taught the Church?”

    His stated intention is for them to confine their source of information to what *he* taught them by *his* spoken or written word.

    “The whole concept of paradosis, is that it is a thing passed on. By saying to hold to the paradosis it's already implied that you are to pass them on.”

    No, the context is more narrowly circumscribed. Paul is making himself the gatekeeper of authentic tradition. The phrase ‘by word of mouth or letter” refers back to v2 (cf. v5), where it stands in contrast to a counterfeit teaching. To forestall that eventually, Paul tells the Thessalonians to rely on his *direct* teaching alone. The immediate teaching of his own lips or his own notarized communications.

    “No, it says to stand firm in the traditions that Paul passed on orally or in writing. It doesn't say you have to be the first hand recipient of the thing passed on.”

    Once again, you impiously disregard the specific wording of the text as well as the surrounding context. Paul goes out of his way to eliminate a third party. The tradition must come straight from his hand or his lips to the Thessalonians, and not from a spokesman presuming to speak on Paul’s behalf or in his stead.

    From Paul to the Thessalonians, and not from one Thessalonian to another Thessalonian. And there’s a specific reason for this restriction (v2).

    “That defeats the whole purpose of having things passed on.”

    You’re operating with an aconcept of “tradition” to the exclusion of the specific wording 3:15 as well as specific circumstances which occasioned the wording of that verse.

    “Really. And where exactly is the common sense cut off?”

    “Common sense” doesn’t require an “exact” cut off. Common sense is more intuitive and practical than that.

    “Not in sola scriptura, that's for sure, unless you want to quote me the verse that tells us the cutoff.”

    The death of Paul. One of the conditions in 3:15 is direct transmission from the lips of Paul to a second party. His death would mark the cutoff that firsthand mode of transmission. So this condition would lapse, leaving the second, textual mode of transmission as the only remaining conduit.

    You continue to play fast and loose with your prooftext because it doesn’t prove what you want it to prove.

    And you have yet to tell us whether you interpret this verse by yourself or whether you rely on your church’s interpretation. If the former, then you can interpret the Bible for yourself, apart from the church.

    If the latter, then it’s fallacious to quote this verse to prove your church’s teaching authority when you take your church’s authoritative interpretation of your prooftext for granted.

    You cannot logically appeal to your church’s authoritative interpretation of this verse if you’re going to you appeal to this verse to prove your church’s authority to interpret this verse (among others).

    I can see why you keep ducking that question. You’ve ensnared yourself within an inextricable predicament.

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  11. My understanding of this verse is not that Paul is intending to convey reliable *methods* for assuring that correct doctrine has been received, but rather to convey the correct *source* of those doctrines.

    If correct methods are in view it seems strange that Paul would place a textual tradition alongside first hand oral accounts as though equally reliable, unless he meant *only* texts obtained directly from his hands or blessed by him personally (only such texts would have been as reliable as his first hand oral testimony).

    But this can’t be what he had in mind; it would leave everyone in the Post-Apostolic age without a basis for believing anything. His notion of a reliable textual tradition *must* be more open than what has been presumed he is requiring for the oral one (we can call it the "horses mouth" standard).

    If method is the concern of this verse, why would Paul proscribe such narrow requirements for the reliability of oral testimony while leaving the standards for textual reliability so loose by comparison, especially when many scenarios can be imagined where oral testimony would have been far more reliable then textual: some lone nut job claiming a text is Pauline, versus agreement among numerous witnesses to an oral teaching.

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  12. If correct methods are in view it seems strange that Paul would place a textual tradition alongside first hand oral accounts as though equally reliable, unless he meant *only* texts obtained directly from his hands or blessed by him personally (only such texts would have been as reliable as his first hand oral testimony).

    But this can’t be what he had in mind; it would leave everyone in the Post-Apostolic age without a basis for believing anything.


    Why not actually exegete the text itself before deciding what Paul "can't" mean?

    Paul is dealing with a specific audience with a specific concern. He's not concerned here about what might or might not be claimed by the Post-Apostolic church. He's responding to their immediate concerns during the time in which he was alive. So, yes, he does, in fact, have in mind texts that he himself had "blessed," namely the one he had written to them already, and, yes, he did have in mind oral traditions that he had blessed, namely what he had taught them personally.

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  13. So Paul had in mind *only* texts and oral teachings that he blessed *personally*? Only these were to be believed? Is that the correct way to interpret the verse?

    I’m based my inference on the lack of relevant detail that I can glean form various English translations. I don’t know ancient Greek; otherwise I would attempt to exegete the passage.

    If the proscription is as time and culture bound as you say, how can this text ever be used to either confirm or disconfirm what *we’re* supposed to do, which is what both sides seem to be trying to do in this debate.

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  14. You really don't need the Greek text to unfold some sort of hidden meaning we've not gone over.

    You're also coming @ the text from an aprioristic stance, eg. "Well, it can't mean this because if it did then..." and you stipulate a conclusion without argument.

    Again, why not just exegete the text before stipulating what Paul can or can't mean?

    The text is very straightforward. Paul is concerned about a specific situation. There people in Thessalonica contradicting his teaching on the Second Coming. He had taught this to them when present and in his last letter. He tells them in this letter to hold fast to his teachings with respect to the gospel. What gospel? Namely, that part of the gospel related to the second coming.

    There were those in Thessalonica who, it seems, were claiming his authority behind their claims. How were they doing this? The Thessalonians had evidently been misled by a forged letter, supposedly from the apostle Paul, telling them that the day of the Lord had already come (2 Thess. 2:2). The entire church had apparently been upset by this, and the apostle Paul was eager to encourage them.

    So, Paul tells them how to recognize this forgery: by comparing it with the letter he had signed with his own hand and, a second test, by comparing it with the teaching he had delivered to them in person.

    That's it. That’s what it says. That’s all it says. It can’t mean more than it says. It has nothing to do with subapostolic traditions that have allegedly been passed down in unwritten form in addition to or apart from Scripture, which is the claim of our opponents.

    It's Rome and Orthodoxy that try to take this text and apply it to all traditions, specifically traditions that are claimed to be apostolic but are passed down by methods other than writing. So, we've asked them to document that claim. The onus is on them to produced the documentation of these traditions. But this presents a dilemma, for if they can document it, it's written, and if written it should be canonized, thereby proving the sufficiency of written material.


    If the proscription is as time and culture bound as you say, how can this text ever be used to either confirm or disconfirm what *we’re* supposed to do, which is what both sides seem to be trying to do in this debate.


    1. The text is not written *to* us, it is written *for* us. What it tells us is that we are to follow the the teaching of the Apostles, namely Paul.

    2. We have that in written form.

    Steve has already answered your last paragraph's question:

    And since we can’t very well hear it from him today, we can only read it from him today. Since no one can hear after he died, his mortality is constitutes an implicit cutoff with respect to the condition of Pauline orality. That leaves the condition of Pauline textuality in tact. Sola Scriptura by default.

    Hence, Protestants are strictly faithful to the terms of 2 Thes 2:15.

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  15. The way I’m reading this, you are saying that because Paul allowed only his first hand oral testimony to be authoritative for the Thessalonians, then we also should only allow first hand Pauline testimony—which, by corollary, means no form of oral testimony available to us nowadays is authoritative (since Paul is long dead).

    You then, in effect, say that since oral and textual are the only kinds of testimony available and since the above premise rules out any and all oral authority, then that leaves only textual authority.

    Moreover, since the only kind of texts available nowadays are many layers removed from the originals, it must, by necessity, be the case that 2nd hand texts are nowadays authoritative, even thought they weren’t for the Thessalonians way back when.

    But isn’t there a perfect symmetry here? I could beg the question against 2nd hand texts and, by precisely the same logical structure, come to the opposite conclusion, starting with the premise ‘since the Thessalonians couldn’t accept second hand texts, we can’t either’ and ending with ‘only 2nd hand oral accounts are authoritative’. What in 2Thes. 2:15 can possibly break the apparent symmetry?

    Steve said:

    “Since no one can hear after he died, his mortality is constitutes an implicit cutoff with respect to the condition of Pauline orality.”

    If by 2Thes 2:15 this is true, then why by 2Thes 2:15 isn’t the following equally true: since no one can see Paul personally bless a text after he died, his mortality constitutes an implicit cutoff with respect to the condition of Pauline textuality?

    In my understanding, if this verse is conveying that the absence of a personal Pauline witness breaks the back of oral testimony, there is no reason to think it doesn’t do the same to textual testimony.

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  16. ANONYMOUS SAID:

    “The way I’m reading this, you are saying that because Paul allowed only his first hand oral testimony to be authoritative for the Thessalonians, then we also should only allow first hand Pauline testimony—which, by corollary, means no form of oral testimony available to us nowadays is authoritative (since Paul is long dead).”

    i) No, as I said before, I’m not taking Paul, in 2 Thes 2:15, to be laying down a general policy for all time. He is responding to a specific situation.

    2 Thes 2:15 is neutral on the general question of oral tradition or textuality. For that we need to look to other considerations.

    ii) We know for a fact that Paul was not opposed to secondhand texts in principle. In addressing his audience, in his writings and public debates (with the Jews), he constantly appeals to the OT. But the only editions of OT books to which his audience had access were secondhand copies.

    ii) There are some obvious asymmetries between oral and textual transmission. One of the primary reasons that people commit something to writing is that it fixes the wording.

    iii) By the same token, a written text exists for the sake of posterity. That, for example, is how the textuality of the Mosaic covenant functions. It furnishes a permanent public record by which to measure the obedience or disobedience of the covenant community.

    iv) We are also in a different epistemic situation than the Thessalonians. For one thing, we have a far larger Pauline database to function as a literary frame of reference. They had two letters, whereas we have 13, plus the Book of Acts.

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  17. “No, as I said before, I’m not taking Paul, in 2 Thes 2:15, to be laying down a general policy for all time. He is responding to a specific situation.”

    ”2 Thes 2:15 is neutral on the general question of oral tradition or textuality.”

    That was my impression too, but some of your other (perhaps somewhat tongue in cheek) comments led me to believe you were contradicting yourself. On the one hand there was the claim that the meaning of the text is very limited (suggesting that it is more descriptive than proscriptive), on the other it was used here to establish for us a textual tradition and chuck any oral one (which is proscriptive).

    “We know for a fact that Paul was not opposed to secondhand texts in principle. In addressing his audience, in his writings and public debates (with the Jews), he constantly appeals to the OT. But the only editions of OT books to which his audience had access were secondhand copies.”

    Good point

    ”There are some obvious asymmetries between oral and textual transmission. One of the primary reasons that people commit something to writing is that it fixes the wording.”

    Yes, that is a very practical consideration, but it, in and of itself, does not rule out oral transmission as a reliable means of transmission; God’s hand could be over both means equally. Therefore, only biblical evidence can really rule it out.

    ”By the same token, a written text exists for the sake of posterity. That, for example, is how the textuality of the Mosaic covenant functions. It furnishes a permanent public record by which to measure the obedience or disobedience of the covenant community.”

    Yes, but prior to the writing of much of the text, oral tradition had been equally important to posterity. The reliability of a textual transmission can never be more reliable than that of the oral tradition that preceded it. In that sense they stand shoulder to shoulder.

    What I’ve not seen established are clear biblical rules for establishing when oral transmission ceases to be valid (if ever). Both sides of the debate seem to really stretch the biblical evidence. That kind of stretching was what I perceived was going on in this thread.

    ”We are also in a different epistemic situation than the Thessalonians. For one thing, we have a far larger Pauline database to function as a literary frame of reference. They had two letters, whereas we have 13, plus the Book of Acts.”

    Yes, but for generations after Paul’s death, believers had to accept any Pauline text as genuine on the basis of oral attestations from prior generations of believers. That is a de facto, legitimate Post-Pauline oral tradition.

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  18. Anonymous said:

    "The reliability of a textual transmission can never be more reliable than that of the oral tradition that preceded it. In that sense they stand shoulder to shoulder."

    For now I'll comment on this particular claim:

    As it stands, your statement is less than logical. Why can the reliability of a textual transmission never be more reliable than that of the oral tradition that preceded it? What is the basis for this assertion?

    i) Is your unspoken assumption that textual transmission simply involves writing down what previously circulated orally? If so, why would you assume that?

    Orality and textuality coexisted side by side in the 1C. Some speeches were later committed to writing, but other things were originally written down. They were literary communications from the get-go. It wasn’t a transference of information from an oral mode to a written mode. Take the letters of Paul.

    ii) Even if we accepted your unspoken assumption, it doesn’t follow, as a general matter, that a written record is only as good as the oral source. Even if we bracket inspiration, a good historian may improve on an oral source by comparing that with other sources of information. Doing some basic fact-checking.

    iii) And when we bring inspiration back into the picture, a writer may correct various errors which crept into the oral source in the course of transmission.

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  19. anonymous said...

    “Yes, that is a very practical consideration, but it, in and of itself, does not rule out oral transmission as a reliable means of transmission.”

    i) There is, in the nature of the case, no uniform answer to whether oral transmission is reliable or unreliable. Rather, the answer is contingent on some specific variables which are not the same from one case to another.

    ii) For example, would Timothy be a reliable source of information about Pauline doctrine? Up to a point, yes.

    But of course, that conclusion is based on our knowledge of who Paul is, who Timothy is, and how they are related.

    iii) And even in that best-case scenario, Timothy’s personal recollections of what Paul told him would not be as reliable as a letter by Paul. Memory is more accurate for some things that others. We remember events better than words.

    We may remember the gist of what someone said. Most of us don’t enjoy verbatim recall of what someone says, and the more they say, the less we remember.

    Take Paul’s marathon sermon in Acts 20:7-8. Even if you’d been in attendance, would you retain a word-for-word recollection of what he said?

    iv) Finally, the relation between orality and textuality in the ancient world was often the reverse of what you suggest. Take the OT. Because it was written down, people could commit the text to memory and quote it from memory.

    Here, textuality precedes orality, and textuality supplies the yardstick for accurate oral transmission. One is orally reproducing a text, not vice versa.

    Consider the emphasis on the written word (“Write down,” “It is written”) in the Bible. The need to commit important things to writing. The need to reference a written source.

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  20. “As it stands, your statement is less than logical. Why can the reliability of a textual transmission never be more reliable than that of the oral tradition that preceded it? What is the basis for this assertion?”

    What I mean is that even if the textual transmission is 100% reliable, but the oral transmission that preceded it is only 90% reliable, then the reliability of the transmission *in total* would be no better than 90%. A chain is no stronger then its weakest link. If the biblical text is 100% reliable on matters of important doctrine, so must have been whatever oral tradition preceded it.

    ”Is your unspoken assumption that textual transmission simply involves writing down what previously circulated orally? If so, why would you assume that?”

    Not at all. It is my understanding that the Bible is comprised of either on-the-spot revelation or authoritative oral tradition or a combination of both.

    ”Orality and textuality coexisted side by side in the 1C. Some speeches were later committed to writing, but other things were originally written down. They were literary communications from the get-go. It wasn’t a transference of information from an oral mode to a written mode. Take the letters of Paul.”

    I never disagreed.

    ”Even if we accepted your unspoken assumption, it doesn’t follow, as a general matter, that a written record is only as good as the oral source. Even if we bracket inspiration, a good historian may improve on an oral source by comparing that with other sources of information. Doing some basic fact-checking."

    "And when we bring inspiration back into the picture, a writer may correct various errors which crept into the oral source in the course of transmission.”

    If you’re arguing that textual transmission is in general more reliable than oral as a practical matter, I’d mostly agree. Again, however, that point alone can do little to rule out oral authority after Paul. Just because we have better means (in general) for validating texts doesn’t mean oral accounts must, therefore, not be authoritative.

    If God decreed that there should be an oral tradition, then it is just as authoritative as the textual witness regardless of the fact that we often have an easier time validating the latter via scholarly means.

    We have an easier time validating the New Testament than the Old, yet the Old is considered no less authoritative.

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  21. anonymous said...

    “A chain is no stronger then its weakest link. If the biblical text is 100% reliable on matters of important doctrine, so must have been whatever oral tradition preceded it.”

    How does that follow? A writer like Luke or the Chronicler could make use of fallible oral (as well as written) sources, but under inspiration, correct any errors in the primary sources which he incorporated into his historical account.

    “Not at all. It is my understanding that the Bible is comprised of either on-the-spot revelation or authoritative oral tradition or a combination of both.”

    What do you identify as oral traditions incorporated in Scripture?

    And why do you limit the raw source materials to oral traditions rather than written traditions?

    “If God decreed that there should be an oral tradition, then it is just as authoritative as the textual witness regardless of the fact that we often have an easier time validating the latter via scholarly means.”

    Hypothetically speaking, yes, but what reason do you have for supposing that God, in fact, decreed that state of affairs?

    “We have an easier time validating the New Testament than the Old.”

    Why do you say that?

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  22. While it may be true that an oral tradition would be on par with the written one *to the eye-witnesses and direct hearers*, oral tradition tends to be either twisted, added to, or subtracted from over the course of generations and time. Thus, oral tradition is less and less reliable as time passes on.

    The written tradition, however, is constant throughout time.

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  23. ”How does that follow? A writer like Luke or the Chronicler could make use of fallible oral (as well as written) sources, but under inspiration, correct any errors in the primary sources which he incorporated into his historical account.”

    Implicit in my claim was that we are limiting our explanation of the reliability of a tradition to measurable secondary causes (zealous scribal accuracy, multiple witnesses, passage of time between event and record of that event etc.). Among the secondary causes would have been reliable oral transmission prior to inscripturation. With this limiting factor in mind I think my statement makes more sense.

    But, yes, hypothetically speaking, direct divine intervention could have corrected a once faulty oral tradition at the time of inscripturation, but it could just as easily have preserved an oral tradition without inscripturation or up to inscripturation. There is still a symetry here, whether we consider primary or limit ourselves to just secondary causes.

    “What do you identify as oral traditions incorporated in Scripture?”

    The beginning chapters of Genesis likely have a basis in oral traditions. Likewise, many of the geneologies. The book of Job may have once been oral. Same with Jonah. I suppose anytime authorship is unknown or historical accounts are related, oral elements are more likely.

    ”And why do you limit the raw source materials to oral traditions rather than written traditions?”

    I don’t. I guess I assume any written tradition has its basis in an oral one, but I’m open to that not necessarily being the case.

    ”Hypothetically speaking, yes, but what reason do you have for supposing that God, in fact, decreed that state of affairs? “

    I don’t have *solid* reasons one way or the other. For me the question of oral tradition is 'part-and-parcel' of the larger question of whether God decreed that there should be a ‘Mother Church’ this is the rightful repository of such traditions. If I could convince myself that there *is* such a Church, then my answer would be easy, as I would then mostly just defer to Church authority on the matter.

    ”Why do you say that?”

    Don’t we have substantially more data (manuscript evidence, archaeological, external attestations) for the New?

    For example, it is a lot easier to question whether Abraham, Job, Jonah, or David actually existed, than Jesus or Paul or any of the Disciples.

    If nothing else, we are much further removed in time from the Old

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  24. “While it may be true that an oral tradition would be on par with the written one *to the eye-witnesses and direct hearers*, oral tradition tends to be either twisted, added to, or subtracted from over the course of generations and time. Thus, oral tradition is less and less reliable as time passes on.

    The written tradition, however, is constant throughout time.”

    Yes, I think I’d agree that in general (though certainly not always) textual transmissions are more reliable than oral ones. The latter is more susceptible to the ‘human element’. Yet, since the kind of oral transmission that is in view here would be divinely guided, it would not be subjected to the corrosive effects of a purely human witness. That is why I said earlier in the thread that oral testimony is not inferior to textual when God’s hand is over it—though, admittedly, it would be harder to validate empirically.

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  25. ANONYMOUS SAID:

    "I don’t have *solid* reasons one way or the other. For me the question of oral tradition is 'part-and-parcel' of the larger question of whether God decreed that there should be a ‘Mother Church’ this is the rightful repository of such traditions. If I could convince myself that there *is* such a Church, then my answer would be easy, as I would then mostly just defer to Church authority on the matter."

    You're courting vicious circularity. Does Mother Church authorize oral tradition? Or does oral tradition authorize Mother Church?

    Wouldn't oral tradition have to be authorative apart from Mother Church if Mother Church is going to invoke oral tradition to warrant her ecclesiastical authority?

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  26. “You're courting vicious circularity. Does Mother Church authorize oral tradition? Or does oral tradition authorize Mother Church?”

    Only God authorizes either or both. Since we don’t have direct knowledge of such authorization we infer it form the available evidence via all sorts of means. For some, Sola-Scripture is the outcome, for others it’s some ‘Mother Church’.

    For *true* believers in Mother Church, acceptance of extra-scriptural teachings would follow necessarily. At that point, any imagined or real lack of empirical confirmation of the extra-biblical authority would be a very secondary concern.

    For me, personally, acceptance of the Church would come first. I think that is very much the norm.

    “Wouldn't oral tradition have to be authorative apart from Mother Church if Mother Church is going to invoke oral tradition to warrant her ecclesiastical authority?”

    My understanding is that no *single* reason is invoked to ground Mother Church’s authority. The same is true of Sola-Scripture. God provided no definitive blue-print for establishing infallible authority, so, again, it gets inferred.

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  27. ANONYMOUS SAID:

    “For *true* believers in Mother Church, acceptance of extra-scriptural teachings would follow necessarily. At that point, any imagined or real lack of empirical confirmation of the extra-biblical authority would be a very secondary concern.”

    But wouldn’t you need some sort of extrascriptural confirmation to validate the authoritarian claims of Mother Church in the first place?

    “My understanding is that no *single* reason is invoked to ground Mother Church’s authority.”

    Doesn’t this merely push the question back a step? Instead of trying to identify the true canon, you try to identify the true church. Instead of trying to interpret what the Bible says, you try to interpret what the Church says.

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  28. “But wouldn’t you need some sort of extrascriptural confirmation to validate the authoritarian claims of Mother Church in the first place?”

    Yes, in the same way that extrascriptural confirmation is needed to validate Sola-Scripture. The extarscriptural confirmation is an admixture of philosophical, empirical, textual, historical, logical, emotional, theological etc. considerations.

    “Doesn’t this merely push the question back a step? Instead of trying to identify the true canon, you try to identify the true church. “

    Yes, absolutely. Those who believe in Mother Church do so for reasons parallel to those reasons Protestants give for their beliefs. Both sides are convinced their reasons are good enough, whether the reasons are primarily intellectual or deeply personal (experiential).

    “Instead of trying to interpret what the Bible says, you try to interpret what the Church says.”

    Yes, but epistemically I would be at an advantage interpreting an authoritative living, breathing contemporary rather than an authoritative, two thousand year old text for which there is no single authorized method of interpretation. The former can provide clarification of difficult teachings and definitively resolve internal disputes as they come up. The latter cannot...at least not to nearly the same degree.

    Additionally, there are critical moral questions peculiar to our age that the Bible, at worst, does not address at all and, at best, does not address definitively.

    In principal, at least, Mother Church would provide a huge advantage over scripture alone.

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