Monday, January 9, 2012

Is practicing man made traditions added to the Bible wrong?

Well....we know for certain that Jesus went up to Jerusalem to celebrate Hannukkah (The Festival of Lights) (see John's Gospel). However, Hannukkah is not one of the holidays mandated by God to be observed. Its not even mentioned in the Law. As a matter of fact, that festival came about at the end of the Jewish revolt of 164 BC -- some 1,000 years after the Law was given to Moses. So, for Jesus to celebrate Hannukkah it was a "modern" Tradition. Notice the capital T...this stands for Sacred Tradition -- not the traditions of men which are not allowed. But remember, we Catholics and Orthodox Christians use Sacred Tradition alongside Scripture because John himself told us that there is "much more that Jesus said and did"...but the "the whole world could not contain all the books it would take to write them down." Yet, that stuff should not be arbitrarily tossed aside just because Matthew, Mark, Luke and John only wrote down the essentials "so that you may believe".

No comments:

Post a Comment