Blue Letter Bible Vs Tradition and the Magisterium

[CatholicJosh]

Quick intro - I am a one year old Catholic. My wife and I come from an evangelical background and are both well versed in scripture.

I stumbled upon this article today and I’m wondering if anyone has any thoughts they would like to share on it? I am quite comfortable with my current understanding of scripture, tradition and the magisterium, but some of the issues brought up, are causing me some issues.

(The forum won’t let me post the link, so just remove the brackets from the (.org)here: www.blueletterbible(.org)/Comm/stewart_don/faq/bible-ultimate-authority/question3-protestants-catholics-differ-authority.cfm

They seem to quote the church very fairly, but also don’t bring up some points that I am familiar with. Such as Jesus referring to the chair of Moses (tradition). I’m mostly interested in their interpretation of Church’s idea of tradition being different from Paul’s. Also they said the church never defines tradition - wouldn’t the church father’s basically be that tradition? Does the Church define it? Is it definable?

Thanks for any thoughts you have!
P.S. I got to this because I was trying to find something like Blueletterbible that includes ALL of the scripture, including the deuterocannonical books. If anyone knows of something like that - other than verbum (I’m not able to spend that kind of $$ right now) PLEASE let me know!

Gratia,
Josh

 

[TheLittleLady]

Entire Bible free online from the USCCB

Books of the Bible | USCCB

Haydock Commentary

https://www.ecatholic2000.com/haydock/title.shtml

 

[KMC]

They seem to quote the church very fairly, but also don’t bring up some points that I am familiar with. Such as Jesus referring to the chair of Moses (tradition). I’m mostly interested in their interpretation of Church’s idea of tradition being different from Paul’s. Also they said the church never defines tradition - wouldn’t the church father’s basically be that tradition? Does the Church define it? Is it definable?

Gratia,
Josh

Welcome!
First here is a link to the CCC on Tradition which does define it:
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p1s1c2a2.htm

Second, I do use blueletterbible when looking for the greek or the hebrew, so I find that it is a good tool from that perspective, however, I read the article and while I think they make a good effort to describe the Catholic position, its off a little AND it has at least one error.

These doctrines include such things as the adoration of Mary, the doctrine of purgatory, the sacrifice of the Mass, and the office of the papacy. Since one could never become a Roman Catholic by following the Bible alone, this issue is of the highest importance. If sacred tradition is another channel of God’s divine revelation to humanity, and if the Roman Church has this sacred tradition and it alone can infallibly interpret the Scripture and this tradition, then we need to know exactly what the Roman Church teaches so that we can know what we should believe. Thus, the way we view these matters of the Scripture, tradition, and the authority of the Roman Church, has eternal consequences.

Catholics don’t adore Mary, we even specifically state this in our Catechism.
Next, Protestants absolutely have their own “sacred traditions,” they just don’t admit they do! (Like where in the Bible does it say which books belong in the Bible? Another example: The Catholic Church, and all Christian denominations that broke off from the Church prior to the reformation all believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Protestants, following their own interpretation, aka their sacred tradition, reject the teaching of the Real Presence).

Regarding Paul…where is the Church’s idea of Tradition different than Paul’s?

Lastly regarding the invention of Sola Scriptura…Think about it this way: If a Protestant was alive in the year 49, before one word of Paul’s epistles, or one word of the Gospels were written, what would be the source of the Protestant’s theology? Would they still be Jewish, since 1st century Christians did not have their own sacred Scriptures yet? Where in the Bible does it tell us that the Oral Gospel (Sacred Tradition) should be cast aside in favor of only the Written Gospel?

Blessings,

KMC

 

[CatholicJosh]

They actually go to great lengths to define Paul as talking about ONLY oral tradition. As if that’s fine, but written tradition would be bad. It’s quite odd.

I also noticed that while they talked about Jesus only QUOTING from scripture, not tradition, that that is not actually true. - E.G. the Seat of Moses.