Date: Sun, 05 Apr 1998 22:57:46 -0500 From: Jack Kilmon To: "William E. Arnal" Cc: "Crosstalk (list)" Subject: Re: Original GThomas William E. Arnal wrote: >=20 > On Fri, 3 Apr 1998, Jack Kilmon wrote: >=20 > > I have raised this issue before and was glad to see it > > raised again. It is my opinion that as a *literate* culture, we > > tend to overlook or fail to fully grasp the mechanisms or *oral* > > cultures of the ANE. Where some of the mnemonic devices come > > through in these texts, even in translation from their original > > languages, we tend to apply a literate analysis. Our capabilities > > for oral transmission is vestigial at best in the same analogy as > > the loss of our appendix, tailbone, or limbic structures. We would > > probably be surprised to find that orally transmitted material > > was more accurately original to the source than written > > transmission. It has been, and is still my suspicion that > > a better understanding of the mechanisms and devices of oral > > transmission would lead to a better understanding of Thomas > > and Q and their relationships to the gospels. The gospels > > represent the "literalization" of oral material. In some > > respects, I suspect that when that rubicon was crossed, accuracy > > fell victim to diversion and scribal variation. >=20 > 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? =09The difference would be the percentage of the population that is literate and has available written material. In 1st century Palestine the majority of the population was illiterate nor were there public libraries or newspapers for information dissemination. The literacy of modern society and the invention of the printing press changed all that. On the other hand, I have lived with cultures that are purely oral in information dissemination. Can one move from one realm to the other by > crossing the street? =09When orally transmitted traditions are committed to writing, yes. This rubicon, at one time, was crossed with many of the traditions in both the Tanakh and the NT. 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. =09This is true, but you can be sure that while written Thomas was being passed around among the literate members of the "Thomas Society" the oral form was in wider use among the larger illiterate adherants. We only have two exemplars of written Thomas, the Greek fragments of POxy and the Nag Hammadi texts, yet already there is variation between these only two exemplars. The point is, however, that Thomas was closer to its oral source than the synoptics and in many cases, the first stratum Thomas material is considered closer to the original forms than the synoptic parallels. This tells me that the orally transmitted material was closer to the actual spoken vorlage of Jesus than the multiple copied material in the synoptics. So the oral > tradents of these TEXTS lived in a non-oral culture, it > would seem. Right? Or, if we only escape orality when > writing is widespread, then the Christian texts are oral > products until the early modern period! =09No, I am saying that there were two separate tradition transmission spheres in the early first millennium...oral and written. Only the written traditions come down to us leaving the larger sphere of oral tradition lost. Although the written tradition had its birth through the setting down of the oral tradition, it was then subject to a higher degree of variation and error from that point on. Textual criticism is founded on the attempts to sort out those scribal variations and errors to get to the earliest tradition. If we had a tape recording of the oralism behind the textual stemma, TCers would be in heaven. > 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. =09Durn it Bill, you just cost me $30.00. Now I'll be holed up on the couch for the next 5 hours or so. 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. =09Lemme read da book and I'll get back atcha. > 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. =09Yepper, and SONG was one of the devices of oral transmission. CVan you just as easily recite the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner? Jack --=20 D=92man dith laych idneh d=92nishMA nishMA Jack Kilmon (jpman@accesscomm.net) =20 =20 =20 http://scriptorium.accesscomm.net