judge

The biggest insight into what the gospels pretend to be is given quite plainly in Luke.

Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, 2 just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. 3 With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you,

Not from an eyewitness, and one of many accounts going around.

judge

Yes, there wasn't one homogenous oral tradition, that flowed into the gospels. But why would one expect that in the light of the claims?

Yes there are variant versions

You are going beyond the evidence to argue this. If we are going to argue against apologists then we might as well stick to what the evidence can tell us rather than grinding our own axes.

Unless you want to provide evidence?

judge

I dont' know, and I'm not sure there are any hard core oral traditionalists in this thread!
The OP seems to claim that there are such people on this forum, but never identifies them. they havn't shown up as far as I can see.
Yet, we have a few people confronting them, even though they aren't there!

Its a little unclear though as the OP says....
I suppose it depends what "accurate" means.

Adam

Many here have opposed you in general, but some points above need specific refutation.
The gospels are clear that Jesus's disciples were in hiding at this time, except for some women, John, and the author of the Passion Narrative. Besides, Oral Tradition should not be understood as a dictagraph machine that records every word. Conscious intent had to be present that specific words or messages were to be preserved.Was specific intent present for specific words. The usual sermon states that this is a model for prayer, not a rote prayer. But Oral Tradition is itself a presumption. The different versions could be different disciples remembrance of perhaps different occasions where Jesus said something like this. Or one written account in Hebrew Q could have gone two directions when translated into Greek. The early portions of Q were written in Hebrew or Aramaic, and this Lord's Prayer was not from the sections that were first composed in Greek.
Many of the differences you question are real differences, but question only the accuracy of oral tradition, not that it occurs and is evidence for what happened.
I don't believe in the Oral Tradition myself as regards the gospels. See my thread Gospel Eyewitnesses in which I present seven named eyewitnesses who wrote records about Jesus.
http://www.freeratio.org/showthread.php?t=306983

Zaphod

The idea of an "oral tradition" having any kind of verisimilitude to actual events is completely ridiculous. And remember, volumes have been written parsing out nuances of meaning from single words preserved in texts!

Here is a little test of the theory. The Gospel of Thomas proclaims itself as an accurate testimony of the words of the living Jesus, presumably from a single witness who reported to the scribe within days of hearing Jesus in the flesh:


Here is approximately 1/10 - only one tenth! - of the Gospel. And this excerpt contains memorable stories - much of Thomas is a sing-song drone of mystical ironies. So, this is a best-case exercise. Imagine you are the witness to someone speaking this excerpt. Listen to someone reading it to you once. Wait two days, then please recite it to the best of your abilities ( LOL ):



It seems obvious to me, and I think it should be obvious to any honest participant, that "oral tradition" can play no role in the construction of the Bible. Whoever wrote the tracts that we now analyze wrote them at their own pleasure not as any kind of documentary process.

Once something is written down, it can be memorized and then repeated orally, sure. So what? The Bible was written by interested parties for their own ends - could it be any more obvious?

DCHindley

I am not sure how this thread has got to 75 or so posts without getting to specific theories and books on the subject.

For those who are interested, here is a selection of books relevant to NT research on Oral tradition, from Lee Edgar Tyler, Juris Dilevko, and John Miles Foley, “Annotated Bibliography.” Oral Tradition, 1:767-808. 1986. (Takes Foley’s original bibliography to 1983, with annotations), and from Crosstalk2 posts and Amazon reviews:

Olrik 1909 (CP)
Axel Olrik. "Epische Gesetze der Volksdichtung." Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum, 51:1-12. Trans. Jeanne P. Steager in The Study of Folklore. Ed. Alan Dundes. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1965. pp. 129-41.
A basic study setting out many of Olrik's famous laws of structure in oral folk-narrative in many different traditions. Repetition is tied to laws of three, four, two to a scene, contrast, initial and final position, and concentration on a leading character. Stresses the consistency of occurrence of these patterns.

M. Parry 1928a (AG)
Milman Parry L'Epithète traditionnelle dans Homère: Essai sur un problème de style homérique. Paris: Société Editrice "Les Belles Lettres." Trans. by Adam Parry as "The Traditional Epithet in Homer" in The Making of Homeric Verse: The Collected Papers of Milman Parry. Ed. Adam Parry. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971. pp. 1-190.
*One of the two requisite theses for the doctorate degree at the University of Paris. Casting aside the contemporary Analyst-Unitarian debate over one or many Homers, and proceeding with the aid of then current linguistic studies (e.g., Duntzer 1864, 1872 and Ellendt 1861), he broaches and painstakingly illustrates his theory of a traditional diction that evolved over hundreds of years of verse-making. First defines the formula as "an expression regularly used, under the same metrical conditions, to express an essential idea" (MHV, p. 13) and posits the substitutable phrase he names the formulaic system. Also discusses generic and ornamental epithets, the process of analogy in the creation of formulas, thrift in formulaic style, the problem of originality and predetermination, and the use of epithets in poems composed in nontraditional style. His rigorous methodology involves a great many examples. This essay marks the foundation of oral-formulaic theory, although at this point (in 1928) Parry does not make the connection between traditional structure and orality.

M. Parry 1928b (AG)
Milman Parry. Les Formules et la métrique d'Homère. Paris: Société Editrice "Les Belles Lettres," 1928. Trans. by Adam Parry as "Homeric Formulas and Homeric Metre" in The Making of Homeric Verse: The Collected Papers of Milman Parry. Ed. Adam Parry. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971. pp. 191-239.
The second of the doctoral theses traces certain metrical irregularities in Homeric verse to the juxtaposition of and morphological change within formulas. Argues that the traditional style, consisting as it did of epitomized phrases with limits on their variability, could present the poet with a choice between imperfect expression of his ideas or a metrical flaw effected by the compositional technique itself. In this way the tradition sanctioned occasional cases of hiatus and overlengthening and preserved the minor infelicities as part of the formulaic technique.

Bultmann 1957 (BI, CP)
Rudolf Bultmann. Die Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition. Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen Testaments. Neue Folge, 12. Heft. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1957. Trans. by John Marsh as The History of the Synoptic Tradition. Oxford and New York: Basil Blackwell and Harper.
*A methodologically pre-Parry study of oral tradition in Gospel materials. Interested in recovering the synoptic tradition that preceded and gave shape to the gospels, he describes a number of laws or tendencies of oral composition and transmission (espec. pp. 307-43, trans.) reminiscent of some of Olrik's laws of folk narrative. Conceives of tradition as the inevitable complication and growth of smaller to larger units. Sees no incongruity between oral and written media, and so postulates a smooth transition from oral tradition to written text.

Lord 1960 (AG, SC, OE, OF, BG, CP, TH)
Albert B. Lord. The Singer of Tales. Harvard Studies in Comparative Literature, 24. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Rpt. New York: Atheneum, 1968 et seq. Rpt. Harvard University Press, 1981.
*The major work in the field of oral-formulaic theory and oral literature research, from which approximately 80% of the works cited in this bibliography directly derive. Its influence has been felt in dozens of literatures (see the area index to this volume). The general method is to illustrate by analogy the presence of oral traditional structures in ancient and medieval poetry from traditions that no longer survive: working from the firsthand experience of SC oral epic, he demonstrates analogous patterns in Homeric epic, Old English verse, Old French chanson de geste, and the Byzantine Greek Digenis Akritas. After a brief introduction, he describes the learning process through which a SC guslar passes in the appropriation of his craft_first the stage of listening, then the boy's initial attempts at singing, and finally the more mature singer's skilled performance of a repertoire of songs with a degree of individual control over ornamentation and development to suit the circumstances of the given situation. In Chapter 3 ("The Formula," pp. 30-67), he uses Parry's original concept of the tectonics of phraseology to illustrate the morphology of diction in SC epic, adding such factors as syntactic balance and sound patterns, in an effort to show how "the poetic grammar of oral epic is and must be based on the formula" (p. 65). The fourth chapter is devoted to a study of theme and its multiformity, the building block of traditional song at the level of narrative. Explains how this unit "exists at one and the same time in and for itself and for the whole song" (p. 94), discussing such issues as narrative pattern, verbal correspondence, variation, and inconsistencies. Chapter 5, "Songs and the Song," treats the notion of multiformity on the level of the whole poetic work; he confronts the problem of "variant" versus "source" by explicating the traditional dynamic behind the composition of each performance-text: "Each performance is the specific song, and at the same time it is the generic song. The song we are listening to is `the song'; for each performance is more than a performance; it is a re-creation." (p. 101). In the sixth chapter he examines the different sorts of encounters possible between writing and oral tradition, emphasizing the mutual exclusivity of the fixed text and oral composition. In the last four chapters the principles developed to this point are applied to study of the AG, OE, OF, and BG traditions, illustrating the inherent explanatory power of oral-formulaic theory in reading some of our most important ancient and medieval texts. From the last part of the book emerges the relative significance of the traditional nature of oral epic: "Oral tells us `how,' but traditional tells us `what,' and even more, `of what kind' and `of what force.' When we know how a song is built, we know that its building blocks must be of great age. For it is of the necessary nature of tradition that it seek and maintain stability, that it preserve itself. And this tenacity springs neither from perverseness, nor from an abstract principle of absolute art, but from a desperately compelling conviction that what the tradition is preserving is the very means of attaining life and happiness. The traditional oral epic singer is not an artist; he is a seer." (p. 220).

Gerhardsson 1961 (HB, BI)
Birger Gerhardsson. Memory and Manuscript: Oral Tradition and Written Transmission in Rabbinic Judaism and Early Christianity. Acta Seminarii Neotestamentici Upsaliensis, 22. Lund: C.K. Gleerup, 1961.
*Proposes the memorization of a fixed and consequent oral rote transmission by disciples in connection with the rabbinic schools and the New Testament. Describes memorization followed by interpretation as a major pedagogical principle throughout history. The process involved elements arranged associatively to facilitate remembering, an ancient method of ordering oral traditional materials. Written notes were sometimes used to aid in learning texts, as was the practice of recitation with a rhythmical melody. Jacob Neusner's forward to the 1998 reprint of this book apologizes for his scathingly negative review of the initial edition.

Kenneth Bailey. _Poet and Peasant: A Literary Cultural Approach to the Parables in Luke_ Eerdmans, 1976.
*"Gives … an in-depth look at how Bailey formulates his views on scripture. He goes into how scripture passages are analyzed where the first verse or verses are essentially repeated in concept if not in the exact words in a later section of scripture in a structured manner. This assists the Bible student to better understand concepts and the thought process of the author. It is really "dry" at times and you will visualize yourself back in a literature course studying the poetic rhyme schemes of ancient Greek literature. To have an idea what Bailey is talking about in this and other books you need this information as a basis. At the same time, he really gives the reader a glimpse of the 1st Century AD culture and how it affects the interpretation of the parables. He also addresses how other academics analyze sections of the Bible. Bailey often refers back to this book in his analysis of scripture in his other writings." Review of 1983 combined edition by "Jim" http://www.amazon.com/Poet-Peasant-T...R3DA3RD3KCD4JR (see below)

Lord 1978a (BI, SC, AG, BY, CP)
Albert B. Lord. "The Gospels as Oral Traditional Literature" in The Relationships among the Gospels: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue. Ed. William O. Walker, Jr. San Antonio: Trinity University Press. pp. 33-91.
*Applies oral methodology to the gospels, locating generic life-patterns of a mythic nature common to oral texts. Also discusses each gospel as a traditional multiform and undertakes a comparative analysis of traditional motifs and verbal correspondence among the Matthew, Mark, and Luke texts.

Gerhardsson 1979 (BI)
Birger Gerhardsson. [Evangeliernas förhistoria] The Origins of the Gospel Tradition. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1979.
*Considers the problem of the origins and history of the tradition from the time of Jesus to the appearance of the written texts, with a discussion of the oral aspects of the Torah tradition.

Kelber 1980 (BI)
Werner H. Kelber. "Mark and Oral Tradition," Semeia, 16:7-55.
*Although fully acknowledging a pre-Markan synoptic oral tradition, he takes as his central thesis that "the gospel is to be perceived not as the natural outcome of oral developments, but as a critical alternative to the powers of orality" (46). Thus he disagrees with Bultmann's (1957) hypothesis of a smooth, organic transition from orality to writing and posits instead a shift from collectivity to individual authorship and a "crisis" of oral transmission brought on by the retreat of Jesus' oral presence into a necessarily textual history. Notes the oral traditional features of Mark's gospel (formulaic and thematic patterning, variants with other gospels, modulation in the order of events with relation to other sources) and the fact that Mark's chirographic enterprise went on in a milieu that included a contemporary synoptic oral tradition. An imaginative and stimulating article that takes account of current research on oral literature.

Kenneth Bailey. Through peasant eyes: More Lucan parables, their culture and style Eerdmans, 1980
*"[A]nalyzes in detail parables in Luke (The Two Debtors 7:36-50, The Fox, the Funeral, and the Furrow 9:57-62, The Good Samaritan 10:25-37, The Rich Fool 12:13-21, Pilate, the Tower, and the Fig Tree 13:1-9, The Great Banquet 14:15-24, The Obedient Servant 17:7-10, The Judge and the Widow 18:1-8, The Pharisee and the Tax Collector 18:9-14, and The Camel and the Needle 18:18-30)." Review by "Jim" (see above).

Kelber 1983 (BI)
Werner H. Kelber. The Oral and the Written Gospel: The Hermeneutics of Speaking and Writing in the Synoptic Tradition, Mark, Paul, and Q. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1983.
*Continuing along paths blazed by Ong outside the field of Biblical studies, he aims to illustrate the importance of the oral roots of Biblical texts and to liberate those texts from the cultural bias toward the authority of print: "We treat words primarily as records in need of interpretation, neglecting all too often a rather different hermeneutic, deeply rooted in biblical language that proclaims words as an act inviting participation" (p. xvi). Chapter 1 ("The Pre-Canonical Synoptic Transmission," pp. 1-43) reviews the theories of Bultmann and Gerhardsson and seeks to integrate the contemporary oral literature research of Parry and Lord, Ong, and others; it is concerned with establishing the phenomenology of speaking. Further chapters treat the oral legacy and textuality of Mark and Paul. Argues that "the decisive break in the synoptic tradition did thus not come, as Bultmann thought, with Easter, but when the written medium took full control, transforming Jesus the speaker of kingdom parables into the parable of the kingdom of God" (p. 220). Contains a sizable bibliography of oral literature studies and apposite Biblical research (pp. 227-47).

Kenneth Bailey. Poet and Peasant and Through Peasant Eyes: A Literary-Cultural Approach to the Parables in Luke Eerdmans, 1983
*Combined edition of Poet and Peasant and Through Peasant Eyes.

Jacob Neusner. The Memorized Torah: The Mnemonic System of the Mishna (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1985).
*Clearly describes what he takes to be the mnemonic techniques used to transmit the oral sources for the Mishna prior to it being written down.

Jacob Neusner. Oral tradition in Judaism: the case of the Mishna (Albert Bates Lord studies in oral tradition; vol 1, New York: Garland Pub., 1987.)
*This was not listed in the annotated bibliography

Kenneth E. Bailey. "Informal Controlled Oral Tradition and the Synoptic Gospels." Asia Journal of Theology 5(1):1991:34-54.
*Bailey writes, "To remember the words and deeds of Jesus of Nazareth was to affirm their unique identity. The stories had to be told and controlled or everything that made them who they were was lost." Ted Weeden summarizes the theory thus: " Bailey contends, on the basis of the biography of John Hogg, written by his daughter, Rena Hogg, in 1914, that the stories Bailey heard recited in the *hafalat samar* in the 50's and 60's were the same Hogg stories that Rena Hogg recounted about her father when she visited the Hogg-founded communities in 1910 seeking material to write her father's biography. From Bailey's comparison of the stories and the dynamics of control on the way the oral tradition was recited in the *hafalat samar* Bailey attended, he concluded that these oral societies had from their beginning employed a methodology which Bailey labeled as "informal controlled oral tradition," as the means by which those oral societies sought to assure the historical accuracy of the recitation of their oral tradition and its authentic and faithful transmission from generation to generation. Bailey then extrapolated from that conclusion the premise that this oral methodology historically was employed by all oral societies of the Middles East from generation to generation to preserve the historical authenticity of their oral traditions. Bailey then extends this premise to the earliest Palestinian Christian communities and posits that they must have employed that same methodology in the attempt to preserve accurately the authentic historical tradition about Jesus. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/crosstalk2/message/18406 )

I admit I havent read them all, but I have read Kelber, Gerhardsson, Neusner, Olrik and Bailey's journal article. Could someone here at least cite some specific ideas from one or more of these authors instead of making wide generalizations?

DCH

outhouse

I have generalized trying to get the doubters to realize how prevelant oral tradition was and without it, we would not have any gospels or epistles.

I have followed Vasina, but there thread hasnt reached a level to discuss specifics as most dont understand the cultural anthropology of the time period to begin.


One thing I am putting some time in that hasnt been devoted, is to cross cultural oral tradition. Its a proccess in which the traditions will change to meet a new cultures needs. Simular to how Mesoptamian legends were passed down into a hebrew culture and reworked. Much the same way these jewish christ traditions passed to roman versions. because of these cultural changes many want to claim fiction and fraud when its nothing more then cultural redaction.

DCHindley

You were referring to Jan Vansina, Oral Tradition as History. Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press (latest English edition 2006/1st English Translation 1965, French original 1961).
*"This book is still considered to be the bible when it comes to the study of oral tradition. It covers the full spectrum of research into this subject matter. This book is well researched, well written, and is very thought provoking. If you study oral literature this book would be an ideal addition to your library. Just make sure you get the revised 1985 edition. I think if you read it along with Ruth Finnegan's book Oral Poetry, and Alber[t] Lord's The Singer Of tales you will learn a great deal about this fascinating topic." http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/269349918

I wasn't aware of it and it looks very interesting. I will have to order a copy. Still, for being a "classic," it is not even mentioned in Lee Edgar Tyler's original Annotated Bibliography up to 1983. Tyler included one work of Vansina in his extension of the annotated bibliography to 1985:

Vansina 1971 (AF)
Jan Vansina. “Once Upon a Time: Oral Traditions as History in Africa.” Daedalus, 100:442-68. Part One describes forms of oral historical account and the transmission of written and oral records; Part Two discusses problems in translating material from the oral tradition into written texts; and Part Three describes uses of the African oral tradition for historians.

The problem with theories of oral transmission is that many times they are genre specific. I was surprised myself to learn that oral works fall into genres. Epic poetry like Homer's Illiad and Odyssy has characteristics quite different than whatever processes were involved in transmitting the 130 years of oral interpretation of Jewish law that crystallized in the Mishna ca. 200 CE.

Have you looked into books on Syncretism?

Syncretism "... is the combining of different (often contradictory) beliefs, often while melding practices of various schools of thought. Syncretism may involve the merger and analogising of several originally discrete traditions, especially in the theology and mythology of religion, thus asserting an underlying unity and allowing for an inclusive approach to other faiths. ...

Religious syncretism exhibits blending of two or more religious belief systems into a new system, or the incorporation into a religious tradition of beliefs from unrelated traditions. This can occur for many reasons, and the latter scenario happens quite commonly in areas where multiple religious traditions exist in proximity and function actively in the culture, or when a culture is conquered, and the conquerors bring their religious beliefs with them, but do not succeed in entirely eradicating the old beliefs or, especially, practices.

Religions may have syncretic elements to their beliefs or history, but adherents of so-labeled systems often frown on applying the label, especially adherents who belong to "revealed" religious systems, such as the Abrahamic religions, or any system that exhibits an exclusivist approach. Such adherents sometimes see syncretism as a betrayal of their pure truth. By this reasoning, adding an incompatible belief corrupts the original religion, rendering it no longer true. Indeed, critics of a specific syncretistic trend may sometimes use the word "syncretism" as a disparaging epithet, as a charge implying that those who seek to incorporate a new view, belief, or practice into a religious system actually distort the original faith. Non-exclusivist systems of belief, on the other hand, may feel quite free to incorporate other traditions into their own. Others state that the term syncretism is an elusive one. [1] And can be applied to refer to substitution or modification of the central elements of Christianity or Islam, beliefs or practices introduced from somewhere else. The consequences under this definition, according to Keith Fernando, is a fatal compromise of the religions integrity.

In modern secular society, religious innovators sometimes create new religions syncretically as a mechanism to reduce inter-religious tension and enmity, often with the effect of offending the original religions in question. Such religions, however, do maintain some appeal to a less exclusivist audience."

IMHO, it is this synthesis of divergent cultural ideas, transmitted both orally and in writing, that best explains how we got the Christianity we have all come to love/hate.

DCH

Vorkosigan

I have Finnegan's Oral Literature in Africa, which is excellent.

GMark is not based on oral lit; that is wishful thinking. The writer of Mark followed the then-pattern of discovering Jesus' activities in the Old Testament.

Vorkosigan

PhilosopherJay

Hi DCHindley,

Thanks for this list.

In looking over the articles in Oral Tradition magazine, what strikes me is the dialectical contradiction of the original ideas of Milman Parry and Albert Lord over the last couple of decades.

Their ideas were founded on a rigid distinction between pre-writing "oral" cultures and post writing cultures. Thus they alleged that they could distinguish certain formulaic patterns like the repeated epitaph of "Swift-footed Achilles" that signified oral composition in Homer in a pre-writing culture.

In the latest articles, this rigid distinction between pre-writing and post writing cultures seems to have been abolished, as well as the concept that there are any formulaic elements that apply universally to any oral culture.

This is doubtless a good thing as the repeated reference to "the Dynamic Duo," "the Amazing Spiderman," "The Dark Knight" or "The Man of Steel" would suggest that the 1930's was an age of oral composition in the United States.

The collapse of pre and post writing cultural distinctions is so complete in the field that even Bob Dylan, who composes by writing down every song in a society with 100% literacy, is referred to as a poet who carries on oral traditions and uses oral traditions in his composition.

The erasure of this distinction would suggest that there was never a time of non-writing transmission of Jesus material and never a time when the written material was not being orally transmitted and changed.

One might note in one of the few times that the Gospels suggest that a story is being told orally, the oral story is questioned and found untrue. This is in Matthew 28:

It is interesting that this story proposes that Jews paid Romans to lie and then the Jews spread false stories. It suggests that a community might spread an entirely false, made-up tradition that never happened rather than a true one.

Likewise, the reliability of oral communications of traditions gets discredited in Mark 14:

Warmly,

Jay Raskin