snapchamp

Are the quotes in the bible supposed to be correct? What I mean is, do people actually think they are correct?

No one on here will remember a quote I say verbatum 3 weeks from now, let alone 3-10 decades from now.........

People always say Jesus said this, Jesus said that...yet it is widely accepted no one who authored the bible was even Jesus personally-right? So, how can they claim this?

If someone says, Jesus said "blah blah blah" can you just say it's impossible to know what he really said........

Dogen

I think the new testament probably retains some of his parables, oracles, and teachings. But you're right it is impossible to know what he said and what he didn't.

Doc Cabbage

We no longer rely upon oral communication for the transmission of important information. If we look at cultures that did (the Celts, for example), we find some amazing stories of memory. Look how long many of the songs sung by bards were. Some Muslims memorize the Quran.

It is not unlikely for information to be able to be reliably transmitted orally. Today we have far too much input to stay with one thought for very long, and we don't exercise our memories like some other cultures did.

snapchamp

As far as I'm concerned, these are very poor examples. EVeryone can memorize a song for obvious reasons. People try to memorize songs all of the time-in a way that is the point of them-good beat and rhythm and a catchy hook so it's familiar.

Muslims memorizing the Koran is easy in a way. Everything they need to memorize is right there WRITTEN out for them. It may take a long time, but it's like memorizing any other text, even a play-hard work and memory skill.

But, some obscure quotations from a mimimum of 30 years after the words were uttered, are hardly analogous to what you posted. Ever play a "simple" game of telephone?? That's oral tradition passed down at it's finest! Inaccurate to the fullest extent.....

Tigers!

If you say nothing worth remembering then that is probably true.
The fact that some say the quotes are not true is not of it'self proof that they are not true. The burden of proof is on the accuser.

snapchamp

Very wrong. If I say I can fly, the burden of proof is on me, period. If you deny that is true, the burden of proof is not on you-geez!!

Biff the unclean

Personally I don't think that a historic Jesus ever existed. However Doc C is correct, there were whole professions whose duty it was to commit vast amounts of information to memory. With the Celts this type of bard was called a Shanachie. I'm in my 60's but when I was a boy in Ireland there were still shanachies making the rounds.

Tigers!

I meant to say proposer rather than accuser. My bad.

NonHomogenized

Ever looked at those lists of "facts" that get passed around the internet as if true? Even though, at one's fingertips, there are a dozen different ways to falsify it, people still believe them. Lists of quotes that get misattributed or flat out incorrect, supposed facts about coca-cola, all kinds of stuff.

Do you really think that, over decades of oral traditions, they worried about who (that they never met, and only heard about from their teacher, who had never met them...) said exactly what or when?

snapchamp

I think this thread got a little bit off track...let's use Occam's Razor here-

Is it more likely that people chanted Jesus' sayings verbatum in order to remember them, or is it more likely that the author's used sayings that seemed to best fit what he might say?