(07-11-2022, 05:59 PM)mordant Wrote:(07-11-2022, 04:02 PM)Dancefortwo Wrote: I think it's interesting (sort of) that the "Sayings of Buddha" and the "Sayings of Confucius" were gathered and compiled into books. Some say they were compiled not long after their deaths. It's mostly based on oral tradition though so whether Buddha and Confucius actually said those things is debatable. I can't remember where I read it but one of the early church fathers (maybe Polycarp?) talked about gathering the "oracles of Jesus" or the "sayings of Jesus" into a book, also based on oral tradition. As far as I know the Quran is also based on oral tradition.Most scholars agree that at least Matthew and Luke are based on a "sayings of Jesus" document which they refer to as "the lost Q document" which in turn was recording oral tradition. Some of the non-canonical gospels are just such documents, in fact. Very little narrative content.
This is necessarily hypothetical, but is a reasonable hypothesis especially given the common material in the canonical gospels.
Conservative Christian scholars do not like to talk much about this because it takes the magic out of their claim that these are inspired documents, implying that they sprang whole out of some original author's forehead and are handed down to us miraculously intact with no significant copying errors. Rather, it posits an organic mechanism that suggests the current texts are instead an evolution and have undergone some manipulation. Also that they are not anything special as the same process happened with many other writings from that era, including the holy books of other religions.
Yeah, the "Holy Spirit" made them do it. Sure thing. Bahahaha!. But there are a lot of Christians who trust in the "oral traditions" of Christianity because they claim that scholars and researchers say oral traditions have been studied and show them to be pretty accurate and reliable.
Quote: Because many oral traditions are highly structured and are told faithfully without alteration, they can be as reliable as other non-oral ways of recording and passing on experiences. While oral traditions can vary from teller to teller, variations are also open to contradiction in the same ways that written accounts are. In this way, the force of oral tradition can continue through generations although small details in the telling may change. Because of this, oral traditions which relate past events and have been passed down through time cannot be dismissed simply as “myth” in the sense that Western society polarizes the differences between “myth” and “science” or “fact.” Ideas about truth, rationality, logic, causality, and ways of knowing the world are contextualized within all societies; they are entirely valid within their cultural contexts and should be respected as such.
https://www.mpm.edu/educators/wirp/great...xperiences.
The problem is that the oral traditions passed down through many Muslim generations say Mohammad split the moon in half and flew around on horses. Hindus have magical stories handed down through thousands of years of storytelling too. Just because something has been told for generations doesn't make it originally true. So if Christians rely heavily on oral traditions as "true" (and many do) then they have to take the Hindu and Muslim stories as true too. But, guess what, they don't. "Mohammad's oral stories are false but OURS are true. So there! Hrumph!"
