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Kenneth Bailey's Theory of Oral Tradition: Critiquing Theodore Weeden's Critique
Abstract
This article is a response to the critique of Kenneth Bailey's depiction of oral tradition made by Theodore Weeden in the preceding essay. The anecdotal evidence for the thesis certainly leaves the thesis open to criticism, but Weeden's critique suffers from a resolute antipathy to Bailey's thesis; it misrepresents the point Bailey is making on several occasions, and it consistently misunderstands the way oral tradition functions, which Bailey's examples well illustrate. Bailey's theory in fact provides a better explanation for the enduring nature and format of the Synoptic Jesus tradition, its repeated character of the same yet different, than any of the alternative predominantly literary explanations.
... Morgan 1998: 11-12;Kirk 2016: 13) also indicates that field research on living oral traditions over the past 1. See Harris 1989: 22;Morgan 1998: 163;Cribiore 2001: 3, 53-56, 75-76, 249;Hezser 2001: 498; Kirk 2011: 421. 2. For example, Kelber 1983;Mournet 2005;Kloppenborg 2007;Dunn 2009a;Iverson 2009: 71; Kirk 2016. 3. Bailey (1995 argues that the most appropriate model for understanding the Jesus tradition is the 'informal controlled paradigm', which is exemplified in the contemporary gatherings of the Middle East communities called haflat samar. ...
Instead of blurring the oral and the literary media in antiquity (R. Bultmann and B. Gerhardsson) or dividing them with unsatisfying principles (J.D.G. Dunn), this article follows recent scholarship on orality to explore the mechanical operation of ancient scribal memory as the oral-written interface. In so doing, I argue that the agreement of order between the Synoptic Gospels is characteristic of memory-based utilizations of written texts and does not necessarily indicate the scribes’ visual contact with those texts. It is, rather, the very high degree of verbal agreement that indicates Matthew’s frequent visual contact with Q 10–11 and 12–13 throughout the gospel, even when following Mark’s narrative sequence by memory. This approach explains the infrequent micro-conflations on the Two Document Hypothesis (2DH) with a more mechanically probable procedure, and so strengthens the argument that the 2DH is more feasible than the Two Gospel Hypothesis and the Farrer-Goulder Hypothesis.
... Theodore Weedon Sr (2009), criticised this as being anecdotal, rather than research based, but it comes from observation in a real oral community, and this kind of information could not be obtained in a controlled experimental environment. It provides an excellent explanation of the character of the Synoptic tradition (Dunn, 2009). By this stage, however, different communities would have had different stories, each the product of its own original event and unconscious editing and each shaped to some extent by the theological perspective of its community, but none deliberately altered to convince people of a particular theological or doctrinal agenda. ...
The differences between parallel passages in the gospels – both in the canon and between the canon and Gospel of Thomas – have traditionally been attributed to scribal redaction, with significant energy having been devoted to a determination of which is the “original” or “more authentic” version. This paper examines how work on oral transmission, human memory and (to a lesser extent) social memory theory affect our understanding of how the similarities and differences between gospel parallels in general may have come about, examines their implications for historical Jesus studies, and applies the findings to the parable of the lost sheep as it appears in Matthew, Luke and Thomas. It concludes that, while it is possible that differences were introduced due to authorial redaction, this is not the only possible source of variation. At least some of the differences between gospel parallels could be the result of the normal processes of human memory, including slippage over the oral transmission period and/or to Jesus having used variations of certain stories in different contexts.
This article attempts to explore the effects of memory retention, phantom recollection, and recollection rejection on the quest for the Apostle Peter’s denials (Mt. 26:31-35, 69-75; Mk. 14:27-31, 66-72; Lk. 22:31-34, 54-62; Jn. 13:37-38, 18:15-18, 25-27). Phantom recollection refers that sometimes gist-based false memories at high levels are strong enough to elicit falsely recalled experiences. While individuals retrieve true recognition of their instantiating studied scenarios rather than false-but-gist-consistent lures by detecting relevant signal via a memory-editing operation called recollection rejection. This article examines the extent to which Peter’s memory retention sustains and moreover presumes that phantom recollection leads Peter to override his own promise, but with the assistance of detecting the crucial signals (i.e., the rooster crows, Mt. 26:74b, Mk. 14:72a, Lk. 22:60b, Jn. 18:27b; Jesus straightforwardly looks at him, Lk. 22:61a) that evokes the recollection rejection process, he retrieves his true memories. For the first time, if any, the attempt to interpret the pericope of Peter’s denials through the lens of the false memory theory could elucidate our hermeneutical understandings from the nature of humankind perspective.
Much has been made in recent years of the oral/aural context in which the early Jesus movement was born, as both a needed adjustment to earlier models for understanding early Jesus tradition based principally on models of literary transmission and often as a surreptitious means to insinuate the faithfulness of oral transmission. This paper begins by reviewing recent memory studies, both cognitive and anthropological, and then assesses the proposals of Kenneth Bailey and James D.G. Dunn of faithful oral transmission of Jesus materials. It concludes with a test case, Q 6.37, concluding that even in the case of the stable transmission of aphorisms, there is profound and significant transformation of meaning, due to the pressures exerted by the transmissional context.
Dunn responds to critiques by Birger Gerhardsson and Richard Bauckham of his thesis in Jesus Remembered (2003) regarding the early oral Jesus tradition. He agrees with Gerhardsson's emphasis on the oral Jesus tradition as taught, but questions his unwillingness to recognize the character of the 1st century oral Palestinian culture and of the Jesus tradition. He agrees with Bauckham's emphasis on eyewitnesses to explain especially the beginning of the traditioning process, but questions the extent to which the tradition was explicitly attributed to eyewitnesses, and argues that his own thesis also covers the cases where the oral Jesus tradition was being passed on by teachers at some remove from the eyewitnesses. The starting point remains the character of the Synoptic tradition, as 'same yet different', and the challenge remains to explain that character in the most historically responsible way.
Gospel research has drawn upon studies of folklore from time to time. An initial impetus from J. G. Herder was followed up by the work of the form critics. More recently, W. H. Kelber introduced to the debate a model based on modern folklore studies and linguistic theory known as ‘oral culture’ or ‘orality’. He stressed the differences between oral ways of thinking, speaking, and transmitting tradition and the thought and communication characteristic of a modern, print-dominated culture: exegesis and hermenutics, he insisted, must be attuned to the former. Drawing largely on Kelber, J. D. G. Dunn has developed this program in a rather radical form in his new book, Jesus
Remembered. Through a series of comparisons between Dunn's approach and the author's own, this article argues that the orality model, even in this latest form, fails to provide an adequate solution to the mystery of the oral gospel tradition.
The literary mindset (‘default setting’) of modern Western culture prevents those trained in that culture from recognizing that oral cultures operate differently. The classic solution to the Synoptic problem, and the chief alternatives, have envisaged the relationships between the Gospel traditions in almost exclusively literary terms. But the earliest phase of transmission of the Jesus tradition was without doubt predominantly by word of mouth. And recent studies of oral cultures provide several characteristic features of oral tradition. Much of the Synoptic tradition, even in its present form, reflects in particular the combination of stability and flexibility so characteristic of the performances of oral tradition. Re-envisaging the early transmission of the Jesus tradition therefore requires us to recognize that the literary paradigm (including a clearly delineated Q document) is too restrictive in the range of possible explanations it offers for the diverse/divergent character of Synoptic parallels. Variation in detail may simply attest the character of oral performance rather than constituting evidence of literary redaction.
- M See
- Halbwachs
See particularly M. Halbwachs, On Collective Memory (Chicago: University of
Chicago, 1992);
Memory, Tradition, and Text: Uses of the Past in Early Christianity (Semeia Studies, 52 I engage with some of the issues in 'Social Memory and the Oral Jesus Tradition
- J Assmann
- Das Kulturelle Gedächtnis
J. Assmann, Das kulturelle Gedächtnis. Schrift, Erinnerung und politische Identität
in frühen Hochkulturen (München: C.H. Beck, 2nd edn, 1997 [1992]); A. Kirk and
T. Th atcher (eds.), Memory, Tradition, and Text: Uses of the Past in Early Christianity
(Semeia Studies, 52; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2005). I engage with
some of the issues in 'Social Memory and the Oral Jesus Tradition', in S.C. Barton,
L.T. Stuckenbruck and B.G. Wold (eds.), Memory in the Bible and Antiquity (Th e Fifth
Durham-Tübingen Research Symposium, Durham, September 2004; WUNT, 212;
I engage with some of the issues in 'Social Memory and the Oral Jesus Tradition
A. Kirk and
T. Th atcher (eds.), Memory, Tradition, and Text: Uses of the Past in Early Christianity
(Semeia Studies, 52; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2005). I engage with
some of the issues in 'Social Memory and the Oral Jesus Tradition', in S.C. Barton,
L.T. Stuckenbruck and B.G. Wold (eds.), Memory in the Bible and Antiquity (Th e Fifth
Durham-Tübingen Research Symposium, Durham, September 2004; WUNT, 212;