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Oral and Written Transmission Some Considerations
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 June 2011
Extract
The discussion about “oral tradition” in Israel seems to have yielded at least one result, namely, that scholars now talk about traditions rather than sources. This is certainly very often to be preferred, because we really do not know what sources have been used in the composition of a given text, and the text itself is, of course, also a source. It should be pointed out that the word “tradition” can be seen under three main aspects: first, denoting a “literary” tradition — written or not — such as a saga, legend, law, prophetical oracle, myth, psalm, etc.; second, signifying the growth of these smaller unities of traditions as they are handed down by some circle of tradents, priests, disciples of prophets, scribes, minstrels, etc.; and third, denoting the way of doing something, of living, the traditional way of thinking. In discussing oral and written tradition in the Old Testament we deal mostly with the two first aspects. One of the main emphases in the discussion has been the technique of handing down the traditions through generations, though this cannot be separated from the literary tradition itself. The concern of this article will then be with this technique, the transmission.
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References
1 So, for instance, sometimes in E. Nielsen, Shechem: A Traditio-historical Investigation (Copenhagen, 1955).
2 H. S. Nyberg, Studien zum Hoseabuche (Uppsala Universitets Årsskrift, 1935: 6), 8.
3 S. Mowinckel, Prophecy and Tradition (Avhandlinger utgitt av Det Norske Videnskaps-Akademi i Oslo, 1946:3), 26ff.
4 Cf. J. van der Ploeg, “Le rôle de la Tradition orale,” Revue Biblique 54 (1947), 33f.
5 Cf. Widengren, G., “Oral Tradition and Written Literature among the Hebrews in the Light of Arabic Evidence,” Acta Orientalia 23 (1959), 261.Google Scholar
6 Cf. E. G. King, Early Religious Poetry of the Hebrews (Cambridge, 1911), Albright, W. F., “The Earliest Forms of Hebrew Verse,” Journal of the Palestine Oriental Society 2 (1922), 69ff.Google Scholar, C. H. Gordon, Ugaritic Manual, 108f., F. Horst, Die Kennzeichen der hebr. Poesie, Theologische Rundschau N.F. 21 (1953), 97ff. (with Literature), Boling, R. G. “‘Synonymous’ Parallelism in the Psalms,” Journal of Semitic Studies 5 (1960), 221ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar, N. K. Gottwald, “Poetry,” The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, K-Q, 829ff. (with references), S. Gevirtz, Patterns in the Early Poetry of Israel (Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilizations, No. 32 [Chicago], 1963).
7 Cf. H. L. Ginsberg, The Rebellion and Death of Baʻlu, Orientalia N.S. 5 (1936), 166ff., 180f. — R. C. Culley in an article “An Approach to the Problem of Oral Tradition” in Vetus Testamentum 13 (1963), 113ff., has, referring to W. Eberhard (“Minstrel Tales from Southern Turkey,” California Publications, Folklore Studies 5 [1955], 58ff.), drawn the conclusion “that poetry is not necessarily more stable than prose,” 117. One may, however, doubt that it is possible to draw such a general conclusion from the Turkish tales and then use it as a proof of argument when dealing with a quite different culture such as the Hebrew one and its poetry. How can one draw the connections between Turkish poetry and Hebrew? Is not the difference between Turkish minstrel songs and Hebrew poetry that much of the latter is of cultic origin and therefore is not comparable? We can, of course, in some way talk of a common behavior among human beings which can be used as a way of illustration, but the question will always be raised how to establish the connections between two different cultures and different times if the discussed phenomena are understood as something more than an illustration. However, the question is not whether poetry in principle is “necessarily more stable than prose,” as Culley puts it (italics mine). The question is rather to see how “stable” poetry and prose may have been in the several different circles to which they belonged. In both cases we have to remember the distinction between sacred and profane traditions — a phenomenon that Culley himself points to in his conclusion, op. cit., 125.
8 “The prose is rhythmical” and we find “even genuine parallelismus membrorum,” W. L. Moran, “A Kingdom of Priests,” The Bible in Current Catholic Thought (ed. J. L. McKenzie, New York, 1962), 19.
9 Cf. E. Nielsen, Oral Tradition (Studies in Biblical Theology 11; 1955), 36.
10 “Der hebräische Stil liebt Szenenwiederholung,” says W. Baumgartner, “Ein Kapitel vom hebräischen Erzählungsstil,” Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen Testaments 36 (1923) (= Festschrift H. Gunkel), 152. Variant traditions are another problem.
11 “Episke Love i Folkedigtningen,” Danske Studier (1908), 69ff.
12 Oral Tradition, 36. One could here ask whether “a monotonous style” and “a fluent” one are not contradictory things.
13 Gamla Testamentet: En traditionshistorisk inledning, I (1945), 42ft. R. A. Carlson has objected against this view saying: “It is however wrong to claim, as some have tried to do, that the traditio-historical method is based on the assumption that oral tradition dominated the OT down to the time of the Exile, and possibly even later,” David, the Chosen King (Uppsala, 1964), 10. Cf. also C. R. North, Pentateuchal Criticism, The Old Testament and Modern Study (ed. H. H. Rowley, 1951), 78ff.
14 It should be added that Engnell did not think that there were no written traditions in the preexilic time. He states that the Deuteronomists, for instance, have made use of written sources such as chronicles and annals, but the common way of handing down “literature” was not by writing; cf. Svenskt Bibliskt Uppslagsverk II2, (1963), col. 1260.
15 So also Engnell regarding poetry: “But if then, e.g., the Psalms were fixed in writing at an early stage, it is no doubt so that an oral transmission and a memorizing by heart has been prevalent at the use and application of the Psalms in the actual setting of life,” “Methodological Aspects of Old Testament Study,” Supplements to Vetus Testamentum (1960), 23.
16 Cf. Gray, J., “The Legacy of Canaan,” Supplements to Vetus Testamentum 5 (1957), 159.Google Scholar
17 We are here not discussing the hypothetical amphictyony in prehistoric time. As a reminder one should note that the Israelite tribes before entering into Canaan, according to the Old Testament tradition, had connections with several sanctuaries.
18 Shechem, 121. Cf. Dt. 31:24ff.
19 Cf. Mendenhall, G. E., “Covenant Forms in Israelite Tradition,” The Biblical Archaeologist 17 (1954), 60CrossRefGoogle Scholar, McCarthy, D. J., “Treaty and Covenant,” Analecta Biblica 21 (1963), 654.Google Scholar
20 Cf. Benedikt Otzen, Studien über Deuterosacharja (Copenhagen, 1964), 156f., n. 34.
21 See also G. Östborn, Tōrā in the Old Testament (1945), 83f.
22 G. Widengren, Religionens Värld2 (1953), 488, Nielsen, Oral Tradition, 21. According to Dt. 17:18–20 the king should have a copy of the law and study it; cf. Widengren, “King and Covenant,” Journal of Semitic Studies 2 (1957), 15. It is perhaps worth mentioning an illustration from the modern Muslim world of today showing the importance of memorization. After having learned the Quran, the holy writ, and its interpretation in the school of the mosque, the pupil later could become illiterate, as J. C. Rylaarsdam informs me.
23 Oral Tradition, 45.
24 Op. cit., 29.
25 It should be pointed out that there also exists another reason why a letter to a king had to be read aloud: that is the fact that many kings were not capable of reading; they were illiterate. This does not rule out the importance of the king as the wisest one, which is one of the features in the royal ideology. The king had his wisdom and spirit given by the deity; therefore, he had divine wisdom,—cf. Prov. 8:15, 25:2, 1 Kings 3:28 and Codex Hammurabi, The Epilogue XXIV R.57, A. L. Oppenheim, ANET, 314 (Nabonidus). See also the examples collected by I. Engnell, Studies in Divine Kingship, 189ff., W. W. Hallo, Early Mesopotamian Royal Titles (1957), 136. In 1 Kings 5:10 םרק יגק should be compared with םרק יבלמ זב, “son of ancient kings,” Is. 19.11. In Is. 10:12f. and Ezek. 28:12ff. the prophets are mocking this phenomenon regarding foreign kings. How deeply, however, this ideology was rooted in Israel can be seen from the prophecy about the savior-king in Is. 11:2.
26 J. Lindblom, Prophecy in Ancient Israel (Philadelphia, 1963), 110f., G. Östborn, Cult and Canon (Uppsala Universitets Årsskrift, 1950:10), 46, H. Ringgren, Israelitische Religion (Stuttgart, 1963), 196. Cf. also H. Wildberger, Jahwewort und prophetische Rede bei Jeremia (Zürich, 1942), James F. Ross, “The Prophet as Yahweh's Messenger,” Israel's Prophetic Heritage (ed. B. W. Anderson-W. Harrelson, 1962), 98ff.
27 This formula has parallels in the ancient Near East; cf. Noth, M., “History and the Word of God in the Old Testament,” Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 32 (1949/1950), 194ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar, C. Westermann, Grundformen prophetischer Rede (Beiträge zur Evangelischen Theologie, Theol. Abh. 31 [1960]), 82ff., James F. Ross, op. cit., 100f. The muḫḫu mentioned in the Mari texts is understood by Noth as a historical link between Mari and Israelite prophets, as Amos and the later prophets, even if Mari is 1000 years before them, Geschichte und Gotteswort, 16. When comparing Mari and Israel in this respect B. D. Napier (following Noth, op. cit., 17) says: “At Mari, it deals with cult and political matters of very limited importance. The biblical prophetical literature deals with the great contemporary events in the world as part of a process willed, and in its outcome determined, by God. In sharpest contrast to the prophetical phenomenon at Mari, the great prophets of the OT always speak in the name of Yahweh, whose will all powers of history serve,” The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, K–Q, 901. About this, one could ask whether it were possible for a Mari prophet to speak in the name of Yahweh. Then it should be mentioned that when a prophet of Dagan gives an oracle for the king saying that Dagan will be with him in his troublesome war, this war also from the point of view of the Mari people could be understood as a “great contemporary event,” willed by their god. It is not the fault of the Hebrew prophets that the danger of the Assyrian and Babylonian empires became for Israel and Judah perhaps greater than the danger Zimri-lim of Mari faced.
28 The Prophets of Israel (1960), 38.
29 Acta Orientalia 23 (1959), 215.
30 Literary and Psychological Aspects of the Hebrew Prophets, 88.
31 Cf. S. Mowinckel, Profeten Jesaja (Oslo, 1925), 19.
32 Cf. Engnell, I., “Profetia och Tradition,” Svensk Exegetisk Årsbok 12 (1947), 110ff.Google Scholar
33 E. Nielsen, Oral Tradition, 67.
34 Cf. Mowinckel, S., “Oppkomsten av profetlitteraturen,” Norsk Teologisk Tidsskrift 43 (1942), 75ff.Google Scholar
35 It seems to be clear that Baruch did not exactly know Jeremiah's prophecies word by word, which is also shown by the fact that Jeremiah had to dictate them for him a second time — if now the term “dictate” can be taken in our modern understanding. Cf. J. van der Ploeg, Revue Biblique 54 (1947), 36, G. Widengren, Literary and Psychological Aspects, 72.
36 “In this case the coincidence between the Israelite and the Arabian prophet is especially clear,” Widengren, op. cit., 73.
37 Cf. Widengren, Literary and Psychological Aspects of the Hebrew Prophets, 73. We can find an illustration of this in early Islam in the mustamlî, famulus, of a teacher; cf. Pedersen, Den Arabiske Bog (Copenhagen, 1946), 22.
38 Norsk Teologisk Tidsskrift 43 (1942), 71.
39 D. Jones argues along the same lines as Mowinckel, , “The Traditio of the Oracles of Isaiah of Jerusalem,” Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 67 (1955), 226ff., 237.Google Scholar
40 A. H. J. Gunneweg has adopted the theory of H. Gunkel (Genesis = Gött. Handkomm. I [1910], xxxi) that the pater familias was an important link in the chain of the life of several traditions such as sagas and legends, and this will not be denied here. But when Gunneweg says that “hier, in dieser ‘privaten’ Sphäre, hat die mündliche Tradition ihren Sitz im Leben,” he makes a generalization, thus neglecting the different kinds of traditions and circles of tradents, “Mündlicher und schriftlicher Tradition der vorexilischen Prophetenbücher” (FRLANT 73 [1959]), 78. If we should accept the theory of Gunneweg that the traditions circled “im Volke um” (p. 78), we must ask how, e.g., the utterances of Amos ever could have been committed to writing. What kind of people in the northern kingdom could possibly have been interested in preserving such utterances hostile to the whole nation? And how then have these sayings circulated and in this circulation found their way to Judah? To these questions Gunneweg does not give any answer. For a sound critique of Gunneweg's thesis see B. Gerhardsson, Theologische Zeitschrift 17 (1961), 216ff., and Svensk Exegetisk Årsbok 25 (1960), 175ff. (in English).
41 With respect to the discussion concerning Amos as a prophet, a nābīʼ, I think that this can be said: he — as he himself says, 7:14 — was not a member of a guild of professional prophets; he had not been trained as a אינ(|ב). In his answer to Amaziah, Amos emphasizes that it is Yahweh who has made him a prophet. Yahweh has taken him from his original profession and made him a nābīʼ. Cf. H. H. Rowley, Was Amos a nabi?, in Eissfeldt-Festschrift (1947), 191ff., A. S. Kapelrud, Central Ideas in Amos (Oslo, 1956), 7. In this matter we might compare Amos with Elisha, who was taken by Yahweh (through Elijah) from his original civil profession to become a nābīʼ, 1 Kings 19:16, 19.