Latest Gospel scholarship supports the reliability of the oral tradition!

by yaddayadda 33 Replies latest watchtower bible

• 

  Terry

  RELIABILITY OF THE ORAL TRADITION...

  Conduct this experiment. Ask ANYbody what Watergate was all about. Ask for details. That should disprove this theory.

  More was written and spoken about Watergate than almost any other event before 9/11. However, you'll find the controversy split opinion and drove those uninterested into ignoring the whole thing.

  You'll have three types of responses.

  1.Detailed with wrong facts

  2.Sketchy with no facts

  3.Complete ignorance

  This is the usual transmission of any important event.
• 

  hamsterbait

  This all sounds impressive and convincing, if you only accept the four Gospels the early Church had finally approved by the 3rd century.

  Look at all the other gospels which also are based on eye witness testimony and memorized by uneducated men.

  Of course the testimony is reliable in one that Jesus drew a woman out of his side and had sex with her in front of his disciples - the writer says the disciples saw it. Just which oral tradition is a reliable account of what happened? Non- literary cultures also accurately memorize their fairy stories and other myths.

  The simple fact that story tellers in oral cultures can recite accurately what they memorized is not proof that the stories are true.

  HB
• 

  Terry

  In my own lifetime I've observed how the nature of public figures becomes the public domain's possession to enhance and distort at will.

  John F.Kennedy and Ronald Reagan are two public figures whose "legacy" has been shaped by the way in which they've been contextualized by ideologues who wish to use them to prove political points.

  Highly visible personages are most useful as icons for the politically savvy promoter. Truth becomes moot.

  What do we know about such characters as Wyatt Earp, George Armstrong Custer or Mother Theresa which hasn't been bent and shaped into iconography?

  The actual person is lost in the storytelling and the viewpoint of whatever latest version is told.

  I'd challenge each person reading my words to think about stories within their very own family told about some Uncle or famous relative. Then, do actual research online into who/what that person was. Invariably the story will be debunked.

  I've witnessed this on more occasions in various families than I could recount to you. War heros turn out to be liars, famous leader become also-rans and one is left wondering if everything we've ever been told isn't colored by a lie.

  Fact checking is a sobering pursuit!

  Jackie Kennedy and Princess Diana have been sainted. Any investigation of their private lives quickly disabuses any claims to such hyperbole.

  Mother Theresa herself is quite a discovery. I invite you to do a bit of digging on what she was actually like in real life.
• 

  hamsterbait

  Mother Theresa is a discovery?

  COME COME Terry - you cannot tantalize us with tidbits.

  Dish it to us, Man!!

  HB
• 

  frankiespeakin

  Even if oral tradition is reliable, the nature of the miracles recorded in the gospels definitely raises suspicion as to there acuracy, seeing how these miracles nolonger occur, and that in ancient times it seems that miracles were attributed to many individuals that we know are not true.

  Surely a God that demands beleif for salvation would provide more substancial proof than a ancient document, if he were a god of love and reasonableness, and people everlasting welfare are hanging in the balance of beleif in said miracles.
• 

  veradico

  Leolaia, thanks! I'll stick around. I think you provide a very valid example of one of the ways these authors interacted with their tradition (the exegetical) and adapted the way they expressed their tradition to fit their beliefs. Some of the so-called fulfilled prophecies in the NT are similar. For example, it's just as hard to believe that Ps. 69:25 and 109:8 were prophecies about Judas and Matthias (Acts 1:12-26)) as it is to believe that the prophecies of Isaiah, Daniel, Revelation, etc. are fulfilled in the history of the Jehovah's Witnesses. The question of miracles has been raised by frankiespeakin. I have to agree. I don't know whether miracles can occur or not, but they are by definition unlikely events. Thus, since history has to do with determining what is most likely to have occured in the past, the faithful can hardly be upset with those of us who, in talking about history, are sceptical of accounts of miracles.
• 

  Leolaia

  I know Bauckham compares the gospel narratives to Hellenistic historiographies based on eyewitness testimony, and I look forward to reading his analysis, but I hope he will address the issue of intertextuality because this is an area where they really part company (raising the age-old question of literary genre). Josephus, for instance, may appropriate the language of Daniel 9 in a few places to portray the events of AD 63-70 as a fulfillment of the "seventy weeks," but otherwise his account in Bellum Judaicum contains little material that is adapted from the OT. The gospel narratives otoh evidence a high relative proportion of intertextuality at the level of both plot and details. In terms of genre, they often seem closer to haggadaic narratives that interpret and reuse OT material. As far as miracle narratives are concerned, I am also reminded of parallels in the literature of the period. The healing stories concerning Emperor Vespasian (dated to his accession year in AD 69) related by Tacitus (Historia 4.81) and Suetonius (Vespasian 8.7) have the same "shallow" time depth attributed by Bauckham to the canonical gospels (i.e. 36 years for Tacitus and 50 years for Suetonius) and were written by historiographers who had much opportunity and motive to consult eyewitnesses. These stories also are strikingly similar to healing stories in the gospels, particularly the one in Mark 7. Or one could cite Josephus' own eyewitness account of a demon exorcised by a certain Eliezer overturning a water basin (Antiquities 8.2.5). Or one could observe the healing and miracle narratives concerning the third and fourth generations of tannaim (c. AD 130-160 and 160-200, respectively) in the Mishnah (c. AD 200), including stories of demon exorcisms (b. Me'ilah 17) and resurrections (b. 'Abodah Zarah 10b), again displaying similar time depths as the NT gospels.
• 

  yaddayadda

  Leolaia, you will probably be disappointed by Bauckham’s book if you are expecting him to have analysed all these alleged 'intertextual' relationships between the gospels and other ancient documents. This is obviously a pet method for you (its an understandable mindest for a person schooled for so many years in the academic method of having to support everything they say by referring to something else similar), but it is problematic as a proper way of treating the gospels on a number of fronts, only a few of which I'll touch on below.
  
  For instance, most, if not all, of the examples you given are later than the gospels, some much later, particularly “the third and fourth generations of tannaim (c. AD 130-160 and 160-200, respectively) in the Mishnah (c. AD 200), including stories of demon exorcisms ( b. Me'ilah 17 ) and resurrections ( b. 'Abodah Zarah 10b ), again displaying similar time depths as the NT gospels.”
  
  This is anachronism; they are not appropriate as reliable comparisons for measuring the gospels against. They are broadly in the same boat as the Gnostic gospels, all written long after the canon gospels (with the exception perhaps of the gospel of Thomas) and they all contain a lot of what is clearly fiction.
  
  As for this: “The healing stories concerning Emperor Vespasian (dated to his accession year in AD 69) related by Tacitus ( Historia 4.81 ) and Suetonius ( Vespasian 8.7 ) have the same "shallow" time depth attributed by Bauckham to the canonical gospels (i.e. 36 years for Tacitus and 50 years for Suetonius ) and were written by historiographers who had much opportunity and motive to consult eyewitnesses.“ The difference with Emperor Vespasian of course is that he was a pagan, and the pagans had no inhibitions about deifying and mythologizing their heroes, such as Roman emperors. The pagan world was rife with this kind of thing, but the early first century Jewish world had contempt for this practice. The hundreds of earliest disciples who knew Jesus were all Jews, and the Jewish mindset was against this kind of wholesale mythologizing and deifying of humans. This is one of the reasons why it is so remarkable that Christianity got a foothold in early first century Jewish Society; it is why many scholars find it incredulous to believe that Jesus was simply some kind of wise teacher – he must have done much more than just utter a few wise sayings to have such a profound impact on so many Jews.
  
  The other significant difference is that the apostles and other early Jewish disciples acted as a controlling influence on the messages about Jesus. The Jerusalem church particularly had a dominant role and authoritative influence. The apostles, particularly Paul, emphasized that the congregations were following the traditions as handed on to them. Fidelity to the apostolic tradition was stressed. There is not the slightest hint of anything new being created or tolerated. In fact, following strange new teachings and pagan ideas was roundly condemned. Congregations authorized teachers also, as noted in a number of places in Paul’s letters. Unless you can show that the examples you've furnished did in fact originate from actual eyewitnesses (as opposed to being mere 'urban legends' from the start), were repeated by employing deliberate memorization techniques, and were constantly repeated in group settings, thus establishing a corporate accountability to the fidelity of the tradition, then they are clearly not in the same ballpark as the gospels.
  
  It is inconceivable that a young Jewish Rabbi with a few new, pithy teachings could have been so rapidly mythologised within one Jewish generation, within religious groups where there was a strong emphasize on truth, where so many original Jewish eyewitnesses circulated for so many years. It is especially bizarre given that pretty much the majority of the content of the gospels is about miracles. If you take away all the miracles from them you are left with practically nothing. This kind of radical mythologizing takes many generations to occur, and it is only then that it becomes folklore. The gospels were written within a single generation.
  
  Dismissing the gospels as nothing more than rehashed OT intertextualisations is a tempting notion, but it doesn't square with the facts.
  
  I'm sure you'll find Bauckham's book fascinating and no doubt highly provocative.
• 

  kid-A

  Its remarkable reading this thread. Every poster replying to the original "cut and paste" article from this "evangelist scholar" responded with clarity, dignity and respect.

  Ironically, our resident "christian apologist", yaddayadda, chose to respond to every single poster with snarky, arrogant insults and back-handed put-downs rather than engage in a meaningful debate or show the slightest amount of respect to other posters interested in a rational debate based upon conflicting opinions or scholarly literature.

  You may delude yourself as much as you wish yaddayadda about the so-called historical veracity of your jesus myths, ignoring anyone and everyone whose opionions conflict with your cherished fantasies about historical "truth"; nobody really cares about the insular and circular reasoning of some snarky little pseudo-scholar, pr*ck.

  But know this: your snarky, arrogant and obnoxious disposition is the ANTITHESIS of "christ-like" humility, dignity and kindness.
• 

  Terry

  The other significant difference is that the apostles and other early Jewish disciples acted as a controlling influence on the messages about Jesus. The Jerusalem church particularly had a dominant role and authoritative influence. The apostles, particularly Paul, emphasized that the congregations were following the traditions as handed on to them. Fidelity to the apostolic tradition was stressed. There is not the slightest hint of anything new being created or tolerated. In fact, following strange new teachings and pagan ideas was roundly condemned.

  Paul vis a vis the Jerusalem church is a study in something "new" being created/tolerated and the following of strange new teachings and pagan ideas!

  To accept the theology of Paul you have to accept that his superficial "meeting" with Jesus trumps Apostolic one-on-one facetime. There is actually very little of Jesus per se in Paul's writing, and yet, he is explicting like crazy the "meaning" of Jesus in terms of Jewish Theology.

  To accept Paul takes a lot of ignoring the contradictions between what was and what was about to be.

  Paul is to Jesus what conspiracy theorists were to Lee Harvey Oswald; forever including/excluding him in fantastical scenarios.

  By the time Constantine arrived on the scene you could not categorically state exactly what "Christianity" was in any singular description. It was a mirage always on the horizon. The more you approach; the more elusive it becomes and this only heightens the longing.