Date: Sun, 05 Apr 1998 16:35:52 -0700 From: Bob Schacht To: "William E. Arnal" Cc: "Crosstalk (list)" Subject: Re: Original GThomas At 11:15 AM 4/5/98 -0400, William E. Arnal wrote: >...I have to say, Jack, with apologies, that I find this >traditional understanding of oral transmission to be utterly >perverse. There are SO many problems with it. What, for >instance, is the difference between an oral culture and a >scribal culture? Can one move from one realm to the other by >crossing the street? Because, you see, Thomas and Q, as well >as the gospels, are WRITTEN documents. Which means that >whatever their basis in oral tradition, there was a desire >among their tradents to commit them to writing; and there >WAS writing, and people available to do this. So the oral >tradents of these TEXTS lived in a non-oral culture, it >would seem. Right? Wrong-o. The mere presence of writing in a culture does not make it literate in any meaningful sense. To say that a culture is an X culture usually means that X is, in some sense, normative. However, that said, Jews were and are, as the Moslems say, a "People of the Book", so to say that they were an illiterate culture would hardly be appropriate! One of the interesting things about Jewish culture is that it was SIMULTANEOUSLY literate and oral-- that is, their scriptural traditions were transmitted and circulated orally as much as in written form, and these different forms were not always isomorphic. I think that is what Jack was trying to get at. >Or, if we only escape orality when >writing is widespread, then the Christian texts are oral >products until the early modern period! This is probably more true than we usually think! > Crossan's new book (which, by the way, I'm quite >enjoying) spends a good bit of time dealing with the >question of orality, and anyone who is interested in this >topic should probably read the book. One of the things that >comes out of the book is that it is a SCRIBAL orientation >that generates concern about verbatim accuracy in the first >place. Oral performance of traditional materials tends to be >regarded as accurate to the extent that it is masterful. It >is only once we have a fixed text, that there is an exemplar >to memorize in teh first place. There are two problems with this: First, Scribal concern with verbatim accuracy does not mean that their concern *resulted* in verbatim accuracy. Performance would vary as one moved farther away from the orbit of such scribes, e.g. to rural areas where scribes interested in verbatim accuracy would have a harder time making a living. Second, verbatim accuracy assumes a canonical standard against which to measure accuracy. From Josephus, we know that even the Temple had to keep three sets of the Hebrew scriptures, and when it came time for a reading, all three would be compared so that the oral performance would reflect a consensus of the available authoritative texts. Not every rural synagogue could afford this luxury. > And by the way, living in a VERY literate culture >myself, I know ALL the lyrics to all of Led Zepplin's songs, >as well as their locations on the respective albums. Epic >memorization is a function of cultural immersion, not >orality as such. But how accurate is your knowledge? Let's say we do a survey of Zep heads, and get them to write down the lyrics to several typical Zep tunes, and compare what they wrote. How much "verbatim accuracy" would you expect? Besides, I'll bet you do not have to undergo the scrutiny of other Zep heads by reciting those words in public Zep gatherings, and you will probably (let us hope) not instruct any offspring (cats don't count) in Zep teachings with much care for verbatim accuracy. But I could be wrong. ;-) Bob ************** Bob Schacht Diocese of AZ Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est. (Where charity and love are [found], God is there) 9th century latin hymn