How Accurate are the "Oral Traditions" in the Bible
It is common for Christian apologists to claim oral stories were accurately passed from person to person and generation to generation and then accurately recorded. These written accounts of what was passed along orally became the Bible. This claim that oral traditions pass along information accurately has little or no historical substance.
The stories of the virgin birth, resurrection, healing, walking on water and all the rest were we must assume stories told around camp fires. No one who wrote the Bible claimed he saw any of the stuff attributed to Jesus.
What about God? Moses claimed to have see the talked to God. Jesus made the same claim. Neither of these wrote the Bible--although some claim without evidence that Moses wrote some of it.
Then the people who Moses was supposed to have led out of Egypt stayed alive for years because God dropped bread out of the sky. No doubt this story was repeated from generation to generation. I don't see how any literate person can believe this is history. Religion? Yes.
There is an ancient parlor game that illustrates how the accuracy of the "oral tradition." Several people stand in a circle. The first person writes a message or word on a paper and whispers it to the first person. That person whispers it to the next and around the circle. At the end the final person tells the message out loud. Invariable it has little in common with the original message.
As the link explains, someone who writes information from oral history is not a historian. The more oral history is used to guide government the more damage it is. It is best to leave religious oral history to inside religion, not to influence government.
Jon; Your "ancient parlor game" is a piss poor example of comparison to the repetition of the same oral text and content. For example; The Apostles Creed need not ever be read, but after hearing it, and reciting it over and over, generation after generation, the content and wording would not and has not changed, with the exception of translation to another language, or more modern English, but the content would remain the same. The Lord's Prayer is another example. So is the Christmas story, same is the Easter story. Bonfire or not. The written versions are but a couple or three generations removed from the event. I remember my Grandfather telling me the Easter story as a very little child. It is the same today as when I first heard it. I need not have read it.
ReplyDeleteThis "parlor game" is another repeat.
"it is best to leave religious oral history to inside religion, not to influence government." If we don't use it to influence government, (and we don't), you would still piss and moan.
And I told my grandson when he was little the same story my Grandfather told me. If I live long enough, I will tell my great grandchild the same story, (all orally). I'm also sure my Great Grand father told my Grandfather the same story That's six to seven generations told orally, and the story remained the same. Well past the time of the event and the the written word.
ReplyDeleteWe have a very reliable custom, (tradition, small t); established 500 years ago; "As the head of the family should teach them in a simple way to his / her household". Obviously a 3-4 yr. old has not yet learned to read , but they do learn from the oral tradition. They tend to remember the oral better than the written.
DeleteWhen our children were that age or even younger, I'd read stories before bed time. For example, Like the Three bears. One said this bed is too hard, the next was too soft, and the other was just right". For the fun of it to see if they were listening, I 'd say "This bed has cracker crumbs in it, the next had bed bugs, and the last was just fine. Even at that young age, they would say; "no daddy, that's not the way it goes. read it right" Just a couple years ago, at Christmas dinner, our daughter age 55 reminded me of those games. They remembered the right story, and the made up one they heard when they were three yr. old. Thinking back, even at that young age, they were learning to learn critically.
of course skeptics like Jon would like to think that oral traditions, Biblical ones in particular, have been garbled, intentionally altered or even spun out of "thin air". as far I know, however, many anthropologists believe that primitive peoples went to great lengths to preserve tribal myths via strict memorization. in fact some people who study such things claim to have found contemporary examples of tribal elders in remote places who have memorized and can repeat hoary tribal legends. as I recall, Plato had something to say on this point in the Timaeus.
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