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Loading...Chapter 5 of my book Jesus Before the Gospels (tentatively titled) is called “False Memories and the Life of Jesus” (tentatively titled). The first part of the chapter deals with a very common misconception about oral traditions in oral cultures – a misconception I hear all the time from lots of people, including my students who get upset when I discuss how traditions about Jesus appear to have been altered in the process of retelling in the years before the Gospels were written. The misconception is that in oral cultures, people had better memories than those of us who live in written cultures, and that they went out of the way to make sure that they preserved their cherished traditions – including their sacred traditions – with great accuracy, since there was no other way to preserve them in a world without writing.
You may well have heard that yourself. You may well have believed it. It’s widely believed. But it appears to be wrong.
My hunch is that this is one of those modern myths that everyone hears and believes because it makes so much sense, and then passes it on to others, who believe it because everyone says so. But it does appear to be a modern myth.
There are several points to make. The first seems fairly obvious when you think about it, but most of us have never actually much thought about it.
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I’m really enjoying your discussions!
That the eyewitnesses of Jesus had to have faulty memories because they were human is the main point that sticks with me from your two most recent blogs.
I see no reason why first century people should have been any more reliable witnesses than us especially since we have cell phones to take photos, etc. I think the examples of the recent police shootings provide a good illustration of different views of an event and how a cell phone video can iron out some of those differences. Cell phone videos could not have been done during the first century so it would have been much harder then to correct false views.
I think you have gotten back to the Historical Jesus question: What can we know about Jesus and how do we know it? .
Have a good trip to the mountains. My wife and I just returned from a trip to Asheville. It is a lovely time of year for such trips.
Interesting stuff! The problem seems to be that even if the myth about oral cultures were true,it doesn’t change your argument very much. First details have to be gathered before they are memorized. When we witness things, we have a tendency to assume we have seen everything accurately.Scale down your example for a sec: I once heard Bill Cosby talking about his youth. He hung around with some of the wrong people. He said there was one day where they were going
(If I recall this correctly) to some sort of gang fight (Knife fight maybe) and he realized
he would be in way over his head so he ducked into a doorway and waited till his friends were gone. Oddly, at least one of them said they saw him either stab or beat some other guy in
the rival group so they all thought he was there and didn’t really question anything he did.
So here we have a false memory (in his telling) based on inadequate details. An oral society well versed in memorizing would recall that story based on testimony, emotions etc.
Similarly, George Orwell’s book on the spanish civil war, Homage to Catalonia, talks about
how false reports of battles won or lost, locations of battles, etc in the chaos of a war became facts. In either case it would seem that memorization would take place AFTER the details gelled into an event to be memorized. What sort of techniques would oral societies have had to sift through the details of the event in question for accuracy?
Further, again assuming the accuracy claimed by the modern myth about oral societies superior
memories those societies didn’t just have superior memory as you indicated, but would probably have to 1.) realize the need for persistant memories 2.) develop with trial and error, probably over at least a generation or two, effective techniques. If you play the game of telephone in a
highly emotional environment- The Passion story, problems we might miss during an ordinary series of events tend to get magnified. We can even add the changing valuations of what’s important
as events unfold. What might seem unimportant at first (and thus not important enough to remember)
changes to something VERY important as events play out.
Someone hearing Jesus was arrested might have thought. He’s the Messiah, he’ll be able to get himmself out of this Jam, but the later crucifixion wouls suddenly make what seemed unimportant
very important, but now looked at with a great deal of emotion.
It is rumored that Albert Einstein did not remember his own phone number. He said something like this, “Why should I bother [to memorize it] when I can look it up in the phone book?”
Ha! If that’s not true — it ought to be!
Is there probably some confusion here between the formal learned traditions of cultures that have enough wealth sloshing around such that some people can become full-time custodians of that tradition, and the less elite segments of the population such as the early Christians? The former, of course, required study and a sort of testing for accuracy among the carriers of the tradition that clearly did not happen with the first couple of Christian generations.
Maybe. Although there are “professional” story tellers in lots of cultures that have no real wealth. I suppose most of them also do something to earn a living as well.
Since the title is still tentative…how about:
“Word of Mouth-Jesus Before The Gospels”
How Oral Traditions Shaped The Gospels
It’s an option!
Alluding to the upcoming long restful weekend (mountains, golf, gourmet meals) doesn’t fool us, Dr. Ehrman. We know you’ll be sneaking off to work on your book every chance you get.
Ha! At least I’m doing my blog!
The thing that occurs to me in this context is how often a person who is asked to recall something that can’t otherwise be substantiated and for which the recaller has no expectation of consequence (nor, sometimes, any reason to care what her/his interrogators think) will simply make up a story spontaneously. Not as an argument for a viewpoint, nor as a malevolent misrepresentation of fact, but rather just to fill the silence of lost history. I know I’ve done it. I Can often read it in the voices of others when they do it. In other words, could some of the gospel accounts (and/or the resulting discrepancies between them) be the result of “innocent bullsh!tting?” Is the Bible partly the result of the idle chatter that those defined by oral culture did not think could ever be verified and didn’t expect that their fabrication of detail would ever be of positive or negative consequence to anyone?
I’d say it’s possible, but very hard to determine!
Bart,
I have heard several Believers argue that the oral tradition concerning Christ was fixed very early because the gospel was spread so rapidly. In other words, if a new story popped up in Antioch (say, from James), the other apostles would have called him on it. Or, more likely, if a new story (or doctrine) were asserted by Paul in Galatia, it would have been refuted by the other apostles back in Antioch. In othe words, the chain of cusdody was not linear, and that ensured its accuracy. Will you be dealing with this argument in your book?
Thanks for the great reads.
Sean
I’m not sure how that works. If I’m a newly converted Christian in ancient Ephesus and I decide to tell my wife stories of the person in whom I have begun to believe — do I have to write a letter to Jerusalem in order to see if that’s permitted or to fact check what I want to say, and wait for them to reply?
Dr ehrman
If my memory is correct then isn’t there ,in the nt,division over where the Galilean was born and the Galilean doesn’t even correct them?
Also in mark , the author says, their testimony did not agree. This seems to me that the Galilean didn’t have any power to control what was said about him.
I’m not sure whom you’re referring to when you speak of the Galilean.
This idea that people in oral cultures had better memories than we do reminds me of another thing that I was taught: namely that ancient Jewish people kept far better genealogies than we do today.
Yeah, another myth (!)
57-58: Some stood up and gave false testimony against him, saying, “We heard him say, ‘I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and in three days I will build another, not made with hands.’
the Gospel of John insists that Jesus actually said that very thing
41Others said, “he is the messiah.”
Still others asked, “How can the messiah come from Galilee? 42Does not Scripture say that the messiah will come from David’s descendants and from Bethlehem, the town where David lived?” 43Thus the people were divided because of Jesus. 44Some wanted to seize him, but no one laid a hand on him.
46“No one ever spoke the way this man does,” the guards replied.
47“You mean he has deceived you also?” the Pharisees retorted. 48“Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed in him? 49No! But this mob that knows nothing of the law—there is a curse on them.”
50Nicodemus, who had gone to Jesus earlier and who was one of their own number, asked, 51“Does our law condemn a man without first hearing him to find out what he has been doing?”
52They replied, “Are you from Galilee, too? Look into it, and you will find that a prophet does not come out of Galilee.”
these stories don’t really look like jesus was in control of what was being said about him .
Hey Bart,
Here is some emerging clinical evidence supporting the effects of different types of conditioning. Thought it dove-tailed nicely with the point you were making.
One Twin Exercises, the Other Doesn’t http://nyti.ms/1DMroCv via @nytimeswell