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Jesus in Memory: Traditions in Oral and Scribal Perspectives
Few scholars have influenced New Testament scholarship in the areas of orality, memory, and tradition more profoundly than Birger Gerhardsson. Today, as these topics have again become important in biblical scholarship, his pioneering work takes on a new light. Though the esteemed contributors may differ on issues in the burgeoning study, they have all enthusiastically taken on the dual task of evaluating Gerhardsson's contribution anew and bringing his insights up to date within the current debate.
Additional contributors are Loveday Alexander (University of Sheffield), David E. Aune (University of Notre Dame), Martin S. Jaffee (University of Washington), Alan Kirk (James Madison University), Terence Mournet (North American Baptist Seminary), and Christopher Tuckett (University of Oxford/Pembroke College).
297 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2009
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October 11, 2013
Being that I'm a youngster, I never lived in the dark days of form-criticism. However, I have heard its story rehearsed countless times - often with a sneer and a "good riddance". Clearly those days are gone, yet, it is not so often that one hears how form-criticism lost its place of primacy. What caused that king of New Testament studies to lose his throne? Better said, who deposed that bastioned monarch?
With only modest overstatement, form-criticism fell by the sword of Birger Gerhardsson. He was the challenger - the Hostpur of Scandinavia - who contended with Bultmann and Dibelius in the kingdom of Gospel studies. It was his labor that shifted the paradigm of Jesus studies. Biblical studies is a different world today because of Gerhardsson. His legendary publication, Memory and Manuscript, defied contemporary scholarly conventions and set in motion a new era of Gospel studies. It is in tribute to this man, Birger Gerhardsson, that Werner Kelber and Samuel Byrskog have to put together a fine volume, Jesus in Memory - Traditions in Oral and Scribal Perspectives.
The collection functions largely as a reappraisal and commendation of Gerhardsson's monumental publications. In chapter 1, Samuel Byrskog opens the conversation with an introduction to the work and significance of Gerhardsson. Having never read Gerhardsson first hand, this descriptive mini-biography was especially helpful in setting the stage for the following essays. In light of his academic climate, one comes to appreciate the courage and novelty of Gerhardsson's contribution.
Following Byrskog's introduction, Christopher Tuckett has written an essay directed acutely at the issue of form-criticism in light of Gerhardsson's Memory and Manuscript. Tuckett details how Gerhardsson's proposal of an autonomous oral "Jesus Tradition", that was apart from the worship of the community, challenged the basic assumption of Sitz im Leben. Though Tuckett finds Gerhardsson largely persuasive, he is careful not to disregard the contributions that have been made through form-criticism. He has contributed a tempered and balanced essay, embodying what Tuckett himself commended of Gerhardsson's work, an approach that is both "sympathetic and critical" (pp. 37).
The essay most dealing with the issue of Jesus in memory, was Terence Mournet's contribution on "The Jesus Tradition as Oral Tradition". Mournet presents a threefold typology for assessing different approaches to the Jesus tradition: (1) the Literary Model, represented by the form critics, (2) the Rabbinical Model, which Mournet's attributes to Gerhardsson, and (3) the Orality Model, which is Mournet's term for Bailey's proposal of an "informal and controlled" oral tradition. Mournet aims to show that Gerhardsson's model need not be thrown out all together, in exchange for Bailey's model (which he espouses). Rather, Gerhardsson's work continues to be of significant contribution to the field. Mournet ends with a short excursus on comparative methodology - a prominent critique of both Gerhardsson and Bailey. I found Mournet's essay extremely helpful regarding historiographical method. I'd suggest the book for this essay alone.
David Aune has supplied a provocatice essay entitled "Jesus Tradition and the Pauline Letters". Aune, perhaps only second to Kelber, is most critical of Gerhardsson's proposal. However, he still grants it considerable value. One of Aune's prime critiques regards the character of "oral texts". He notes the trouble with assuming that a particular style or mnemonic feature implies oral origin. Because, naturally, oral features will influence literary composition, regardless of the texts relationship to an oral source. Writers are influenced by orality. Aune presents and critiques the proposals of several scholars (including Gerhardsson and Kelber) in understanding Paul's relation to the oral tradition. Unfortunately, Aune offers minimal suggestions for an alternative understanding. He seems to get bogged down in the nature of Paul's letters as lieux de memoire, which ultimately takes away from the focus of his article. Overall, the contribution was worthwhile and deserved its place amongst the rest.
Using the story of Honi the Circler as a launching pad, Martin Jaffee demonstrates an historical process that he has termed "re-oralization". Essentially, Jaffee argues that most english renditions of the text obscure the orality inherent in the text. The ancient reader of the Talmud, Jaffee's case for the experiment, would have read the text recognizing different "voices" within it. Jaffee parses up the passage from Bavli Taanit 23A, distinguishing each line according to its perceived source. In the end, he shows the Talmud's incorporation and interpretation of the oral tradition derived from the Talmud. Jaffee has proposed a compelling model for assessing oral texts in light of their performative quality.
Loveday Alexander contributed the collection's most extensive essay. Addressing "Memory and Tradition in the Hellenistic Schools", Alexander argues that Justin Martyr's accreditation of the gospels as apomnemoneumata supplies a fruitful paradigm with which to understand the gospels. Overviewing a vast amount of Hellenistic literature, Alexander details the general qualities of the apomnemoneumata genre, and ultimately, finds the gospels displaying a similar character. She confirms Bailey's proposal of a stable, but flexible tradition by forcefully presenting the Hellenistic schools as an exemplary model. Alexander's essay reveals great erudition and strong familiarity with the primary sources - I highly commend her study to all interested in ancient orality and memory.
Wrapping up the formal essay contributions is Alan Kirk's chapter on memory. Kirk applauds Gerhardsson for his recognition of the importance of memory in understanding tradition but he offers a needed, and expected, critique of Gerhardsson's faulty assumption of widespread Semitic education in 1st century Palestine. He suggests that the rabbinic model of memory was characteristic of highly literate folks only. In other words, Gerhardsson cannot apply the fixed-text tradition of the Rabbis to the early Jesus movement. Kirk goes on to describe the nature of memory as an interpretive and constructive force. Memories offer no access to "brute facts". All memory involves interpretation, schematizing, omission, etc. However, he makes clear that this does not hinder the historical task, it perhaps only modifies it. He also adds some suggestive comments on the social quality of memory, suggesting that its social character actually protects the tradition from idiosyncratic, unstable eye-witnesses. Kirk's essay was extremely enjoyable and a great introduction to the role of memory in any historical evaluation.
Werner Kelber concludes the book with a consideration of Gerhardsson's work in perspective. As mentioned above, Kelber seems the most adverse to Gerhardsson's work, however, he still remains generally favorable. Strangely enough, I found his essay the least impressionable. I found myself questioning his insistence that Paul was not much concerned with the historical Jesus - perhaps a normative feature of early Christianity. But overall, it functioned well as a summary of the title.
In conclusion, this collection is a stellar introduction to and appraisal of the work of Birger Gerhardsson. Meanwhile, each contributor makes significant proposals in their own right, and can rightfully claim to represent the top of orality studies today. Anyone interested in Gerhardsson, scribal practice, oral tradition, or the gospels in general ought to add this work to their library. It is wealth worth the money and will prove helpful in any construction of Christian origins.
Many thanks to Baylor University Press for providing this review copy free of charge. I was not compelled to write a positive review.
With only modest overstatement, form-criticism fell by the sword of Birger Gerhardsson. He was the challenger - the Hostpur of Scandinavia - who contended with Bultmann and Dibelius in the kingdom of Gospel studies. It was his labor that shifted the paradigm of Jesus studies. Biblical studies is a different world today because of Gerhardsson. His legendary publication, Memory and Manuscript, defied contemporary scholarly conventions and set in motion a new era of Gospel studies. It is in tribute to this man, Birger Gerhardsson, that Werner Kelber and Samuel Byrskog have to put together a fine volume, Jesus in Memory - Traditions in Oral and Scribal Perspectives.
The collection functions largely as a reappraisal and commendation of Gerhardsson's monumental publications. In chapter 1, Samuel Byrskog opens the conversation with an introduction to the work and significance of Gerhardsson. Having never read Gerhardsson first hand, this descriptive mini-biography was especially helpful in setting the stage for the following essays. In light of his academic climate, one comes to appreciate the courage and novelty of Gerhardsson's contribution.
Following Byrskog's introduction, Christopher Tuckett has written an essay directed acutely at the issue of form-criticism in light of Gerhardsson's Memory and Manuscript. Tuckett details how Gerhardsson's proposal of an autonomous oral "Jesus Tradition", that was apart from the worship of the community, challenged the basic assumption of Sitz im Leben. Though Tuckett finds Gerhardsson largely persuasive, he is careful not to disregard the contributions that have been made through form-criticism. He has contributed a tempered and balanced essay, embodying what Tuckett himself commended of Gerhardsson's work, an approach that is both "sympathetic and critical" (pp. 37).
The essay most dealing with the issue of Jesus in memory, was Terence Mournet's contribution on "The Jesus Tradition as Oral Tradition". Mournet presents a threefold typology for assessing different approaches to the Jesus tradition: (1) the Literary Model, represented by the form critics, (2) the Rabbinical Model, which Mournet's attributes to Gerhardsson, and (3) the Orality Model, which is Mournet's term for Bailey's proposal of an "informal and controlled" oral tradition. Mournet aims to show that Gerhardsson's model need not be thrown out all together, in exchange for Bailey's model (which he espouses). Rather, Gerhardsson's work continues to be of significant contribution to the field. Mournet ends with a short excursus on comparative methodology - a prominent critique of both Gerhardsson and Bailey. I found Mournet's essay extremely helpful regarding historiographical method. I'd suggest the book for this essay alone.
David Aune has supplied a provocatice essay entitled "Jesus Tradition and the Pauline Letters". Aune, perhaps only second to Kelber, is most critical of Gerhardsson's proposal. However, he still grants it considerable value. One of Aune's prime critiques regards the character of "oral texts". He notes the trouble with assuming that a particular style or mnemonic feature implies oral origin. Because, naturally, oral features will influence literary composition, regardless of the texts relationship to an oral source. Writers are influenced by orality. Aune presents and critiques the proposals of several scholars (including Gerhardsson and Kelber) in understanding Paul's relation to the oral tradition. Unfortunately, Aune offers minimal suggestions for an alternative understanding. He seems to get bogged down in the nature of Paul's letters as lieux de memoire, which ultimately takes away from the focus of his article. Overall, the contribution was worthwhile and deserved its place amongst the rest.
Using the story of Honi the Circler as a launching pad, Martin Jaffee demonstrates an historical process that he has termed "re-oralization". Essentially, Jaffee argues that most english renditions of the text obscure the orality inherent in the text. The ancient reader of the Talmud, Jaffee's case for the experiment, would have read the text recognizing different "voices" within it. Jaffee parses up the passage from Bavli Taanit 23A, distinguishing each line according to its perceived source. In the end, he shows the Talmud's incorporation and interpretation of the oral tradition derived from the Talmud. Jaffee has proposed a compelling model for assessing oral texts in light of their performative quality.
Loveday Alexander contributed the collection's most extensive essay. Addressing "Memory and Tradition in the Hellenistic Schools", Alexander argues that Justin Martyr's accreditation of the gospels as apomnemoneumata supplies a fruitful paradigm with which to understand the gospels. Overviewing a vast amount of Hellenistic literature, Alexander details the general qualities of the apomnemoneumata genre, and ultimately, finds the gospels displaying a similar character. She confirms Bailey's proposal of a stable, but flexible tradition by forcefully presenting the Hellenistic schools as an exemplary model. Alexander's essay reveals great erudition and strong familiarity with the primary sources - I highly commend her study to all interested in ancient orality and memory.
Wrapping up the formal essay contributions is Alan Kirk's chapter on memory. Kirk applauds Gerhardsson for his recognition of the importance of memory in understanding tradition but he offers a needed, and expected, critique of Gerhardsson's faulty assumption of widespread Semitic education in 1st century Palestine. He suggests that the rabbinic model of memory was characteristic of highly literate folks only. In other words, Gerhardsson cannot apply the fixed-text tradition of the Rabbis to the early Jesus movement. Kirk goes on to describe the nature of memory as an interpretive and constructive force. Memories offer no access to "brute facts". All memory involves interpretation, schematizing, omission, etc. However, he makes clear that this does not hinder the historical task, it perhaps only modifies it. He also adds some suggestive comments on the social quality of memory, suggesting that its social character actually protects the tradition from idiosyncratic, unstable eye-witnesses. Kirk's essay was extremely enjoyable and a great introduction to the role of memory in any historical evaluation.
Werner Kelber concludes the book with a consideration of Gerhardsson's work in perspective. As mentioned above, Kelber seems the most adverse to Gerhardsson's work, however, he still remains generally favorable. Strangely enough, I found his essay the least impressionable. I found myself questioning his insistence that Paul was not much concerned with the historical Jesus - perhaps a normative feature of early Christianity. But overall, it functioned well as a summary of the title.
In conclusion, this collection is a stellar introduction to and appraisal of the work of Birger Gerhardsson. Meanwhile, each contributor makes significant proposals in their own right, and can rightfully claim to represent the top of orality studies today. Anyone interested in Gerhardsson, scribal practice, oral tradition, or the gospels in general ought to add this work to their library. It is wealth worth the money and will prove helpful in any construction of Christian origins.
Many thanks to Baylor University Press for providing this review copy free of charge. I was not compelled to write a positive review.
Displaying 1 of 1 review