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Bible Translation Languages

Sacred Texts in an Oral Culture

One of the difficulties of Bible translation is that many of the cultures that we work with are essentially oral. Stories, poetry and song are the ways in which information is conveyed, not the printed page. This makes for a real challenge when trying to get across the message of a rather large written document. The Luke Project which Sue is involved in is one attempt at an answer to this question, translating the Gospel of Luke and then producing the Jesus film. Onestory is an intermission partnership which also tries to present the message of Scripture in a way that is accessible to people from oral cultures.

However, one thing I hadn’t considered was that the cultures that the Bible emerged from were also highly oral. This excellent (though long and scholarly – be warned) article by Ben Witherington takes a good look at the oral nature of the Christian Scriptures.

The literacy rate in those Biblical cultures seems to have ranged from about 5% to 20% depending on the culture and which sub group within the culture we are discussing. Not surprisingly then, all ancient peoples, whether literate or not, preferred the living word, which is to say the spoken word. Texts were enormously expensive to produce—papyrus was expensive, ink was expensive, and scribes were ultra expensive. Being a secretary in Jesus’ age could be a lucrative job indeed. No wonder Jesus said to his audiences—‘let those who have ears, listen’. You notice he did not ever say—‘let those who have eyes, read’. Most eyes could not read in the Biblical period.

6 replies on “Sacred Texts in an Oral Culture”

You must be familiar with how the Talmud, (Oral Torah) survived over several millenia being passed from G-d to Moshe, to Joshua, to the Elders of the Great Assembly, to the tribes, and from Rabbi to student until the 5th century when it was finally committed to writing for fear of losing it due to the exile. An amazing history and a fantastic testamony to the tremendous memory of the sages that preserved it.

Daniel and other readers, you should be aware of the scholarly consensus that the Oral Torah was largely composed by the rabbis of the period after the destruction of Jerusalem. Few, outside certain tendencies in Judaism, would credit that there is anything significant in it (apart from what is written in the Torah) which goes back to Moses and Joshua.

I guess you’re all familiar with the idea that “scholarly consensus” is generally achieved by labelling those who don’t agree as not scholars.

Same applies in science & engineering, so far as I can see…

Peter P, I take your point about “scholarly consensus” in general. But I would be interested to hear of anyone who has even the slightest scholarly credentials in a relevant field who holds that the Talmud or even any significant (non-biblical) part of it was composed by Moses or Joshua.

My mistake – I missed the distinction between “Oral Torah” ~= Talmud? and “what is written in the Torah”.

Too much time recently reading / debating with those who seem happier to accept oral transmission of, say, Zoroaster’s teachings than any of the Torah..:)

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