"With many such parables He [Jesus] spoke the Word to them." --Mark 4:33
Looks like not all the parables are recorded.
"He began to teach them many things." --Mark 6:34
We're not told what these "many things" are.
"I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now." --John 16:12
Once again, we're never told what these things are. Perhaps these "many things " were the teachings alluded to in the opening of Acts, but even then, very limited information is given.
"Now, Jesus did many other things in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book." --John 20:30
"But there are also many other things which Jesus did; were they all to be written down, I suppose the world itself could not contain all the books that would be written." --John 21:25
These verses seem to really kill the notion of seeing the Bible alone as sufficient for understanding all of God's teachings.
Many times over, in every Gospel, Jesus is mentioned as teaching, preaching, or otherwise explaining the Word to all who were listening, without the Bible saying what, exactly, Jesus was teaching. Far more times, Jesus is healing, staying in Jerico, in the synagogues, or doing something else where He could very likely be teaching, but as usual, what He taught isn't recorded.
Even where He is teaching, nowhere does it say that the words that were written down were the only things He taught! It's very logical that He taught more than is recorded, for if a crowd of people has traveled to hear Him speak, they will obviously want to hear more than a couple parables; who travels to a concert, hears 1 good song, and the concert ends?
Clearly, not everything that Jesus taught is recorded in the pages of the Bible. It's very likely that He taught about such issues as purgatory, Mary's sinlessness, the papicy, and other controversial subjects; after all, if not all of His teachings are in the Bible, then saying "Nowhere in the Bible does it say that" doesn't hold as much weight as Sola Scriptura beievers would like to believe.
I didn't make this thread with the intention of debating individual issues, such as purgatory & Mary's sinlessness; rather, I would just like explanations as to how Sola Scriptura is logical, when Scripture itself admits that not all of Christ's teachings are in the Bible.
While I certainly would never dispute with you that the Bible Alone does not contain the entire revelation of God, that does not, in itself, vouch for the divine provenance of Christian traditions that are very ancient and don't come from the Bible. That something is ancient but not in the Bible does not mean that the Church has faithfully preserved it as an oral tradition from Jesus and the Apostles. The Church could have also made it up.
Also, that some people insist that something is not in the Bible because they don't see it (or refuse to), doesn't mean that it isn't. Example: Purgatory is clearly, explicitly and repeatedly in the Bible EVEN THOUGH Protestant, Orthodox and Catholic theologians and traditions say that it is not.
Finally, just because God said to do something is in the Bible does not mean that it is a good model for mankind. God commanded the Israelites to enter the Promised Land and carry out a complete genocide of every man, woman, child and domesticated animal - an utter extermination of the people living there. This path is, of course, an utter crime against humanity. The Almighty had his reasons, to be sure, but there is nothing about the Canaanite genocide described in the book of Joshua that is a good example for any human being since that time, in any tribe, including the latter day Jews.
Simply read and applied directly, without the filter of human reason, human experience and human kindness, and the Bible - particularly the parts around Joshua - is a blueprint for Hitlerian-scale evil with a specificity in it that exceeds that of the bad parts of the Koran.
So yes, you are correct, the Bible Alone is not the proper basis for anything. But the Church does not provide a watertight foundation for everything the Church thought up either. All that wasn't inspired by God. That the Church had the right to burn people alive for heresy led to the infamous crime of the Church, through a properly constituted ecclesial tribunal under the auspices of the local bishop, torturing and then burning to death a saint of God, the messenger St. Joan of Arc, in Rouen marketplace.
Unfortunately, Christians have made claims of power FROM the book, and NOT from the book, that have authorized them to torture saints, conquer countries, and execute dissidents - all justified by Bible and Tradition, and yet evil to the core.
Essentially, as a man, you have to have the presence of mind, the common sense of the world, and perhaps the connection to the mind of God, to know that the Book and the Tradition and the Pope and the Faith itself must all be overruled and disregarded, set to the side, if the logic of the Book, the Tradition, the Pope and the Faith itself lead you to kill somebody else to silence that other person, or to pay for some crime against the Church.
The Churches - Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox - have all teased that authority out of Bible and Tradition and Faith - and in doing so have left behind reason and left us direct examples that the Bible is not enough, nor is the Church and its Traditions and Authority, nor are men relying on their own interpretations.
In the end, if you're killing people over Christianity, you're evil no matter what Bible, Church and your own conscience tell you.
