A blessed day to you!

For this month's Faith-related post, I wish to address a certain common-held debate amongst Christians, one that revolves around Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition.

Before I delve into this rather controversial topic, I wish to give a disclaimer. I must admit with due humility that I borrowed some of the ideas presented (especially in the latter part of the post) from a certain Deacon's apologetics class that I was privileged to attend in the fall of 2018, and I have borrowed others from a lay theologian, whom I give credit later on. I am not a theologian, and am only an amateur apologist of my Faith. I am willing to engage in civil debate, and if I find myself later to be in error, I will post a correction as soon as possible. 

To begin rather bluntly, the Bible is not the all-comprehensive guide to theological truths. It's an overview or gateway, most certainly. The key events of our salvation are all there.

But is it...everything?

Let's put it this way. If we poor humans can devote entire books to just one person, detailing various portions of their lives with meticulous detail and still miss something, that God is going to relegate His Life and teachings to just....one big book?

I think not.

I'm going to approach this not from a theological apologist's point of view. I'm certainly not qualified for that, as I pointed out before.

But I am going to approach it from a historian's point of view.

As a historian, I was not taught to take sources at face value, simply because I don't know if there are errors, or holes that would put the authenticity into doubt. The solution was to look to corroborate with other sources to match up details.

For example, when I'm looking at records for genealogy, I'm looking for certain things that repeat. Birth dates are the most common of these - if the dates match, that's a good chance that it's the same person. I'll also look for a similar group of people - siblings on a census for instance.

If I used just one set of records, like the Federal Census for example, it would give me a lot of relevant information. Names, relations, location.

But I wouldn't know when they were born exactly, when they died exactly, and other little details that give context to their lives. Because the Census is just a snapshot in time. I need other records (birth, church, military, occupation, residence) to completely round out the person's life and study them in more detail. 

Now let's take Our Lord. The Bible reveals with great detail the key elements of Our Lord's life. But we are still missing intimate details. Such as, Our Lord's own birthday for instance.

The Bible doesn't reveal exactly when Our Lord was born. But, it does reveal it indirectly.....by another person's birth: St. John the Baptist.

The Bible reveals that Zachary, St. John's father, was a high priest and it details that he was serving in the temple at a certain point in time, in which the Angel Gabriel came to him. Thanks to the meticulous records left behind by Jewish recorders, we actually know the months in which he served in the temple in the Jewish calendar. It's then a simple thing of using logic to figure in ancient travel times to figure out when St. John was conceived, and then it's a simple 9 month addition to figure out when St. John was born. Since Our Lord was conceived when John was six months in the womb, it would stand to reason that Our Lord would be born 6 months later. From there, it's a simple conversion from the Jewish calendar to the Gregorian, and voila!

And to make it even better, we can even access historic climate information to give an idea of what the weather was even like! (Fun fact: did you know Palestine is on the same latitude as Texas? Which means that they get similar weather to Texas, which means that winter is not that cold there??)

(Now before I go any further, I need to cite that the information about Our Lord's birthday was paraphased from a video on this very subject by Dr. Taylor Marshall, a lay theologian. I'll link the video HERE.)

The Church, like a curious child, is never satisfied with an unanswered question. She will hunt for the truth, no matter what it takes. The Church is never random, either. There is always a reason behind every little truth, every little ceremony, even down to the tiniest details.

Just because something wasn't written down, doesn't mean that it didn't happen. That it isn't important to remember. That it didn't have an influence on later events. 

If your life had to be reconstructed from what writings you left behind, would it give an accurate picture of yourself? I know mine would not. It would have to be filled in, probably by other people around me giving oral testimony.

I will admit that oral histories and traditions can be problematic. They can be more prone to error, simply because it is a living memory, and not concrete like writing is.

But I could argue the same problems exist for writing, especially when it comes to translations. The Greek translation and the Hebrew translations of Scriptural books give so much more linguistic context that it puts our English Bibles to shame.

What I'm trying to get at, in this rather convulted rigamarole that you're scrolling through, is that nothing, not even Scripture, is worth anything if it is not put into context.

A fact that is actually pointed out...in the Bible itself.

And Philip running thither, head him read the prophet Isaias. And he said: Thinkest thou that thou understandest what thou readest? 
Who said: And how can I, unless some man shew me? And he desired Philip that he would come up and sit with him. 
And the place of the scripture which was reading was this: He was led as a sheep to the slaughter: and like a lamb without voice before his shearer so openeth he not his mouth. 
In humility his judgement was taken away. His generation who shall declare for his life shall be taken from the earth? 
And the eunuch answering Philip, said: I beseech thee, of whom doth the prophet speak this? Of himself, or of some other man?
Then Philip, opening his mouth and beginning at this scripture, preached unto him Jesus. 

(Acts 8:30-35, DRV. Emphasis added)

In this Biblical account, the eunuch was introduced to the Sacred Mysteries by Scripture. Therefore, Scripture cannot be discounted as a "gateway" to learning about God, and it has it's rightful place as a teaching tool. Indeed, all the key truths of our Faith are derived from Holy Scripture as I've said before.

But, the eunuch was struggling to grasp the crux of the hidden message that was presented in Scripture. He had no way of decoding it himself. This is why God sent Philip, a living breathing recepticle of the Faith, to teach him.

You have to remember at this time, there was no New Testament - that wasn't compiled for another 100 years. Everything HAD to be handed down orally, from Jesus Himself, to his Apostles, to their Disciples, to their families, to their children, and thus it continued throughout the generations. Some, like St. Matthew and St. John wrote first hand accounts, as early as the year 69 AD. Others, like St. Paul, wrote second hand exhortations, which came from the Apostolic teachings that he had received from St. Peter.

You may be able to teach yourself many things from a book, but it is never as good as when you learn from a person.

This is why I will never believe in Sola Scriptura.

Because Our Lord never used a Bible to found the Church.

He used living, breathing Apostles.

And don'tcha think that Jesus would have used the best tools available to spread His Church?

Old-fashionably yours,

Catherine