Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Kapyong · 02-24-2012, 03:06 AM

Gday,

Quote:

Originally Posted by judge

Well if there was one then it has been extremely successful.

Tell us judge - what were the last words of Jesus on the cross?

Kapyong

Net2004 · 02-24-2012, 05:03 AM

Quote:

people can recite the koran verbatim.

THe muslim apologetic in defense of the koran is that the book was recited five times a day and cover to cover every ramadan and this practice of recitation is going all the way back to the prophet. the other muslim apologetic argument is that islam had political power and proclaimed its message openly without fear of being persecuted.

with the koran you don't actually see variant readings like you see in the gospels

for example mary m was told by an angel where jesus' body was located and then she runs off to tell peter that she doesn't know who stole jesus' body and where they had laid him.

Vorkosigan · 02-24-2012, 05:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Net2004

...that she doesn't know who stole jesus' body and where they had laid him.

C'mon. Jesus never got laid. Everyone knows that.

judge · 02-24-2012, 05:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kapyong

Gday,

Quote:

Originally Posted by judge

Well if there was one then it has been extremely successful.

Tell us judge - what were the last words of Jesus on the cross?

Kapyong

Who cares?
I can understand an inerrantist might, but why do you care?
Are you afraid you might have to become a christian if they have some point or other?
Thats what it seems like

PhilosopherJay · 02-24-2012, 06:32 AM

Hi LegionOnomaMoi,

Thank you for this. I was wondering what the Parry-Lord cultists were up to nowadays. I remember when studying the Parry-Lord oral culture hypothesis that it was so absurdly expounded that the 1960's television series "Batman" contained every element that it defined as belonging to an oral culture.

As I recall, I wondered how such a poorly presented theory could obtain scientific accreditation in the 20th century. I believe I traced it back to Lord's desire to support the Nazi's Aryan super race theory, which was popular among certain upper-class academics in the 1930's.

In any case, it now seems to be a hodgepodge of diverse ideas held together only by the worship of Parry and Lord.

Warmly,

Jay Raskin

Quote:

Originally Posted by LegionOnomaMoi

Quote:

Originally Posted by PhilosopherJay

Hi All,

Some people in another tread are seriously bringing up the absurd and irrational notion that Jesus' words were preserved in oral transmission.

Anyone who believes this should cite their evidence that a single message the size of a bible verse could be communicated accurately among even 100 people in a single community over one single hour, let only hundreds of messages across hundreds of diverse communities by tens of thousands of people over 30-50 years.

Please cite one scientific experiment that has even shown the possibility of such a thing.

We know it's possible; it's done today. There are places where children are taught to memorize the whole of the koran. Of course, this is different, as there is a stable literary version. But most of the research on oral tradition (after the early folklorists and then the oral-formulaic model of Perry & Lord) comes from Anthropological research. Ruth Finnegan, in her book Oral Poetry (Indiana University Press, 1992, revised edition) reports the work of Andrzejewski & Lewis on the creation and transmission of somali poetry, and quotes their study at some length. Here's an excerpt: "A poem passes from mouth to mouth. Between a young Somali who listens today to a poem composed fifty years ago, five hundred miles away, and its first audience there is a long chain of reciters who passed it one to another. It is only natural that some distortion occurs, but comparison of different versions of the same poem usually shows a high degree of fidelity to the original." And that's poetery. Finnegan also discusses the same fidelity in transmission for certain types of Hawaiin poetry, quoting Beckwith's study which demonstrated how "exact transmission" was "secured by group composition." J. Vasina's Oral Tradition as History is devoted to this very question (to what extent, and when, does oral tradtion compare in its rigidity to textual transmission, and how reliable can it be as a source of historical information?). He notes that, for example, dynastic history was preserved faithfully (at least in comparison with the independent versions of the same stories by two different countries) in Rwanda and Somalia. There's an open access peer-reviewed journal Oral Tradition available here: http://journal.oraltradition.org/issues
There are several articles on the oral Jesus tradition.

LegionOnomaMoi · 02-24-2012, 08:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PhilosopherJay

Hi LegionOnomaMoi,

Thank you for this. I was wondering what the Parry-Lord cultists were up to nowadays.

The oral-formulaic model (parry-lord) is outdated, both in orality studies in general and in NT studies. It was important for it's time, and is still used in Homeric studies, but as far as oral tradition itself is concerned, the use of this approach to any and all oral cultures and most texts from oral cultures is over. They just provided a starting point to explain how lengthy epics could be "memorized": they weren't.

outhouse · 02-24-2012, 09:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kapyong

Gday all,

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

I don't think this happened:

Yup.

But one would expect that if Jesus really told his followers how to pray by teaching them the Lord's Prayer, then it would have been remembered or recorded pretty well.

Instead we get several different versions in the Gospels, another version in the Didakhe, and a mish-mash of variants in the Gospel MSS.

Seems pretty strong evidence that Jesus did NOT teach any such prayer at all.

Kapyong

exactly what you would expect from a roman version of what jesus taught.

Its my opinion romans were jesus enemy, and what we are left with is jeuss enemies version of his teachings, its amazing we have any glimpse of the man himself

AtheistGamer · 02-24-2012, 09:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by outhouse

Deuteronomy 6:4-9 reveals to us how important oral instruction and memory of divine teaching was stressed in Jewish culture.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Deuteronomy 6:4-9

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.a 5Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. 7Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

That's a pretty far cry from "I command you to memorize whole books of the bible word for word to perfection".

Quote:

It is a well-known fact that the rabbis had the O.T. and much of the oral law committed to memory. The Jews placed a high value on memorizing whatever writing reflected inspired Scripture and the wisdom of God.

:wave: Every schoolboy knows fallacy. Google it. The article is commiting it.

Quote:

I studied under a Greek professor who had the Gospels memorized word perfect.

The article provides no evidence of this professor at all. And even if he could recite entire books of the bible, try doing that without a written version.

Quote:

In a culture where this was practiced, memorization skills were far advanced compared to ours today. New Testament scholar Darrell Bock states that the Jewish culture was "a culture of memory."

Darrell Bock is an evangelical inerrantist who works at a Dallas Seminary. I love it when apologetics cite other apologists to support their claims. It's just one big circle of citations going nowhere.

outhouse · 02-24-2012, 09:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AtheistGamer

Quote:

Originally Posted by outhouse

Deuteronomy 6:4-9 reveals to us how important oral instruction and memory of divine teaching was stressed in Jewish culture.

That's a pretty far cry from "I command you to memorize whole books of the bible word for word to perfection".

:wave: Every schoolboy knows fallacy. Google it. The article is commiting it.

The article provides no evidence of this professor at all. And even if he could recite entire books of the bible, try doing that without a written version.

Quote:

In a culture where this was practiced, memorization skills were far advanced compared to ours today. New Testament scholar Darrell Bock states that the Jewish culture was "a culture of memory."

Darrell Bock is an evangelical inerrantist who works at a Dallas Seminary. I love it when apologetics cite other apologists to support their claims. It's just one big circle of citations going nowhere.

There is no question of how well ancient cultures used oral tradition.

Not sure where your going with this.

AtheistGamer · 02-24-2012, 10:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by outhouse

There is no question of how well ancient cultures used oral tradition.

Agian you are simply commiting an "Every schoolboy knows" fallacy. If there is no question about it then you should be able to present a mountain of evidence in favor of it that I cannot deny. Please do so.

Quote:

Not sure where your going with this.

I'm refuting the article that you linked to and it's claims. It's called debate. It's now your turn to fire back.

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