Ep. #106 – Tradition, Lexicons, & Paradigms w/ Dr. Cross

Summary

Why is Tradition important when it comes to understanding Scripture? What does it mean that the lexical approach is not ecclesiologically neutral? How can we trust apostolic tradition when Irenaeus said Jesus was 50+ years old when he died? Dr. Bryan Cross joins us to answer these questions and more as we discuss Tradition, lexicons, and paradigms.

Guest Bio

Dr. Cross received his bachelor’s degree in cellular and molecular biology at the University of Michigan, an M.Div from Covenant Theological seminary, and a PhD in philosophy from St. Louis University. In 2006, he and his family were received into full communion with the Catholic Church. Currently, he teaches at Mount Mercy University. He’s contributed many articles to calledtocommunion.com where he explains and analyzes paradigmatic differences between Catholic Christianity and Reformed Christianity. 

Topics

• The importance of Tradition when interpreting Scripture
• Distinctions between the lexical paradigm and the Catholic paradigm
• Objections to the Catholic paradigm including:
• 1) It implies that Scripture is unintelligible in itself
• 2) It assumes the Church fathers could exegete Scripture well, but we can judge them by objective standards and they often fail
• 3) It assumes ‘apostolic tradition’ is trustworthy, but there’s reason to question whether it was passed down accurately because of Irenaeus’ blunder about Jesus’ age
• Applying the paradigm discussion to two case studies:
• 1) Mary’s perpetual virginity
• 2) The nature of justification

Resources

The Tradition and the Lexicon (blog article) by Dr. Cross

Christ Founded a Visible Church (blog article) by Dr. Cross

Ecclesial Deism (blog article) by Dr. Cross

Jesus and the Jewish Roots of Mary by Dr. Brant Pitre

Related Episodes

Ep. #50 – Logic Pointers & Speaking Truth in the Beauty of Love w/ Dr. Bryan Cross

Ep. #61 – Exegetical Support for Petrine Primacy w/ Fr. Gadenz

Ep. #95 – Two Papal Difficulties (Nicaea & John XXII) w/ Matt Sewell

CORE #08 – He Founded the Catholic Church (part 1)