R
Oral tradition had its place before the Books of Moses, the Prophets, and the Writings were compiled to be our Old Testament. Granted, it was compiled by the faithful among men, but the actual work is Yahweh's work.
It only takes reading the first lines of Genesis to know what oral tradition in the line of men who remembered the Father contributed to the writings, with the Holy Spirit guiding these holy men.
It only takes reading the first lines of Genesis to know what oral tradition in the line of men who remembered the Father contributed to the writings, with the Holy Spirit guiding these holy men.
for example...genesis 5:1..."This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day when God created man, He made him in the likeness of God."
to go into more detail...we know from archaeological excavations of an archive in the ancient city of ebla that the semitic word 'toledoth'...which in english bibles is translated as 'generations' or 'account'...was used to identify records written on cuneiform tablets by author or primary subject...
so i think it is very likely that when the bible uses a phrase like 'these are the generations of noah'...what we are getting is a quotation from a text written by noah...
the first thirty-six chapters of genesis can be explained in this way...so that only the rest need have any oral tradition behind it...