Kata Markon

["Rikki E. Watts" <rwatts AT interchange.ubc.ca>]

Joe,

Thanks for the explanation of your theory; it's good to be clear on it.  But
you haven't addressed my question.  If a theory has to explain the
data--which it really ought to--then you need to include all the data and
that means sociological and cultural, as well as literary.  As I noted
earlier, passing on stories about Jesus did not take place in a cultural
vacuum (as Schweitzer and the so-called Third Quest point out).  The problem
is, according to the work done by Bailey (see below), your tradents are
behaving in ways that are quite without parallel, indeed at odds with, what
we understand of NE cultural norms.  So let me ask you again, can you cite
me one first century example where a movement invents wholesale fictions
which it then passes off as recent history in order to claim that these
inventions are the fulfillment of Jewish scripture?  I can't see anything
like this in the rabbis, nothing like it in Qumran (who were very interested
in the fulfillment of scripture), or anywhere else.  I've asked this
question on Xlist and have not yet received a satisfactory reply.  Arguing
that the early Christians were the first to do this, is just as odd since it
would be hard to understand what they hoped to achieve, whom they hoped to
convince, and why such a peculiar move would even occur to them as an option
in the first place.  Strangely however the notion of free invention
continues to persist in some circles, despite its considerable incongruity
with their first century world.

Might I suggest that you get hold of Kenneth Bailey's article on oral
tradition in the Near East "Informal Controlled Oral Tradition and the
Synoptic Gospels," Themelios 20 (1995) 4-11.).  To quote from an earlier
posting: 

Bailey had decades to observe how near eastern villagers passed on
traditions and he noted several categories in which memory was employed in
very different ways.  E.g. atrocity stories from outside the village or its
sphere were largely uncontrolled and could be embellished liberally. On the
other hand proverbs were strictly controlled and bewilderingly extensive
passages from the Koran memorized verbatim.

Most interesting of all were the stories of important figures associated
with the life of the village, or the village's founding moment (and for
larger groups, notable a Christian movement in Egypt).  Here only
certain people were allowed to relate what happened (someone who had been in
the village only 40 years would be dismissed as an outsider who couldn't be
trusted in such matters).  When these 'informal' repeaters told the story
some flexibility was allowed around the less significant details.  But like
a good joke, they had to get the points of reference right (even if allowed
some flexibility in the order) and when it came to the punch-line or
punch-deed, it had to be verbatim.  Any variation and the repeater would be
immediately corrected by a chorus of rebuttal and suffer great loss of face.
That in itself an excellent motivation to maintain the tradition.  He cites
examples where they could do this for stories about a Scot missionary who
visited their various villages and whose preaching and actions founded the
church there almost two centuries earlier.  If they can do this for
traditions some two centuries old in relatively recent times, what would it
be like for traditions about a figure as important as Jesus (who founded a
whole movement) within mere decades?

He also cites an instance when he was preaching and had said something the
villagers obviously regarded as important. They simply interrupted his
sermon to turn to one another "Did you hear what he said?  He said ...." and
around the room it went, back and forth.  Only after this had gone on long
enough to lock the words into memory was he allowed to continue. He comments
that he was amazed to see that it was right then and there that the oral
tradition was formed.

All this suggests that the idea of free-wheeling invention is to put it
mildly quite out of kilter with the reality.  However, if you can show me
some workable analogy then fine.  In the meantime, I'm afraid all this stuff
about invention etc. seems to me to be fairly groundless speculation, and
contrary not just to the bulk of the evidence we have but to all the
evidence we have on how people behaved wrt these kinds of traditions.

Appealing to the NT stories themselves, while a fascinating topic in its own
right, is of course to beg the question posed above since that is the point
under discussion.  

Rikk