Vorkosigan

The desperate struggle to assign an obviously literary element to oral tradition...

aa5874

It is now exposed that the criterion of "double dissimilarity" is "cracker jack".

But, guess who uses the flawed criterion? Bart Ehrman.

rlogan

Generally these "historicity" arguments require ignoring the obvious reasons for the text passeges in question. For example, you see the criterion of embarassment used as "proof" Jesus must have been sacrificed in this ghastly manner. Why, who would make up such an embarassing thing about God on Earth?

At the same time you have Christian apologists claiming prophecy fulfillment (Isaiah) for the suffering and dying on the cross. This prophecy fulfillment is the entire basis for his credentials as the savior, so it proves how illegitimate the so-called criterion of embarassment is - you have to ignore the very reason for the text passages being there in the first place.

The criterion of multiple attestation is ludicrous in the case of Jesus arising from the dead, since that is impossible. But here again, the whole concept arises from Hebrew Bible quote-mining, and you have to ignore that in order to apply the illegitimate criterion of multiple attestation.

The disservice done by these illegitimate tactics is two-fold: it places us in the wrong century, and also muddies up the understanding of Christian theology. These are synergistic errors because if you are in the wrong century (and also in the wrong location) then it impairs the ability to understand context and therefore motivation.

Adam

I'd better quit while I'm ahead. Next he'll be dumping flying elephants on me. How can I argue against that?

spin

First you need to learn to argue based on evidence. Then to deal with the evidence of someone else's argument. It won't matter if there are flying fortresses. It always comes down to mustering viable evidence around a functional argument. When you get to that stage, you'll become your own worst critic and know what's wrong with your own arguments. As things stand, all you've got is...

:tombstone:

(a dead theory)


[hr=1]100[/hr]
Over and Outta here

hjalti

Yes. And might I add that any refutations of his seven-layer thesis will be refuted by asserting (without any arguments) the existence of the eighth layer.

arnoldo

The argument that the gospel accounts were based on oral traditions is somewhat related to the criteria of “Social Memory.*” For example, in Africa there allegedly exists the social memory that Mark, who wrote the gMark, was born in Africa. IIRC, this hypothesis presents that Mark and his family were Libyan jews who when persecuted fled to Israel. The Apostle Peter eventually married a relative of Mark leading to Mark and Peter developing close ties. Additionally, Mark’s mother played an early role in the development of the Christian church by providing the “upper room” in which Jesus and the disciples met. Due to Mark’s knowledge of Latin, Greek, and Aramaic (growing up in a family that participated in trade with people who spoke these languages) Mark eventually was able to write and translate the gMark into these three languages. This hypothesis of the social memory of Mark in Africa is developed in greater detail in The African Memory of Mark: Reassessing Early Church Tradition (or via: amazon.co.uk)by Thomas Oden.

*The criteria of social memory does appear to be supported by at least one of the participants in the book/conference mentioned in the OP (see: Structuring Early Christian Memory: Jesus in Tradition, Performance and Text (or via: amazon.co.uk) by Rafael Rodriguez) .

aa5874

Well, something is wrong with the criteria of "Social Memory" because gMark did NOT contain anything about the "upper room".

It was the FORGED INTERPOLATED gMark the contains a story where the Resurrected Fiction Jesus Commissioned the disciples to preach the Gospel.

In the Earliest gMark, the body of Jesus VANISHED and the Visitors to the Empty Tomb told No-one that Jesus was resurrected--- that was the End of the story. See the Short-Ending gMark which ends at Mark 16.8.

rlogan

Asserting the existence of an oral tradition in the absence of testimony regarding an oral tradition is more likely a "just so" story, and where I see it applied is in explaining the absence of first-century evidence on Christianity.

There is a developing science on oral traditions, with a lot of technical stuff on oral-formulaic theory, etc. I don't see any of this being applied to an alleged Christian oral history, and you run into fatal problems immediately.

If you look at Mark it starts off self-proclaiming itself as the beginning of the word, and he references written, not oral, genesis to the word: the Hebrew Scriptures. So we have direct testimony on the written origin, and an absence of testimony on an oral tradition.

The Pauline letters are a written genesis of the Marcionite word, and masquerade as a pre-existing written tradition - again without reference to any oral history. They both arose in societies with writing, in contrast to oral traditions which arise in societies without writing.

In known oral histories you have a saga or rhyme or whatever that is subsequently written down. The epistles are not candidates for such a thing whereas the gospels are. But they tell us directly they are extensions of previous written word so you are really out on a limb with the assertion of an oral history.

The original ending of Mark is also fatal to the oral history thesis because Mark explains why there is no pre-existing oral history: the women leave the cave and tell no-one because they are afraid. Why is Mark directly explaining the absence of an oral history if one actually exists at that time?

arnoldo

The “upper room” is mentioned in Mark 14:14, Luke 22:12 and again in Acts 1:13. African memory holds that this upper room belonged to Mark’s mother. Regarding possible revisions to the gMark, Thomas C. Oden (previously cited in post #87) writes the following;