THE TRANSMISSION OF BIBLICAL-TEXTUAL TRADITIONS FROM ANCIENT JUDAISM TO THE CONTEMPORARY CHURCH

Recently, the historical and religious context in which biblical traditions emerged has drawn scholarly attention. The formation and history of biblical traditions show that there have been different contexts in the transmission of the traditions and the text of the Bible. This research attempts to analyse how non-biblical as well as biblical traditions and the text were preserved, copied, edited, annotated, updated, and translated, be they firmly established, archaeologically verified, or literarily attested to. But the question remains: how accurately were the biblical and textual traditions passed to the next generation? The focus of this research is fundamentally to understand the historical and sociological conditions, more so, the institution in which the text of the Hebrew Bible became an authoritative tradition; that is, holy scripture and the canon of Judaism as well as Christianity, and how several components of the New Testament text have been adopted by the church. The research uses historical-critical analysis to investigate the mode of transmitting biblical and textual traditions from the ancient traditional context to the modern world. The finding reveals that biblical and textual traditions emanated from oral tradition as well as written tradition, preserved orally and documented. Also, there has been a transformation in biblical traditions from ancient Judaism due to different contexts to the modern church in Africa. The work states that biblical-textual traditions were circulated in a variety of textual vehicles and were continually reworked in transmission and reinterpretation as people used them. These aspects of the traditions are correctly handled and available, and they also affected how authority was asserted. That means biblical traditions, canonicity, and authoritative status developed through contested reception, translation, transmission, and local use rather than uniform procedure. With this, the church can rework its history in line with the God-human history; otherwise, the church misses its earthly purpose of existence.