Jesus Studies Historiography

[outhouse]

given the texts were almost certainly redacted many times over a couple of centuries or more.

Rhetoric

The short ending of Mark was more then likely preserved pretty closely to its original form.

[MrMacSon]

Modern scholars have concluded that the Canonical Gospels went through four stages in their formation:

• 1. The first stage was oral, and included various stories about Jesus such as healing the sick, or debating with opponents, as well as parables and teachings.
  2. In the second stage, the oral traditions began to be written down[by whom?] in collections (collections of miracles, collections of sayings, etc.), while the oral traditions continued to circulate
  3. In the third stage, early Christians began combining the written collections and oral traditions into what might be called "proto-gospels" – hence Luke's reference to the existence of "many" earlier narratives about Jesus
  4. In the fourth stage, the authors of our four Gospels drew on these proto-gospels, collections, and still-circulating oral traditions to produce the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.[1]

It's likely

• 3b. In the third stage, early Christians began combining the written collections and oral traditions into what might be called "proto-gospels" [with conflation and redaction of ideas]
  4b. In the fourth stage, the authors of our four Gospels drew on these proto-gospels, collections, and still-circulating oral traditions to produce the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John as if they were about a specific characters.

[outhouse]

It's likely

Your talking about the compilation stage. They were still writing the book. A book needs to be finished before it can be redacted.


Mark as written before the ending was added, is probably very very close to the original compilation.

[cienfuegos]

Modern scholars have concluded that the Canonical Gospels went through four stages in their formation:

• 1. The first stage was oral, and included various stories about Jesus such as healing the sick, or debating with opponents, as well as parables and teachings.
  2. In the second stage, the oral traditions began to be written down[by whom?] in collections (collections of miracles, collections of sayings, etc.), while the oral traditions continued to circulate
  3. In the third stage, early Christians began combining the written collections and oral traditions into what might be called "proto-gospels" – hence Luke's reference to the existence of "many" earlier narratives about Jesus
  4. In the fourth stage, the authors of our four Gospels drew on these proto-gospels, collections, and still-circulating oral traditions to produce the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.[1]

It's likely

• 3b. In the third stage, early Christians began combining the written collections and oral traditions into what might be called "proto-gospels" [with conflation and redaction of ideas]
  4b. In the fourth stage, the authors of our four Gospels drew on these proto-gospels, collections, and still-circulating oral traditions to produce the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John as if they were about a specific characters.

What oral traditions do you think existed? What was the mechanism for transmitting stories about Jesus over time? Is it possible that Mark wrote the first Gospel from a) the suffering servant motif, b) Paul's celestial Jesus, c) Josephus' Jewish Wars, d) scripture as his primary sources with no oral tradition at all?

[MrMacSon]

Your talking about the compilation stage. They were still writing the book. A book needs to be finished before it can be redacted.

They were writing components of the book - gospels.

The gospels were compiled into a book.

Redaction, conflation & editing likely occurred at both stages.

[outhouse]

What oral traditions do you think existed?

What do you think did not exist in a illiterate society that could recite the OT verbatim.

A lot of Mark would contain oral traditions, and if I guessed I would be no better then those I ask for credible sources from.


I think the wiki article explained it.

[cienfuegos]

What oral traditions do you think existed?

What do you think did not exist in a illiterate society that could recite the OT verbatim.

A lot of Mark would contain oral traditions, and if I guessed I would be no better then those I ask for credible sources from.


I think the wiki article explained it.

You nailed the issue right there: "that could recite the OT verbatim." The sort of oral tradition that you are applying here still depended on an authoritative text. It isn't the same thing. It's like reciting Homer. Homer could be recited in a variety ways and those variations could eventually be written down, but there was a "Homer" to recite.

What you are suggesting is an oral tradition that is very different than the example you compare it to: the recitation of memories and recollections with no established authoritative version. We in fact have no (or at least very little and disputed) evidence of this oral tradition in the earliest Christian writings. So let's say there are all these collective memories about Jesus floating around: whose memories are those that are basically winning the battle of survival of the fittest?

Oral tradition theories hold that stories that serve a particular purpose are passed on, not necessarily the most accurate account of actual events. So if we are going to apply an oral tradition theory here we have to be able to analyze why certain recollections were passed on by various communities. What were the motivations of those communities for the bits and pieces of oral tradition that were eventually "collected' by Gospel writers? Let's take the John the Baptist story. Jesus goes to the Jordan to get baptized. At this point, no one even knows Jesus from anyone. He's just a guy, maybe a carpenter from Nazareth. And there's John baptizing tens, maybe hundreds. Jesus walks in and gets baptized. Who recorded this or remembered it for later transmission? Jesus has no disciples at this point in time according to our earliest and (allegedly) most original account. Why would anyone bother remembering this one obscure baptism among all the hundreds?

Ok, good point, you might say (you probably won't say it), but then, it wasn't all the details that were remembered but just the event itself. Maybe Jesus told his disciples, "Hey guys, I just got baptized by John." They remembered it and passed it down. Maybe Jesus didn't get baptized by John, maybe it's just his word that he got baptized and it gave him some authority in his circle of illiterate Galilean fishermen. So the fact that John baptized Jesus is all that was passed down. We don't even know if that fact itself is true, because we don't know who passed it on or what their motive was.

But then, it's said later Christians were embarrassed that Jesus got baptized by John. If that were true, how long did it take for the authority of John's baptism to wane? Still by the 70s or 80s when Mark wrote the Gospels, it was important for Jesus to be baptized by John? By that time, Jesus was the pre-existent co-creator of the world. What use would the baptism by John have to anyone that it would be passed down?

Are you starting to see the problem with holding oral tradition as authoritative? It isn't a magic bullet: you need a testable theory. If the Jesus story was passed down by eyewitnesses, what would we expect to see in the evidence? If it were not, what would we expect? From where I see it, we find exactly what we would expect if there were no oral tradition at the time of Paul and that Mark just made up his Gospel.

[outhouse]

We in fact have no (or at least very little and disputed) evidence of this oral tradition in the earliest Christian writings

.

Does not apply. There is no evidence for this other then an illiterate people who used oral traditions to communicate. Its a given.

So let's say there are all these collective memories about Jesus floating around: whose memories are those that are basically winning the battle of survival of the fittest?

Popularity won the day. Not the fittest.

"When" is the question, not whose.

What you are suggesting is an oral tradition that is very different than the example you compare it to:

I am not comparing it to anything. I am showing the capabilities of oral traditions. Not comparing traditions.

Why would anyone bother remembering this one obscure baptism among all the hundreds?

People talked about him at Passover, "did you hear he was from" "he was baptized by John" "I heard he said this" and so on. No mystery here.

Their newspaper was oral traditions.

Still by the 70s or 80s when Mark wrote the Gospels, it was important for Jesus to be baptized by John?

Not important, a detail about the man they followed that was important to them. His earthly history was important, even if still embarrassing that John baptized him.

There is no reason to list such a detail for the Hellenistic movement. There was no reason to hold a peasant Galilean teacher as the one, but they did, because those are the cards they were handed.

By that time, Jesus was the pre-existent co-creator of the world

Mistake.


The movement was wide and diverse and not everyone thought this. His divinity early on by Mark was not equal with god. His divinity was compared to the living Emperors divinity.


Mythology grows, it evolves with time.

we find exactly what we would expect if there were no oral tradition at the time of Paul and that Mark just made up his Gospel.

Not what we find.


We see evidence of a compilation of multiple source, and one source was oral traditions early on.


If an event was witnessed, your saying only written traditions in an oral culture could pass on history, how much sense does that make?


They were oral people, of course there were oral traditions. This movement did not start from a published book that was passed on. No book was needed for oral traditions to exist.

[Clive]

I would argue that the Jewish population was an outlier with high levels of literacy.

[outhouse]

I would argue that the Jewish population was an outlier with high levels of literacy.

Substantiate that with credible sources please.

We all know later Jewish sources state children were educated, but you will be hard pressed making that stick to 1rst century Judaism.