Tradition

This chapter proposes that the crucial problem with Orthodox conceptualizations of “Scripture” and “Tradition” is the conceptual-dogmatist approach itself. In the wake of the neopatristic synthesis, when approaching such “doctrines” Orthodox scholarship has generally privileged concepts and definitions and has ignored the language and self-descriptions of the Scriptures themselves. This approach has generated hidden yet fundamental tensions between the Scriptures and Tradition which have kept a large part of the Scriptures (that is, the Old Testament) in subservience to Tradition, and Tradition has been defined in ways that associate it exclusively with the Church. This chapter proposes a reading of the Scriptures on their own terms. A close analysis of several scriptural texts suggests that Scriptures describe themselves as Tradition, and Tradition is nothing else but living a certain life.

Art · Epistemology · Linguistics · Literature · Nothing · Old Testament · Political science · Reading (process) · Scholarship · Theology · Biblical Studies and Interpretation · Law · Philosophy

• Gregorii Nysseni Opera

  J H Waszzink•Vigiliae Christianae•1968

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