“Without having seen [Jesus Christ] you love him; though you do not now see him you believe in him” (1 Pt 1:8). The Letter of Peter testifies that most Christians are not able to have a direct encounter with Jesus in the flesh. There is someone who transmits the message, who heard the voice which was in turn transmitted from heaven, saying: “This is my beloved Son” (2 Pt 1:17), and who was an eyewitness of the majesty of Jesus (2 Pt 1:16). Thus arises the dynamism of tradition: what happened has been handed on to us (in Latin tradere), reaching us from witness to witness down through history. And what is it that has been handed on? How was it transmitted? How are we sure about the fidelity of this process?

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