Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Ken Litwak <kdlitwak AT concentric.net>]

I wanted to reply to this and pont out that Kenneth Bailey (I think)
has categorized "oral tradition" or followed the lead of others whohave
done so into multiple types. What I expect we have in Genesis is
"informal, controlled oral tradition", or "formal controled oral
tradition."  Modern, Westerners proably have no experience wtih this as
we depend upon other forms of media to keep records but the ancients
didn't have computers or typewriters or even newspapers.  Therefore, as
I am givien to understand, other cultures, Middle Eastern for example,
have mechanisms for preserving the contents of oral tradition, and for
making sure that the "official" clan story teller has gotten the story
straight, even if told with some of his'her own h\rhetorical touches. 
In that instance, it's perfectly reasonable to me to accept an oral
tradition passed down over a long time span.  The comparison of this to
the party game where you stand ina circle and repeat he same little
story and get something entirely different at the end is totally
irrelevant.  That is informal, uncontrolled oral tradition  and is not
historically speaking what can be observed even today in settings where
a cultural group does not depend upon modern methods to keep track of
information and is not dedicated to TV.  In an ancient culture where
there wasn't much of anything to do when it got dark but tell stories or
go to sleep, the cultural framework would have been entirely different,
just as modern Middle Easern models indicate.  So yes, I may well, in
such a context, depend upon a story told by someone to someone to
soeone... It all depends upon what kind of oral tradition it is. 

  WHile I'm in this area, let me make one coment on the Enuna Elish and
tower of Babel discussion.  While it may be possible to argue that the
story of the tower of Babel is explicable in terms of the fall of
Babylon, it is equally, if not more explicable, as representing an
actual event that happened in pre-patriarchal times, passed down through
reliable oral tradition or perhaps written down.  So I would ask why
there is a need to find a context for it other thanthe one it ostensibly
suggess itself?  That doesn't seem to me a helpful approach to
hsitorical research.  "We found a written account.  We don't accept that
account, so we're not going to simply dismiss it but invent some toher
context that explains why it tells a story that has noting to do with
the actual events."  Hmmm.  I'm afraid that doesn't work for me, jsut as
works by various scholars like Coote that explain the contnets of the
Pentateuch or the rest of the TaNaKh as being about politics or ideology
and the stoiries never haoppened but were fashioned to make simply a
political statement.  IF tha's the case, I'm waiting for a way to
validate this plus a bunch of parallel material to establish that such
took place.  

   Finally, in response to commens on the Philistines.  1.  It is only a
hypothesis, Ian, that prs in Egyptian reocrds refer to the PLST, since
Egyptian often used a "R" for an "l".  So the notin that Egyptian
records identify precisley the Philistines and when they showed up is
only probable and ot at all certain.  2.  I don't know where youget the
estimate of "infintessimally small" for suggesing that the coastal
inhabitants were referred to as PLST before the Sea Peoples invaded, but
I would suggest that there's little basis to make any kind of estimate
in that regard.  It is a reasonable hypothesis that explains the data
without resorting to some idea that the editor was an idiot, calling
people that everyone would know were not Philistines by the name
Philistines. 3.  PLST is used in the TaNaKh on more than one occasion in
a more general sense, such as "foreigner."  4.  You did not really deal
with the possibility, or even probability I think, that the final editor
of Genesis used PLST in case his/her audience was potentially unfamilar
with who lived in the coasal region beforehand.  I'm sure I can find
places, right here in California, whose previuos inhabitants wen byames
neiher you Ian nor I know.  Would it help ou if I told you to meet me at
the palce the abcs lived, if you'd never heard of he abcs?  Nope.  SO
why is that unreasonable for Genesis?  

Ken Litwak 
       

Peter_Kirk AT SIL.ORG wrote:
> 
> Ian asked:
> 
> "Would you trust someone who is reporting what someone reported to
> them about what someone reported to them about what someone reported
> to them about what someone reported to them when deciding what
> actually happened in a legal situation?"
> 
> Maybe not, but I do put a fairly high degree of trust in the accuracy
> of both oral and written texts in the appropriate contexts. Courts of
> law tend to trust the written records of other courts of law, even
> when taken down by a stenographer then copied out in full then no
> doubt photocopied and faxed many times. That is not the same as
> hearsay.
> 
> Peter
> 
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