Oral Tradition

• The Bible is oral tradition which has been written down
  • Some parts were added at different times by different authors or scribes
    • Examples include the story of Jesus and the adulterous woman (John 8), and the entire chapter of John 21.
    • This occurred because ancient Christians continued to pass along stories orally for many years after Jesus' death and resurrection and before the Bible existed. Not everything Christ said and did was put into the Gospels.
    • Paul gives in 1 Cor 15 an oral tradition of the appearances of Christ to Cephas, then to the twelve, then to five hundred others, etc. We know nothing about these appearances because they were not written down, but those to whom Paul was speaking knew the stories because they were shared through the oral tradition.
    • The text was not being "corrupted" by these additions, as some scholars suggest, rather the copyists wanted to preserve stories that they felt were important. Later, the Church accepted the additions as inspired Holy Scripture and placed them in the canon.

Oral tradition preceded the written word

• The Gospels were not written immediately after Christ's ascension, but years after the fact, and many of the stories and sayings of Christ were lost. As Orthodox we know this and it does not bother us.
  • It is not the scripture which is the depository of the apostolic tradtion and the guardian of the Christian faith. It is the Church, which has preserved, uncorrupted and inerrant, the fullness of the apostolic traditon.[ref]
  • The Bible is nothing more than the surviving written record of apostolic tradition.
  • Scripture and tradition are not two different things in the Orthodox Church. In Orthodoxy, the scripture is tradition.
  • Regardless of whether there may be flaws in the Bible, in manuscript copies, or whether the Bible doesn't meet our standards of science today, it makes no difference. It still reflects the truth about God, which the Church has preserved and continues to bear witness to.[ref]

Accuracy

• The ancients never had confidence in manuscripts because they could be corrupted. Instead they trusted oral tradition because they knew who their teachers were, and the teaching was so rigorous.
  • The idea that writing is more reliable is a very modern notion.
  • Consider The Iliad and The Odyssey. We talk about them being written by Homer, but Homer did not write them down. Homer was blind. He composed them, memorized them, then taught them to others. They were memorized by others and passed along orally for hundreds of years before they were written down. Do scholars concern themselves with the accuracy of these stories.
  • Oral tradition is not like the "telephone game", because stories were told over and over again. Like a favorite song, such stories were well loved, and people did not tire of hearing them and repeating them again and again.
  • It is plausible to assume that Jesus told stories the same way. In this way his disciples memorized his parables and other sayings.
  • Additionally, Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would help them remember everything. Note that the Holy Spirit was active in the recollection of the oral tradition. Ergo the oral tradition is also inspired by the Holy Spirit

Ways to verify accuracy

• Consistency. Even though the four gospels tell stories slightly differently, they are very consistent overall.

Quotes

"It is quite easy to see why a legend is treated, and ought to be treated, more respectfully than a book of history. The legend is generally made by the majority of people in the village, who are sane. The book is generally written by the one man in the village who is mad." - G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

"If we attach great importance to the opinion of ordinary men in great unanimity when we are dealing with daily matters, there is no reason why we should disregard it when we are dealing with history or fable." - G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

"Tradition may be defined as an extension of the franchise. Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about." - G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy