Here are some examples of
oral tradition in the New Testament. In summary (emphases mine):
Scripture says that Joseph and Mary returned to Nazareth after their sojourn in Egypt, “that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled, ‘
He shall be called a Nazarene.’” (Matt. 2:23).
Just before launching into a blistering denunciation of the scribes and Pharisees, Jesus delivers this command to the crowds: “
The scribes and Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; so practice and observe whatever they tell you, but not what they do; for they preach, but do not practice” (Matt. 23:2-3).
“All drank the same supernatural drink.
For they drank from the supernatural Rock which followed them, and the Rock was Christ” (1 Cor. 10:4).
In his first epistle Peter tells of Christ’s journey to the netherworld during which “he went and preached to the spirits in prison, who formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah” (1 Pet. 3:19). … Note the close link to Noah and Geneses 6. Compare too Jude 6, which says that “the angels that did not keep their own position but left their proper dwelling have been kept by him in eternal chains in the nether gloom until the judgment of the great day” …Additional background is found in the extra-biblical book of 1 Enoch. … The parallel to Peter’s epistle is too close to dismiss.
Jude relates an altercation between Michael and Satan: "When the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, disputed about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a reviling judgment upon him, but said, ‘The Lord rebuke you.’ " (Jude 9). … As H. Willmering says in , “This incident is not mentioned in Scripture, but may have been a Jewish oral tradition, which is well known to the readers of this epistle.”
There are a number of other examples in the New Testament in which the writer likely draws on oral tradition, but not so clearly in support of any doctrine. For instance, Paul dips into rabbinic tradition to supply the names, Jannes and Jambres, of the magicians who opposed Moses in Pharoah’s court (2 Tim. 3:8). In the Old Testament, these individuals are anonymous (Ex. 7:8ff.). James tells us that because of Elijah’s prayer there was no rain in Israel for three years (Jas. 5:17), but the Old Testament account of Elijah’s altercation with King Ahab says nothing of him praying (1 Kgs. 17).
