Jude, Hebrews, and thoughts on Sacred Tradition

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My understanding of Protestant belief is that they do not recognize the Deuterocannon as scripture based on the fact that the Jewish leaders rejected those books as not being divinely inspired at the Council of Jamnia. They further take a “Bible only” approach to understanding their faith, rejecting Sacred Tradition.

However, the Bible itself requires further reading in order to FULLY understand it’s scripture, as can be seen by the Letter of Jude and the Letter to the Hebrews, both of which cite apocryphal works (The Book of Enoch, The Assumption of Moses) not found in the Bible, but which are and were a part of the Sacred Tradition of the Jewish people.

Therefore, in order to fully understand the Bible, one would have to acknowledge that the Bible alone is not the only source of knowledge for understanding the faith, as one would need to read elsewhere in order to fully understand the context of the Bible itself. Acknowledging this, as such, leads one to an acceptance that tradition is important alongside Scripture.

Now, granted, Jewish Sacred Tradition and Catholic Sacred Tradition clearly diverge, but simply the acknowledgement that one is necessary for understanding of the faith, even if only in part, should refute the “Bible only” approach, and open the door to acceptance that the other may well play a vital role in understanding the faith as well. Thoughts?
 
The early Christians (Catholics, including Eastern Catholics) were really no different than the early protestants in regard to their position on the Old Testament.

You may have noticed that there are differences between the OT Canon of Latin Catholics and various Eastern Catholics (who do not even precisely agree among themselves). You may have also noticed that these differences have never been a source of theological controversy among Catholics.

Why is that?

It is simply because no early Christian considered himself to be an authority of the Jewish Canon. There was not (and is still not) any “official” Jewish Canon. The OT was the purview of the Jewish Church, and each Christian Church simply accepted whatever OT was in use by the Synagogue down the street. Since there was not any official Jewish Canon, differences arose between Eastern and Western canons.

When the protestants invented a new Christian religion, they did the EXACT same thing that the early Christians did with regard to the OT - they used whatever was recognized by the Synagogue down the street. By this time (since the Fifth Century - not Jamna, but the Masoretic Text), the Jews had largely adopted a “Hebrew-only” mentality about their Scriptures - they rejected OT Scripture which was originally written in Greek.

In Our Lord’s time, 2/3 of the Jews of the world were Hellenistic (Greek-speaking) Jews.

The Catholic Church has never objected to anything simply because it was originally written in Greek (such as, umm, the New Testament). The Catholic Church adopted the Jewish writings used down the street from a very early age, whereas protestants adopted a later version.
 
DavidFilmer said:
In Our Lord’s time, 2/3 of the Jews of the world were Hellenistic (Greek-speaking) Jews.
Click to expand...
I would be curious as to your source for this, if you can provide it. I have read estimates in the 10% range.
 
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