The Bible and the Oral Tradition

1
The Bible and the Oral Tradition

• The Bible as Literature

2
Oral Tradition

• The spoken relation and preservation, from one
  generation to the next, of a people's cultural
  history and ancestry, often by a storyteller in a
  narrative form
• A way of recording history, faith, popular art
  and literature, technical knowledge, etc.
• Never stops after the basics of the Tradition
  appear in a written form (modern folklore as
  street, political, etc. jokes)
• The basic corpus of (later) written texts never
  includes the whole of the oral tradition
• Oral (in its written form too) tradition
  (ideological or not) lasts only if it is found
  relevant by the speech/ethnic/religious community
  
• e.g. some great traditions of the 20th cent.
  were quickly reduced to small sects regardless
  of the repressions and fear supporting these
  traditions
• religion however exists gt found relevant by the
  people??? gt in which sense? why is it so?

3
Time Span (scholastic approximation)

• Hebrew calendar starting date - 3,761 B.C.E.
• Civilizations of Egypt and Sumer - 4,000 and
  3,500 B.C.E.
• Writing systems appeared there - 3,300/3,200
  B.C.E.?
• Earliest written story Epic of Gilgamesh ca.
  2,700 B.C.E.?
• 2,500 B.C.E. Semitic people moved into the
  Fertile Crescent
• Ca. 2,000 B.C.E. - Age of the Patriarchs begins
• 1,600 B.C.E. Israelites migrated into Egypt to
  escape famine and remained there till 1,275
  B.C.E. (under Pharaoh Rameses II)
• or they leave ca. 1640 B.C.E. (the Santorine
  volcanic eruption?)
• 1,500 B.C.E. first alphabet created by Canaanites
• Borrowed by Greeks, then Etruscans, then Latini,
  and through Christianity spread to Celts,
  Germanics, Slavs, etc.
• 1366 Pharaoh Amenhotep IV (Akhetaton) introduced
  the first worship of One god, Amon-Ra, the
  father of the gods
• 1020 B.C.E. Saul chosen the first Israelite king
• Not later than 13th-11th century B.C.E. first
  Jewish historical written records

4
Geopolitical Setting

• Fertile Crescent
• arid lands
• green pastures
• fields
• great rivers
• cities with culture, crafts, trade
• The Tigris and Euphrates rivers, Mesopotamia,
  Egypt and the valley of the Nile gt Trade routs,
  farming, industry, culture and science
• ?The home of the earliest civilizations (Kish,
  Erech, Nippur, and Ur - the city of Abraham)

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Age of the Patriarchs

• Between 2000 and 1500 B.C.E.?
• In Mesopotamia
• irrigation gt extensive agriculture, cultivation
  of grain and other crops (irregular seasonal
  floods of the two great rivers gt fear of the
  elements, nature worship, an unpredictable
  cosmos)
• engineering (invention of wheel?), builders
• first forms of writing (cuneiform)
• In Egypt parallel development
• extensive agriculture (regularity in the behavior
  of the Nile gt order and logical arrangement of
  the cosmos gt early merging of the land into a
  single, unified, and politically stable entity)
• inventive builders and engineers

6
Semitic Clans/Tribes

• Patriarchal clans extended families
• Patriarchal leadership
• father and governor, responsible for everything
  till his death (finding a safe place to dwell,
  setting the terms of trading with craftsmen,
  securing wife and inheritance for all sons and
  husband and dowry for all daughters, proper
  observation of the family customs)
• Polygamy (of mans own volition or because the
  first wife could not produce the heir)
• Heir
• inherited the patriarchs roles and
  responsibilities
• the major share of the property
• in case there was no heir the first wife engaged
  a slave girl to conceive her husbands male child
  (Sarah, Hagar, and Abraham), in this case Isaac
  did not become the heir automatically...
• Semi-nomadic life
• in a complex multiethnic world with a variety of
  languages and religions

7
Abrahams God

• Abrahams journey of faith
• religious pilgrimage in response to Gods
  promises
• Herdsmen like Abrahams tribe
• hosts of protective gods (of potters, metal
  smiths, scribes, merchants, lovers, warriors,
  etc.) were not of much use to the semi-nomadic
  clan with one leaderfather
• gt recognition of a single god who would be with
  the tribe wherever they went and whatever they
  did
• Patriarchal clans communicated with god directly
  similar to a household god
• Hebrew sons often asked their father what did
  god tell you?
• i.e. fathers decision/opinion actually belongs
  to Gods suggestion

8

• Patriarchal God
• was not associated with anything
  particular/specific, but was all things in him
• not restricted as to space and time
• spiritual, i.e. unknowable/ineffable directly
  gt no specific form gt no images possible
• To Abraham turn away from evil and lead a good
  life
• gt Need to know this in detail
• gt commandments
• Simple altars everywhere
• offering of food
• burnt offerings
• sympathetic magic pouring water ? encouraging
  god to send down rain reciting spells ? killing
  enemies
• later gt Christian communion prayer, psalms

9
Storytelling in the Oral Tradition

• Preservation of identity and collective memory
• men of memory - storytellers,
• A gifted individual respected for his role of the
  lore preserver. Memorized up to 30,000 lines of
  poetry gt Memory skill was much admired
• Stories were expected to be told every time the
  same way in its basics, to maintain the links
  with the Past and the peoples sacred origins
• the storyteller could only add embellishments or
  weave in variations as listeners responded to the
  story
• Tools form and meaning sealed learning by
  repetition in listening and reciting

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• Diversity of forms
• genealogies (the Tribes of Israel)
• doings of historical figures (kings or ordinary
  men)
• spiced with magical events, mythic beasts,
  superhuman deeds, etc.
• codified acceptable behavior in proverbs
• raising children, keeping family healthy,
  increasing flocks, etc.
• prophesies of dangers in the future based on the
  human memory
• wrestling with larger cosmic forces and following
  Gods will to avoid them
• poetry (rhythmic cadences of songs and laments)
• pure narrative of origin and development
• the hows and whys of fundamental events and
  beliefs (Adam and Eve, Noah and the Arc, Jacobs
  wooing of Rachel, Josephs slavery and victory,
  Moses and the Exodus)
• etc.

11

• Main original genres in Genesis
• Creation stories
• linked, e.g., to the Babylonian Genesis story -
  Enuma Elish the universe was water, two powerful
  oceans Apsu Tiamat joined forces to create the
  gods the physical features of the world like
  silt, horizons, sky, earth, etc.
• Genesis in the Bible inspired work of One God
• Flood stories
• linked to, e.g., to the Mesopotamian Deluge
  stories - Gilgamesh this hero-king wants eternal
  life gt goes in search of Utnapishtim, the only
  mortal who has ever achieved it, and who can not
  help Gilgamesh but tells him the story of the
  Flood and how he won eternal life
• Stories of origins (assignment of a cause, an
  origin, or a reason for something)
• elements found in the story of Joseph