Date: Sun, 05 Apr 1998 21:45:44 -0500 From: Jack Kilmon To: "William E. Arnal" Cc: Bob Schacht , "Crosstalk (list)" Subject: Re: Original GThomas William E. Arnal wrote: >=20 > On Sun, 5 Apr 1998, Bob Schacht wrote: >=20 > > 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 tha= t > > they were an illiterate culture would hardly be appropriate! One of th= e > > interesting things about Jewish culture is that it was SIMULTANEOUSLY > > literate and oral-- that is, their scriptural traditions were transmitt= ed > > and circulated orally as much as in written form, and these different f= orms > > were not always isomorphic. I think that is what Jack was trying to get= at. >=20 > Just my point. And Crossan's, for that matter. There are > oral cultures, and then there are oral & written cultures. > There are not -- or at least so far there has never been -- > a purely written culture.=20 =09I think the modern western world comes very close to being a purely written culture. I have lived with tribes in the deep jungles of New Guinea who were what I would call a purely oral culture. Although it is true that Jewish culture of the ANE was steeped in the "book" the majority of the population was illiterate but not ignorant of the scriptures which they passed orally. =09One of my points was that we would probably be surprised that oral transmission in Jewish society could have been more accurate in transmission than written transmission. =09Another point was that as a society that depends on the written word, we have lost our appreciation and much of our abilities for oral transmission. I often detect a prejudice toward the literate in discussions of GThomas, the Synoptics, etc where surviving mnemonic formulae are approached in study as literary devices rather than oral devices. Such things as rhyming,=20 alliteration, meter, acrostics, etc are viewed through literary prisms. =09To summarize, I think our studies and discussions of GThom, Q, Synoptics, etc would be more enriched and more revealing..producing new paradigms..if we had a better grasp on the mechanics of oral transmission in 1st century Palestine. Let me give an example of how sayings of Jesus may have been delivered by him in such a manner as to be orally transmitted. Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. =09Well..fortunately it is kind of short and not too hard to remember by itself, but in context with the rest of the "beatitudes" (if they were historically delivered together) it would be hard to remember. MAKARIOI OI PTWXOI TW PNEUMATI OTI AUTWN ESTIN H BASILEIA TWN OURANWN No way I'd remember that one! =09But in Aramaic...and I'm going to phoneticize rather than transliterate: toobiHAWN l'meesknaYAAA dedeeliHAWN maKOOtha dishmaYAAAAAA =09Now we have a 2-4 beat rhyming meter...essentially a "song" `It's like someone saying "Roses are red, violets are blue; ya better be good or da devil git you!" =09But look at what WRITTEN tradition has done to this pericope with the "Today's English Version" having "Happy are those who know they are spiritually poor" Yikes! See my point? Jack --=20 D=92man dith laych idneh d=92nishMA nishMA Jack Kilmon (jpman@accesscomm.net) =20 =20 =20 http://scriptorium.accesscomm.net