Traditons, has the meaning been hijacked

"Tradition"as Paul wrote in
1 Corinthians 11:2, Galatians 1:14,
[URL='https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2 Thessalonians+2:15&version=NASB']2 Thessalonians 2:15[/URL]
and 3:6 was not "church" tradition; but actually Jewish tradition. As he said to the rabbis in Acts 28, he kept the Law and the "customs of the fathers;" meaning the Jewish sages.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Galatians+1:14&version=NIV

Dave-W said:

"Tradition"as Paul wrote in
1 Corinthians 11:2, Galatians 1:14,
2 Thessalonians 2:15
and 3:6 was not "church" tradition; but actually Jewish tradition. As he said to the rabbis in Acts 28, he kept the Law and the "customs of the fathers;" meaning the Jewish sages.

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Did the early Christians adopt new traditions to distinguish themselves from Jewish tradition, to assimilate more with pagans (maybe to help convert them by hijacking pagan traditions, or for other reasons?

The word (tradition or traditions) has to be distinguished from the term Tradition, which is the Catholic and Orthodox alternative to Sola Scriptura.

The word tradition, uncapitalized, refers to longstanding customs of men. But if it is capitalized, and especially if it is termed Holy Tradition or Sacred Tradition, it means a church theory about some doctrine(s) that is not based on God's Word in Scripture but, rather, upon an allegedly continuous and universal belief that just happened to be held by the Church throughout the ages.

Such a belief is deemed to be another divine revelation (besides the Bible, that is) and equal to Scripture in authority. The reference to "Tradition" in the Original Post here seems to be about this second use of the term.

The oft-quoted verse from Thessalonians that Dave-W cited in post #2, however, is referring to the first meaning I identified here.

Tradition I think is something majorly misunderstood, because of the mindset of our current society which tries to undermine or get rid of it. What people think tradition means is holding on to something outdated for no particular reason other than it's the way things have always been done. But that's very far from how it really is. Tradition in the Christian or Catholic sense means maintaining something that is good and true, in order to protect it from being distorted or misconstrued. Jesus revealed the truth to his disciples including the apostles at a point in history, which means that the truth was the most fresh and undistorted at that point in time. But it had to be guarded and protected from being altered, otherwise we would see something like a game of telephone where each person whispers what they heard to another and at the end you have something completely changed from what it originally was supposed to be.

There's a mindset today that we have to constantly seek progress, which does have value but needs clarification. Progress isn't really progress unless it's actually better than what you had before. We can have progress in terms of technology, we can make things that work better, run more smoothly than before. But in terms of Christianity? We can't improve upon the original teachings of Christ. We can clarify them, explain them. But we can't say that what Christ taught us wasn't the truth and that something else is more true or better. And because of the nature of time and how messages end up changed or distorted, we can't understand those teachings better on our own than we can through the guidance of tradition, which aims to preserve and tell us how the teachings were originally understood by the apostles.

Porpoise said:

Tradition I think is something majorly misunderstood, because of the mindset of our current society which tries to undermine or get rid of it. What people think tradition means is holding on to something outdated for no particular reason other than it's the way things have always been done. But that's very far from how it really is. Tradition in the Christian or Catholic sense means maintaining something that is good and true, in order to protect it from being distorted or misconstrued.

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Perhaps that could be part of the picture, but Tradition determines essential doctrine in the Catholic denominations, which is to say doctrine that is not covered by the Bible.

It is, therefore, at odds with the Protestant view that the Bible is the ultimate determiner of essential doctrine and that there is nothing else that is its equal.

Albion said:

The word (tradition or traditions) has to be distinguished from the term Tradition, which is the Catholic and Orthodox alternative to Sola Scriptura.

The word tradition, uncapitalized, refers to longstanding customs of men. But if it is capitalized, and especially if it is termed Holy Tradition or Sacred Tradition, it means a church theory about some doctrine(s) that is not based on God's Word in Scripture but, rather, upon an allegedly continuous and universal belief that just happened to be held by the Church throughout the ages.

Such a belief is deemed to be another divine revelation

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I find that use of capitalization a bit incongruous since the Greek had no capital or lower case letters.

But i find it interesting since Jewish tradition was believed to also be divine revelation given on Sinai and transmitted orally from Moses to Joshua and eventually to the men of the Great Assembly about the time of Ezra and Nehemiah. This was known in the first century as the customs of the fathers.

Chris V++ said:

Did the early Christians adopt new traditions to distinguish themselves from Jewish tradition, to assimilate more with pagans (maybe to help convert them by hijacking pagan traditions, or for other reasons?

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In the 2nd century a fighter came up known as Bar Kochba and fought a war to kick Rome out of the Holy Land in 134-5. Rome won and forcibly removed the Jews from Jerusalem and the entire province of Judea, renaming it Palestina and repopulating it with Arabic people from several different places. A harsh persecution came down on all things Jewish and what looked Jewish to them. So the early church distanced itself from Jewish tradition and started new traditions to avoid persecution.

Dave-W said:

I find that use of capitalization a bit incongruous since the Greek had no capital or lower case letters.

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If looked at in that way. But this is the way that the opposing sides word things in our everyday doctrinal debates. The Catholic side naturally wants to make their theory look important by capitalizing Holy Tradition and to make it appear different from ordinary traditions.

There's a wikipedia article here on "Sacred Tradition".

Sacred tradition - Wikipedia

To find out what Catholics believe, there's a link here to the Archdiocese of Brisbane (which is the one I'm in). There's a drop down menu for each topic.

Teachings of the Catholic Church - Archdiocese of Brisbane

The Catholic belief is that "Scripture" and "Tradition" work together, with the church claiming it has the authority to interpret Scripture, so that we understand clearly what it actually means.

Apparently at one time, Queen Victoria may have donated a Bible to an Afghan (or East African) chief, when the Brits still claimed Afghanistan as part of their umpire (famous last words). Supposedly she said it was "The secret of England's greatness".

'The Secret of England's Greatness' (Queen Victoria presenting a Bible in the Audience Chamber at Windsor) - National Portrait Gallery

GK Chesterton, journalist and Catholic apologist of that era (and writer of the Father Brown stories), mused that he could hardly think of anything more confusing for an Afghan chieftan than to be given a book of ancient Semitic folklore and to be told "that it was the secret of England's greatness".

The painting doesn't show an Afghan, and in any case it was imaginery. But if my memory serves me correctly Chesterton used an "Afghan chieftan" in his essay.

Real episode or not, an Afghan (or East African) chieftan would have needed informed guidance to even begin to understand it.

Bob Crowley said:

The Catholic belief is that "Scripture" and "Tradition" work together,...

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That's true--to a certain degree. To be more accurate, what the Church claims is that Scripture is part of Tradition, thereby making it be no different than the various legends and opinions of church officials that have been turned into "must believe" dogma.