The Gospel of the Lord Jesus comes down out of heaven to men, by way of prophets and apostles. It existed first in oral traditional form, but was given to the apostles in a form easily conveyed in writing, as they were themselves appointed as apostolic scribes to this task. The writing began almost immediately.
Now this little adventure represents two forms of biblical tradition. The first is creedal or confessional, and consists in "digging out" of the canonical text a set of like "sound words" for mutual comparison. The second biblical tradition enjoined by this post consists in doing what we now call "Systematic theology." Here, I will attempt using certain appointed portions of Scripture (we know these from their subtle details) to reconstruct the earliest possible picture of the Catechism used by the Lord Jesus to build His Church, according to all the law of the Lord (still properly canonical, even though surgically removed from their canonical context).
The method involves then two steps: isolating all those places where the apostles teaching in soundbytes which show the classic symptoms of early Christologies consistent with the Psalms, Daniel, and which have unique Aramaic, Semitic, and/ or decisively poetic features and structures. And then interpolating the various parts of the disparate units into a kind of "synoptic harmony" of the theology therein. I was going to call this the "Diatessaron," but I found out the name has already been taken. Some guy named Tatian beat me to it.
Unfortunately, given the exegetical and language-based nature of this effort, it may entangle us briefly in studies in Greek, Hebrew or even Aramaic. I apologize for this in advance. I shall try to make English the native tongue of this enterprise (So far, so good).
The following cut and paste exercise begins the "literary unit library" to be used in this reconstructive effort, which will consist in the disparate "sound words," found throughout the NT, all Scriptures from the OT quoted or alluded to by the sound words (of those I am able to discern) and all those sermons taught from Acts chapters 1-12 which easily revert to Aramaic, and have poetic qualities similar to the form of sound words, and then (once again) any OT references -- direct or indirect -- from those "semitic-thought" framed sermons.
Also any precursor of any of these groups found in the NT itself -- intertextual NT references may be used: aphorisms or wisdom sayings of the Lord Jesus, which turn up in the form of sound words, etc.
Introducing the Sound "Faith of Jesus," Which the servants and saints of God believe
Here are a few direct references to the pattern of sound words [with my explanations in brackets like these] used to train catechumens (novices) and ministers. Bear in mind that the Bible has several parallel teachings regarding a mind framed by these sound words, sound doctrine, which leads to a sound mind; soundness provides a central point of concern in the Bible. The apostles got their perfect doctrine from Jesus, and passed it on unchanged to their children in the faith.
2 Tim. 1:7 reads: "For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind." Sound doctrine leads to sound minds. This calls for the form of sound words -- the earliest version of the New Testament around which the Gospels were constructed -- as a teacher for Christians.
Paul even told Titus concerning some elders (of which normally he says, "do not rebuke and elder sharply") "rebuke THEM sharply, that they may be SOUND in the faith. These were "special" ministers on the island of Crete who decided to take a nap -- a very long nap -- on the job. Paul was furious with them if his language is any key. They were in fact "Cretans." Apparently, he had tried many times to motivate these and found it very frustrating to try. I think their most oft spoken word was "Manana" (tomorrow).
2 Tim. 1:13-14 --
"Hold fast the form of sound words, which thou hast heard of [learned from] me [by training and catechising], in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus. That good thing [standard of the Christian faith] which was committed unto thee [as a deputized apostle, or evangelist] keep by the [power of the] Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us [apostolic types].
1 Tim. 4:6 --
"If thou put the brethren in remembrance of these things [sound teachings], thou shalt be a good minister of Jesus Christ, nourished up in "the words of [the Christian] faith" and of good doctrine, whereunto thou hast attained [i.e. which you have mastered]."
Comments: Timothy had mastered the Larger Catechism (so to speak). Ministers had to be catechised to have a "good understanding of the faith."
1 Tim. 6:3 --
"If any man teach otherwise [than our common pattern of sound teaching], and consent not to wholesome [i.e. sound] words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to [the mystery of] godliness [1 Tim 3:16]; He is proud, knowing nothing ..."
Comments: This text shows that the sayings memorized and written for the training both of novices and teaching elders were from the Lord Jesus; they originated not with the apostles, but first with the Lord Jesus, from his forty-day teaching inculcation. The [mortal and post-mortal] teaching ministry of Christ itself presents one of the elements of the form of sound words as we will see.
2 Thess. 2: 15 has Paul urge: "Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle."
The sound words comprising the dominical and apostolic "traditions" (Gk. apodoses) were taught both in lecture (or sermonic) format, and also within letters written by apostles, as we have just seen above. We, of course, do not know all of them, but a sufficient sample exists within the NT to get a really good idea of what this catechism
Paul uses the same language to introduce quotes from the Lord Jesus in 1 Corinthians 11 (v. 2) where he says,"Now I praise you, brethren, that ye remember me in all things, and keep the ordinances [traditions], as I delivered them to you." The rabbinic "received ...delivered ... remembered" verb triad attends them as we might expect.
1 Cor. 11:23-26 bears this same verb triad, wherein Paul proceeds to quote the dominical citation,
"For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread: And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, "Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me." After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, "this cup is the new covenant in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew [declare, proclaim] the Lord's death till he come."
From his letters, we learn that Paul knows of an extensive array of "sound words" covering a variety of topics of importance to the church, and regarding received tradition from the Jerusalem Church on controversial topics such as the deity of Christ, salvation to the Gentiles apart from circumcision, eyewitness proof of the resurrection of Jesus, his death, burial, vindication, ascension, and heavenly exaltation and session according to the Psalms (Scriptures).
Philippians 4:8-9 urges us to think on these things, that the mind of Christ might be our own. Paul says of them:
"Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. <--Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, [Paul practices what these sayings command] do: and the God of peace shall be with you."
The apostolic traditions were both oral and written down from the very first. Only those which made it into the present canon were ever "canonical" though all of them functioned to train others in the early first century. A representative sample of them exists in the biblical record for our edification, and needful understanding of the Gospel. This means that the same standard -- though now in miniature -- operates within the canon to define what counts as orthodoxy by no other standard than that which they used in the first century.
This should hardly surprise us since we do not possess (the real) First Corinthians, or the book of the prophet Iddo. Nor do we know of "many other wonderful things Jesus said and did" in John's day (John 21) which he chose not to record for his disciples since the pragmatics of "the making of many books" demanded an end somewhere. Rest assured, had the Lord provided ALL the many excellent and authorized Gospel accounts of Luke's day, since all were constructed around the same "form of sound words" under apostolic control, this would have left them with significant overlap.
This means even with dozens of them, the liberal scholars would say where the Gospel accounts differ, they lack independent confirmation; and where they are similar, Luke copied from Matthew or Mark, or from Chester the maytag repair man. It doesn't really matter who, so long as the NT turn out to be unreliable, and Bultmania remains academically respectable. If evidence really mattered, would these people be writing about Q like we had online photos of it in high resolution?
Now we shall go on -- if the Lord wills -- to harmonize and systematize the apostolic traditions as best one might reconstruct them from the New Testament. This purports to portray a synoptic view of the apodosis from the form of sounds words.
I will also highlight along the way what we might learn of WHY the apodosis came to be as it rests in the canon (for the canon itself may tell us some of this), and the implications of the early creedal formulations for understanding the other books of the Bible. Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore, get wisdom. In all your getting, get understanding.
The Gospel is worth the effort.
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