Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

TRADITION

Teaching regarding belief, practice, and parenesis which has been passed on orally or later in written form, often parallel to canonical or other authoritative texts. The term originally referred to the handing over or transmitting of such teaching. It was also used as handing over in the sense of betrayal. In the NT the term “tradition” (Gk. parádosis) itself refers to rabbinic usage, Christian traditions, and classical tradition.

In the Gospels references to the “traditions of the elders,” to dietary and purification laws, occur in accounts of conflicts between Jesus and religious leaders as to the intent of the law (Mark 7:1-13; Matt. 15:1-9). Such traditions are portrayed in contrast to the message of Jesus, as being of merely human origin. This is starkly demonstrated in the “you heard it was said, but I say to you” formula used by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5–7).

In the letters of Paul by contrast, “tradition” is viewed positively as that which Paul had received, passed on and taught concerning the resurrection of Jesus (1 Cor. 15:3-4), liturgical practice at the eucharist (11:23-24), and ethical precepts (vv. 2-16; cf. 2 Thess. 3:6). Paul claimed the authority both to pass on dominical and apostolic instructions which he had received, as well as to exercise his apostolic authority in specific situations (1 Cor. 11:23; 15:1-4).

Modern scholarship employs the term “tradition” in a differing sense, as the recognition that elements of the biblical text existed prior to the final canonical form. These elements, in oral or even written form, formed part of a process which resulted in the text as it exists today. Such traditions have been most fully studied in the OT. In NT studies form and redaction criticism have examined the reworking of traditions in the Gospels, while in the Pauline (and deutero-Pauline) letters the isolation of earlier traditional materials becomes critical for understanding the significance of the community and for comprehending Paul’s interpretative method.

Though debate surrounds the definition and extent of such traditions, the following kerygmatic, parenetic, catechetical, liturgical, and persecution traditions have been discerned. Based on the early work of C. H. Dodd on the typical composition of the apostolic preaching in Acts (the kerygma), such traditional material is recognized in the Pauline corpus (1 Cor. 15:3) and in the Markan summary of Jesus’ message. Hortatory traditions are those comprising moral regulations for believers (Rom. 6:17; 1 Cor. 11:2; Col. 2:6; 2 Thess. 3:6), while catechetical traditions focus on the death of Jesus and brief confessional declarations (Rom. 10:9; 1 Cor. 15:3; 1 Tim. 2:5-6; 1 Pet. 3:18). Liturgical traditions include material whose context or content reflect baptismal or eucharistic practices as well as fragments of early hymns (Phil. 2:6-11; Col. 1:15-20; 2 Tim. 2:11-13). Finally, some scholars isolate material which reflects situations of conflict, persecution, and confession, modeled ultimately upon the example of Jesus, the persecuted prophet.

Bibliography. M. Dibelius, From Tradition to Gospel (New York, 1965); R. P. C. Hanson, Tradition in the Early Church (Philadelphia, 1963); A. M. Hunter, Paul and His Predecessors, rev. ed. (Philadelphia, 1961).

Iain S. Maclean

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

TRADITION

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)