Journal: Tyndale Bulletin
Volume: TYNBUL 70:2 (NA 2019)
Article: The Tradition Of The Apostles The Relationship Between Apostolic Authority And The Earliest Tradition Of The Church
Author: Ádám Szabados

TynBull 70:2 (2019) p. 317

The Tradition Of The Apostles
The Relationship Between Apostolic Authority And The Earliest Tradition Of The Church1

Ádám Szabados

([email protected])

Dissertation Summary

1. Research Questions, Hypotheses, And Goals

I had two questions in mind when I began my research on the relationship between apostolic authority and the earliest tradition of the church: is it historically justified to talk about a normative tradition, and, if yes, how can we demarcate it?

It was my initial hypothesis that the existence of a normative tradition is both warranted and demarcated by apostolic authority. I also presumed that apostolic authority on the one hand meant an authentic representation and embodiment of the tradition received from Jesus; on the other hand, it meant a legitimacy for authoritatively defining this tradition. If this latter hypothesis is true, apostolic authority was both ministerial authority (submitted to the earliest tradition given by Jesus) and magisterial authority (the only legitimate definition of this tradition) at the same time.

The goal of my doctoral thesis was to test these hypotheses in order to achieve a deeper understanding of the dynamics between apostolic authority and the earliest tradition of the church.

TynBull 70:2 (2019) p. 318

2. Research Methodology

My research is primarily historical and, because I approach history through texts, exegetical.

I divided the subject into three parts. First, I researched the origin of the concept of apostle (including the research histrory of the subject), whether it is warranted to speak of a uniform apostle concept in the New Testament, and if it is possible to demarcate a narrower circle of authoritative apostles.

The second part of the thesis is about tradition. It focuses on two challenges to the traditional view that understood apostolic preaching as a reliable bridge connecting the tradition handed over by Jesus and that preserved by the Fathers. The first challenge is the Bauer hypothesis on the plurality of tradition (and the revisions of Koester, Dunn, and others); the other is Formgeschichte, originally developed by Bultmann and Dibelius. After examining both challenges, I make a claim that there existed an authoritative tradition which was inseparably connected to apostolic authority.

In the third part I focus on this authority. After giving an overview of the research history on apostolic authority, I explore the existence of authoritative apostles who could warrant the emergence of a normative tradition out of...