Dean Esmay has been getting into arguments over at his site with some of the sola scriptura crowd, trying to convince them that the oral tradition is a long-held practice of both Christianity and Judaism. (Dean is a former atheist-turned-deist who is apparently leaning towards Roman Catholicism.)

It's entertaining, in a roadside accident sort of way. I keep reading because sometimes it takes an outsider to point out things that you've never noticed, like the long oral tradition superceding the written. I knew they were both iportant, but I didn't realize how strange the sola scriptura crowd is from a historical perspective. (It doesn't help that I'm hyper-literate, as in I read hyperactively.)

I haven't followed the discussion at Dean's at all. To me sola scriptura is too obviously wrong to argue about. But that is very interesting about Dean himself! (He goes on my list.) He's a heck of a nice guy, and set me and others up with MT blogs just to be helpful and free us from Blogger.

There's nothng like writing--daily--about your ideas to make you think them through...

One thing that Bauckhman points out is that the Rabbis of the time, who put great store in memorization and oral transmission, considered keeping notebooks to be quite compatable with the process...

Oddly: when I studied Theology at Davis, I was taught about the oral tradition. Of course, all that we know of the original (and origen-al) tradition is what's been written down...

The Catholic church would disagree with you, Andrew...the two Pillars of the Faith are Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture - with the former pre-dating the latter. And Sacred Tradition still informs the Catholic worldview. For instance, the teaching on purgatory or on Mary's Immaculate Conception - those were always known and understood to be true, despite not appearing in scripture. The church believes we know these things to be true, even though they were not written down. Same thing with the form of the mass, with much of sacramentology, with the economy of salvation, with pretty much all theology...

Though maybe I'm misreading you - that these things are, in fact, written down today...if so, retract my post with my apologies!

I think what Andrew meant is that it is somewhat paradoxical that we only know of oral tradition through things written down.

Actually Christianity is still in a large part oral, in that we get much of what we learn from conversation, lectures, sermons, etc. Cor ad cor loquitur. The oral parts are intricately interwoven with the written parts, so much so that one could hardly say which is which. But the spoken word is still vital.

Bauckham writes 'It also highlights the apostle Matthew by adding the description ‘taxcollector’ to his name in the list and by transferring to Matthew the story of the call of a taxcollector that Mark tells of Levi.'

So the evangelist took another story and lied and said it was about Matthew?

And where does Bauckham produce evidence that if Mark had named Lazarus, Lazarus life would have been in danger?

And why does Matthew suppress the story of the disciples visting the empty tomb?

"evidence that if Mark had named Lazarus..." It's not a matter of evidence, none is available. It's just a plausible explanation. It makes sense if Lazarus was prominent among the early Christians in Jeruslem, to not mention his name in writing. All the Christians would know who was being referred to, but Lazarus would be less likely to get into trouble.

"by transferring to Matthew the story of the call of a tax collector that Mark tells of Levi.'"

Bauckham has some speculations on this matter, but no firm conclusions (see p.108). Possibly they were both tax collectors, and Matthew was slotted in where he seemed to fit...