On Authority, Part 2: On the Apostolic Tradition

In part 1 of this series, I introduced the process of traditioning and documented how it was used in the Bible. In this post I will trace how this traditioning process was used in the early church. First we will construct a narrative for the traditioning process up to and including the apostles. Second, we will explore the importance of the oral component of the tradition.

The Christian Tradition in the Apostolic Era

From Scripture we can reconstruct this narrative about the uniquely Christian tradition and the initial stages of its transmission:

1. God the Father is the ultimate source of the Christian tradition, and the Son is the agent through whom it is initially transmitted: "All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him" (Matthew 11:27).
2. As the incarnate Word of God, the Son orally transmits a portion of the tradition to his apostles, and the remainder of the tradition he transmits through the agency of the Holy Spirit: "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you" (John 16:12-15). 
3. The content of the apostolic tradition is called the "deposit of faith", and it was transmitted so completely and with such high fidelity to the apostles as a group that it can be described as being "once for all delivered": "Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. (Jude 1:3).
4. No one apostle necessarily possessed the full deposit personally himself, so Jesus established the principal of conciliarity when needing to arbitrate the fidelity of transmission:
   

   If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them. (Matthew 18:15-20)

5. The Jerusalem council of Acts 15 illustrates the principle of conciliarity in action. The apostles as a group arbitrated between conflicting traditions. And their conclusion indicates that both conciliarity and the Holy Spirit were factors in the determination: "For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements ... " (Acts 15:28).
6. Paul lays out the the process of transmission beyond the apostles: "You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also" (2 Timothy 2:1-2). Paul entrusts the deposit of faith--and the responsibility to transmit it--to Timothy in front of witnesses, and then Timothy should do the same in turn, and "the grace that is in Christ Jesus" is the power behind the process.
7. The tradition consists of not just what the apostles wrote but also what they orally preached and taught: "So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter." (2 Thessalonians 2:15), and both components are authoritative and need to be faithfully transmitted.

The Oral Component of the Apostolic Tradition

For readers in the Evangelical Protestant tradition, a discussion of the oral component of the Apostolic Tradition might sound unfamiliar. Steeped in the presuppositions of Sola Scriptura, they might not even realize that their worldview is entirely anachronistic, that is, the early church did not subscribe to this doctrine nor could it. Others more skillful than I have already written on the problems of Sola Scriptura (and its followup) and the strength of oral tradition. So in this section I will limit myself to the following: 1) the Biblical case for an oral component to Apostolic Tradition, 2) the early church's testimony to its existence, and 3) identifying where we can find this oral component subsequently recorded?

The Biblical Case for an Oral Component

In the preface to his Gospel, Luke writes the following:

Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught. (Luke 1:1-4)

Here Luke makes clear that the source for his Gospel is the oral tradition that has been passed down to him. In other words, there existed an oral tradition, and he took a portion of it and committed it to writing. The oral tradition was primary.

The author of the Gospel of John writes this as his last verse: "Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written" (Luke 1:1-4). In other words, Jesus said and did so many things that most things were left to oral transmission.

We have an example of this in Acts 20:35, where Paul says "In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, 'It is more blessed to give than to receive.'" This quote by Jesus is not recorded in the canonical Gospels. Thus, Paul was quoting from the oral tradition of Jesus's words here. Sayings of Jesus that are not recorded in the canonical gospels have a special name Agrapha, and that links show many other examples. The force of all this is that the four canonical gospels are merely the transcription of a small subset of the tradition that Jesus orally transmitted to the apostles.

And in the same way, the apostles used oral transmission of the tradition (preaching) most of the time. Paul's epistles are a very small portion of the transmitting that he did of the tradition, and in them, he frequently refers back to the oral transmission as authoritative (1 Thess 2:13, 4:1; 2 Thess 2:15, 3:6; 1 Cor 11:2, 15:1-3) and even more authoritative than a subsequent transmission (Gal 1:8-9; cf. 2 Thess 2:2).

For someone to claim that the apostolic deposit of faith was circumscribed by the 27 books of the New Testament is to deny how those books describe the transmission of the deposit and is to be ignorant of how societies operated before the invention of the printing press and its handmaiden, widespread literacy. The oral component of the apostolic tradition pre-existed the written component, was vastly larger in size, and was as authoritative.

The Early Church's Testimony to an Oral Component 

At this point I need to clarify a point of terminology. The distinction between the written and oral components of the apostolic tradition properly refers to the distinction between the New Testament writings and everything else in the apostolic tradition. It does not imply that oral components were never later written down. In fact, as history progressed more and more of the oral component was written down, but that does not mean that it "graduated" to become part of the written component. Any part of the apostolic tradition that exists outside of the canon of Scripture is oral tradition--even if subsequently written down.

Another important consideration is that open communion is not just a modern invention, it is an invention of the late 20th century (https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/glory2godforallthings/2013/11/19/the-politics-of-the-cup/#comment-71807). In the ancient church, things were very different. For a number of reasons (persecution being one), when the Mysteries were performed--baptism and Eucharist--those outside of the Church were not present. The divine liturgy is divided into two parts: the liturgy of the catechumens and the liturgy of the faithful, and the dividing line is the line "Catechumens, depart!" at which time all the unbaptized as well as those under penitential canons and unable to receive communion recessed out of the nave. The Holy Mysteries were secret. The order of the services was not written down, but was only transmitted orally; and in what was preserved in secret was contained the essential side of the faith. This is a very well documented fact, and it is important because it not only documents the existence of an oral component but also explains the reason that it continued to be strictly oral for such a long time.

We want to look at several quotes by St. Cyril, Bishop of Jerusalem, who died in 386 AD. He prepared a number of catechetical lectures to give to those catechumens who were on the verge of being baptized. Perhaps they had already completed multiple years of catechesis, but now they are about to be baptized and so he teaches them the final things that had been kept secret from them during their entire previous catechumenate. Because he wrote down these lectures for future reference, we have a written record of what he told them, but notice the absolute secrecy to which he is binding the hearers as well as any future readers in the prologue:

When, therefore, the Lecture is delivered, if a Catechumen ask thee what the teachers have said, tell nothing to him that is without.  For we deliver to thee a mystery, and a hope of the life to come.  Guard the mystery for Him who gives the reward.  Let none ever say to thee, What harm to thee, if I also know it?  So too the sick ask for wine; but if it be given at a wrong time it causes delirium, and two evils arise; the sick man dies, and the physician is blamed.  Thus is it also with the Catechumen, if he hear anything from the believer:  both the Catechumen becomes delirious (for he understands not what he has heard, and finds fault with the thing, and scoffs at what is said), and the believer is condemned as a traitor.  But thou art now standing on the border:  take heed, pray, to tell nothing out; not that the things spoken are not worthy to be told, but because his ear is unworthy to receive.  Thou wast once thyself a Catechumen, and I described not what lay before thee.  When by experience thou hast learned how high are the matters of our teaching, then thou wilt know that the Catechumens are not worthy to hear them.

(To the Reader.) These Catechetical Lectures for those who are to be enlightened thou mayest lend to candidates for Baptism, and to believers who are already baptized, to read, but give not at all, neither to Catechumens, nor to any others who are not Christians, as thou shalt answer to the Lord.  And if thou make a copy, write this in the beginning, as in the sight of the Lord (http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf207.ii.iv.html chapters 12 and 18)

And then in the fifth lecture he writes the following about the Creed he is about to teach:

We comprise the whole doctrine of the Faith in a few lines.  This summary I wish you both to commit to memory when I recite it, and to rehearse it with all diligence among yourselves, not writing it out on paper, but engraving it by the memory upon your heart, taking care while you rehearse it that no Catechumen chance to overhear the things which have been delivered to you. (http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf207.ii.ix.html chapter 12)

So we see that there was an oral component to the apostolic tradition, and even until the late 4th century, diligence was practiced to make sure that only those who were deemed likely to be worthy transmitters of it (as signified through baptism) were entitled to hear the oral component in order to prevent its mistransmission by others.

The next witness is St. Basil the Great, bishop of Caesarea, who died in AD 379. In his treatise On the Holy Spirit, he speaks extensively on the oral component of the apostolic tradition, citing very specific practices that were accepted as having apostolic authority even though never documented in the New Testament. Even though it is a long quote, I quote it in its entirety because of its importance:

Of the beliefs and practices whether generally accepted or publicly enjoined which are preserved in the Church some we possess derived from written teaching; others we have received delivered to us "in a mystery" by the tradition of the apostles; and both of these in relation to true religion have the same force. And these no one will gainsay;—no one, at all events, who is even moderately versed in the institutions of the Church. For were we to attempt to reject such customs as have no written authority, on the ground that the importance they possess is small, we should unintentionally injure the Gospel in its very vitals; or, rather, should make our public definition a mere phrase and nothing more. For instance, to take the first and most general example, who is thence who has taught us in writing to sign with the sign of the cross those who have trusted in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ? What writing has taught us to turn to the East at the prayer? Which of the saints has left us in writing the words of the invocation at the displaying of the bread of the Eucharist and the cup of blessing? For we are not, as is well known, content with what the apostle or the Gospel has recorded, but both in preface and conclusion we add other words as being of great importance to the validity of the ministry, and these we derive from unwritten teaching. Moreover we bless the water of baptism and the oil of the chrism, and besides this the catechumen who is being baptized. On what written authority do we do this? Is not our authority silent and mystical tradition? Nay, by what written word is the anointing of oil itself taught? And whence comes the custom of baptizing thrice? And as to the other customs of baptism from what Scripture do we derive the renunciation of Satan and his angels? Does not this come from that unpublished and secret teaching which our fathers guarded in a silence out of the reach of curious meddling and inquisitive investigation? Well had they learnt the lesson that the awful dignity of the mysteries is best preserved by silence. What the uninitiated are not even allowed to look at was hardly likely to be publicly paraded about in written documents. What was the meaning of the mighty Moses in not making all the parts of the tabernacle open to every one? The profane he stationed without the sacred barriers; the first courts he conceded to the purer; the Levites alone he judged worthy of being servants of the Deity; sacrifices and burnt offerings and the rest of the priestly functions he allotted to the priests; one chosen out of all he admitted to the shrine, and even this one not always but on only one day in the year, and of this one day a time was fixed for his entry so that he might gaze on the Holy of Holies amazed at the strangeness and novelty of the sight. Moses was wise enough to know that contempt stretches to the trite and to the obvious, while a keen interest is naturally associated with the unusual and the unfamiliar. In the same manner the Apostles and Fathers who laid down laws for the Church from the beginning thus guarded the awful dignity of the mysteries in secrecy and silence, for what is bruited abroad random among the common folk is no mystery at all. This is the reason for our tradition of unwritten precepts and practices, that the knowledge of our dogmas may not become neglected and contemned by the multitude through familiarity. "Dogma" and "Kerugma" are two distinct things; the former is observed in silence; the latter is proclaimed to all the world. One form of this silence is the obscurity employed in Scripture, which makes the meaning of "dogmas" difficult to be understood for the very advantage of the reader: Thus we all look to the East at our prayers, but few of us know that we are seeking our own old country, Paradise, which God planted in Eden in the East. We pray standing, on the first day of the week, but we do not all know the reason. On the day of the resurrection (or "standing again" Grk. ἀνάστασις) we remind ourselves of the grace given to us by standing at prayer, not only because we rose with Christ, and are bound to "seek those things which are above," but because the day seems to us to be in some sense an image of the age which we expect, wherefore, though it is the beginning of days, it is not called by Moses first, but one. For he says "There was evening, and there was morning, one day," as though the same day often recurred. Now "one" and "eighth" are the same, in itself distinctly indicating that really "one" and "eighth" of which the Psalmist makes mention in certain titles of the Psalms, the state which follows after this present time, the day which knows no waning or eventide, and no successor, that age which endeth not or groweth old. Of necessity, then, the church teaches her own foster children to offer their prayers on that day standing, to the end that through continual reminder of the endless life we may not neglect to make provision for our removal thither. Moreover all Pentecost is a reminder of the resurrection expected in the age to come. For that one and first day, if seven times multiplied by seven, completes the seven weeks of the holy Pentecost; for, beginning at the first, Pentecost ends with the same, making fifty revolutions through the like intervening days. And so it is a likeness of eternity, beginning as it does and ending, as in a circling course, at the same point. On this day the rules of the church have educated us to prefer the upright attitude of prayer, for by their plain reminder they, as it were, make our mind to dwell no longer in the present but in the future. Moreover every time we fall upon our knees and rise from off them we shew by the very deed that by our sin we fell down to earth, and by the loving kindness of our Creator were called back to heaven. (http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf208.vii.xxviii.html chapter 66).

So we see from St. Basil the Great, one of the most influential defenders of the consubstantiality of the Holy Spirit with the Father and the Son, that the oral component of the apostolic tradition has the "same force" as the written tradition and "were we to attempt to reject such customs as have no written authority, on the ground that the importance they possess is small, we should unintentionally injure the Gospel in its very vitals ..." Incidentally, this passage is part of an argument he is making about his Trinitarian formula. The argument goes like this: Given the fact that you accept all these practices as having apostolic authority because they are part of the oral tradition and thus are not recorded in Scripture, why do you reject this formula which also does not derives from Scripture given that it also does derive from oral tradition?

So we see that the early church recognized, guarded, and prized the oral component of the apostolic tradition. It can be traced back to the earliest period of the Church. And it was carefully preserved and unanimously acknowledged during the epoch of the great Fathers of the Church and the beginning of the Ecumenical Councils.

The Literary Sources of the Oral Component

As I mentioned earlier, portions of the oral component were written down over time outside of the New Testament. The question is where can we as 21st century believers locate it? For this I will be pulling from a book by Fr. Michael Pomazansky called Orthodox Dogmatic Theology. These are the seven places he documents where readers can find the oral component of the apostolic tradition written down in the 21st century:

1. in the most ancient record of the Church, the Canons of the Holy Apostles [http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf07.ix.ix.vi.html];
2. in the Symbols of Faith of the ancient local churches [these would predate the Nicene Creed. An example is the Apostle's Creed; others are listed here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_creeds#Local_and_Regional_Creeds_of_the_Early_Church];
3. in the ancient Liturgies, in the rite of Baptism, and in other ancient prayers [e.g., the Liturgy of St. James];
4. in the ancient Acts of the Christian martyrs. The Acts of the martyrs did not enter into use by the faithful until they had been examined and approved by the local bishops; and they were read at the public gatherings of Christians under the supervision of the leaders of the churches. In them we see the confession of the Most Holy Trinity, the Divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ, examples of the invocation of the saints, of belief in the conscious life of those who had reposed in Christ, and much else; [https://oca.org/saints/lives is the best source but it does not separate the ancient martyrs from later saints so you have to know the ancient martyrs name first and then find his acts]
5. in the ancient records of the history of the Church, especially in the book of Eusebius Pamphili, Bishop of Caesarea,where there are gathered many ancient traditions of rite and dogma — in particular, there is given the canon of the sacred books of the Old and New Testaments; [http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf201]
6. in the works of the ancient Fathers and teachers of the Church; [http://www.ccel.org/fathers.html]
7. and, finally, in the very spirit of the Church's life, in the preservation of faithfulness to all her foundations which come from the Holy Apostles.

In this post we presented a narrative for how the apostolic tradition came about. Then we drilled down on the oral component of it, which is often at least overlooked but sometimes even despised in Evangelical traditions.

On Authority, Part 1: On the Scriptural Basis of the Traditioning Process

A friend recently asked me this question: "I ... wondered how you now conceive of your sources of authority. How do you conceive now of the authority of the Scriptures? Are they ultimate in authority, or part of a wider 'stream' of inspiration and authority?" This question deserves a substantial reply, so I am going to use multiple blog posts to answer it.

Although the question does not used the word tradition, I understand it to be asking about my relationship to tradition. In the Evangelical tradition of my upbringing, the word tradition was a bad word. It was mainly used pejoratively to ridicule people of other faith traditions, most notably Roman Catholics. Ironically, the pejorative users of this word rarely ever realized that they had their own traditions and unconsciously operated within them. In retrospect, one of the differences between the Evangelicalism I experienced and Orthodoxy is that of self-awareness. As an Evangelical--unaware or even in denial of the fact that I was the recipient of and practitioner of a tradition--I had no category for critically evaluating and consciously embracing a tradition; whereas, as an Orthodox, I very consciously embrace a tradition, and as a convert to Orthodoxy even had to critically evaluate competing traditions to decide which to embrace.

As an anthropological concept, the traditioning process has two components: the passing on and the receiving. These concepts are both spoken of and illustrated in the Bible, and in the Scriptural vocabulary, tradition is a neutral term--whether it is a bad thing or a good thing depends upon the context. Unfortunately, an anti-tradition bias has frequently crept into Evangelical edited translations of the Bible so that the same Greek word is translated as tradition when meaning something bad and teaching when meaning something good. Compare the NIV's translation of Matthew 15:3 and 2 Thessalonians 3:6, which both speak of παράδοσις but translates Matthew 15:3 with a negatively connotated tradition and Thessalonians 3:6 with a positively connotated teaching.

So in this blog post I will attempt to lay out the documentary evidence for tradition--as an anthropological process--in the Bible. I want to do two things: 1) list the data to establish the neutrality of tradition as a Biblical concept and then 2) illustrate its implementation in the Bible even when not using the technical vocabulary of tradition. Later blog posts will explore Sacred Tradition and its specific components and processes.

The Data

In the New Testament, the technical vocabulary includes three words. All of these words have meanings outside of the traditioning process, so here I will focus on their usage when part of a traditioning process:

1. The noun παράδοσις, which refers to both the traditioning process, that is,  "a giving over which is done by word of mouth or in writing, i.e. tradition by instruction, narrative, precept, etc." as well as the content being being passed down, this is, "that which is delivered, the substance of a teaching"
2. The verb παραδίδωμι, which means to "deliver verbally commands or rites"
3. The verb παραλαμβάνω, which means "to receive something transmitted, to receive with the mind by oral transmission: of the authors from whom the tradition proceeds"

Look at these three tables.

παράδοσις

Reference	Usage	Comments
Mat 15:2	“Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat.”	Negative
Mat 15:3	He answered them, “And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?	Negative
Mat 15:6	he need not honor his father.’ So for the sake of your tradition you have made void the word of God.	Negative
Mar 7:3	(For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands properly, holding to the tradition of the elders,	Negative
Mar 7:5	And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?”	Negative
Mar 7:8	You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.”	Negative
Mar 7:9	And he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition!	Negative
Mar 7:13	thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And many such things you do.”	Negative
1Co 11:2	Now I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I delivered them to you.	Positive
Gal 1:14	And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers.	Negative
Col 2:8	See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.	Negative
2Th 2:15	So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter.	Positive. Note that the there are written and oral components to the tradition.
2Th 3:6	Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us.	Positive

παράδοσις is used negatively 10 times and positively 3 times. Other than establishing its neutrality as a word, I think we can take away that it is important to critically examine the traditions passed on to us, the first step, of course, is to become aware of the fact that I am the recipient of traditions.

παραδίδωμι

Reference	Usage	Comments
Mat 11:27	All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.	There is a body of revelation that the Son of God received about the Father, and He has passed this on to His disciples.
Mar 7:13	thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And many such things you do.”	Negative connotation
Luk 1:2	just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us,	The basis of Luke's content was oral tradition.
Luk 10:22	All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”	See comments on Matt 11:27
Act 6:14	for we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and will change the customs that Moses delivered to us.”	The Jews had the perception that the customs they practiced were the selfsame customs that Moses had handed down.
Act 16:4	As they went on their way through the cities, they delivered to them for observance the decisions that had been reached by the apostles and elders who were in Jerusalem.	The decree of the council of Jerusalem was a letter accompanied by men explaining the letter. The letter and its traditional explanation were later enscripturated by Luke.
Rom 6:17	But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed,	Whoever first preached to the Romans passed on a body of oral tradition, and Paul commends them for their obedience to it.
1Co 11:2	Now I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I delivered them to you.	Paul commends the Corinthians for obeying that traditions he passed on to them long before he wrote them.
1Co 11:23	For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread,	Paul illustrates the traditioning process with respective to Eucharist.
1Co 15:3	For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures,	Paul illustrates the traditioning process with respective to kerygma.
2Pe 2:21	For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them.	The recipients of tradition are accountable for it upon knowing it.
Jde 1:3	Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.	The content of our faith is a body of revealed tradition that Jesus received from the Father (Matt 11:27) that He then passed on to the Apostles and through them to the holy ones. (John 16:12-15)

παραλαμβάνω

Reference	Usage	Comments
Mar 7:4	and when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash. And there are many other traditions that they observe, such as the washing of cups and pots and copper vessels and dining couches.)	traditions here is not the noun παράδοσις but rather the gerund of this verb. traditions = "those things they have received"
1Co 11:23	For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread,	Paul is an conduit in the traditioning process.
1Co 15:1	Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand,	The gospel is a component of tradition.
1Co 15:3	For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures,	Paul is a conduit again.
Gal 1:9	As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.	There are competing traditions and we must practice discernment.
Gal 1:12	For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.	A portion of the tradition Paul received came by revelatory rather than oral transmission.
Phl 4:9	What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.	Paul again enjoys his audience to practice the things they received from him before they received a letter.
Col 2:6	Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him,
Col 4:17	And say to Archippus, “See that you fulfill the ministry that you have received in the Lord.”
1Th 2:13	And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers.	The Thessalonians discerned that the source of Paul's tradition was God and not men and so received it.
1Th 4:1	Finally, then, brothers, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, just as you are doing, that you do so more and more.	Be faithful to implement what has been received
2Th 3:6	Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us.	Excommunicate those who reject the tradition that was received.

In the above three tables we see that the traditioning process was alive and well in the New Testament and actively practice by the Apostles who often wrote letters to encourage the faithful keeping of the tradition passed on orally.

The Implementation

There are some passages in the Old and New Testaments that illustrate the traditioning process without so much using the technical vocabulary. Here are some examples:

Then Moses called all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Go and select lambs for yourselves according to your clans, and kill the Passover lamb. Take a bunch of hyssop and dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and touch the lintel and the two doorposts with the blood that is in the basin. None of you shall go out of the door of his house until the morning. For Yahweh will pass through to strike the Egyptians, and when he sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, Yahweh will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you. You shall observe this rite as a statute for you and for your sons forever. And when you come to the land that Yahweh will give you, as he has promised, you shall keep this service. And when your children say to you, ‘What do you mean by this service?’ you shall say, ‘It is the sacrifice of Yahweh's Passover, for he passed over the houses of the people of Israel in Egypt, when he struck the Egyptians but spared our houses.’” And the people bowed their heads and worshiped. (Exodus 12:21-27 ESV)

Every firstborn of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb, or if you will not redeem it you shall break its neck. Every firstborn of man among your sons you shall redeem. And when in time to come your son asks you, ‘What does this mean?’ you shall say to him, ‘By a strong hand Yahweh brought us out of Egypt, from the house of slavery. For when Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go, Yahweh killed all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both the firstborn of man and the firstborn of animals. Therefore I sacrifice to Yahweh all the males that first open the womb, but all the firstborn of my sons I redeem.’ (Exodus 13:13-15 ESV)

One of the purposes of a rite or ritual service is to create a setting wherein spiritual truth can be organically transmitted. The tradition includes not just the truth but the ritual tool for transmission.

“When your son asks you in time to come, ‘What is the meaning of the testimonies and the statutes and the rules that Yahweh our God has commanded you?’ then you shall say to your son, ‘We were Pharaoh's slaves in Egypt. And Yahweh brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. And Yahweh showed signs and wonders, great and grievous, against Egypt and against Pharaoh and all his household, before our eyes. And he brought us out from there, that he might bring us in and give us the land that he swore to give to our fathers. And Yahweh commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear Yahweh our God, for our good always, that he might preserve us alive, as we are this day. And it will be righteousness for us, if we are careful to do all this commandment before Yahweh our God, as he has commanded us.’ (Deuteronomy 6:20-25 ESV)

Many of the laws in the Pentateuch are related to ritual purity rather than morality. Traditions of ritual purity were valuable tools for passing on spiritual truth. The tradition included both the ritual and the truth.

And Joshua said to them, “Pass on before the ark of Yahweh your God into the midst of the Jordan, and take up each of you a stone upon his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the people of Israel, that this may be a sign among you. When your children ask in time to come, ‘What do those stones mean to you?’ then you shall tell them that the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of Yahweh. When it passed over the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. So these stones shall be to the people of Israel a memorial forever.” 

And he said to the people of Israel, “When your children ask their fathers in times to come, ‘What do these stones mean?’ then you shall let your children know, ‘Israel passed over this Jordan on dry ground.’ For Yahweh your God dried up the waters of the Jordan for you until you passed over, as Yahweh your God did to the Red Sea, which he dried up for us until we passed over, so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of Yahweh is mighty, that you may fear Yahweh your God forever.” (Joshua 4:5-7, 21-24 ESV)

Shrines located at specific localities are valuable for passing on spiritual truth. The tradition included both the shrine and the truth.

Give ear, O my people, to my teaching;
incline your ears to the words of my mouth!
I will open my mouth in a parable;
I will utter dark sayings from of old,
things that we have heard and known,
that our fathers have told us.
We will not hide them from their children,
but tell to the coming generation
the glorious deeds of Yahweh, and his might,and the wonders that he has done.

He established a testimony in Jacob
and appointed a law in Israel,
which he commanded our fathers
to teach to their children,
that the next generation might know them, 
the children yet unborn,
and arise and tell them to their children, 
so that they should set their hope in God
and not forget the works of God, 
but keep his commandments;
and that they should not be like their fathers,
a stubborn and rebellious generation,
a generation whose heart was not steadfast,
whose spirit was not faithful to God. (Psalm 78:1-8 ESV)

This Psalm documents the goal and the implementation of the traditioning process in the Old Testament. Psalms 48:13 and 22:31 also are good references.

You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also. (2 Timothy 2:1-2 ESV)

This verse shows that the process documented in the Old Testament in Psalms 78 is at work in the New Testament.

Conclusion

In this post we see that tradition is a neutral anthropological process in the Bible. It can transmit good things and bad things. At the same time, the people of God in both the Old and New Testaments embraced it as the way to propagate information both within the same generation and between generations. And this traditioning process entailed not just abstract spiritual truth but also ritual in order to create a natural context for organically transmitting the truth.