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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jacob Snyder who wrote (96726)	4/28/2003 10:32:46 PM
From: w0z	Respond to of 281500

"First major error source: If the various books of the NT were first written down in 40-100 AD, this was 10-70 years after Christ died. Is it reasonable to think that the writers could remember, word-for-word, exactly what was said, after that long?" Jacob, I don't have time to read and reply to anything but just this point for the moment. Do a little research and I think you will find it is now generally believed that Christ was born around 4-6 AD, making His death around 37-39 AD. You will also find the first four books by His disciples Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are extremely consistent in reporting His words. Paul's epistles, which make up most of the remainder of the NT, are copies of letters he wrote after Christ died, so naturally they would be written later. Got to run for now but, I think you need to do a little more research. Haven't even read the rest of your post...maybe tomorrow.

To: Jacob Snyder who wrote (96726)	4/29/2003 2:21:41 PM
From: The Philosopher	Respond to of 281500

If the various books of the NT were first written down in 40-100 AD, this was 10-70 years after Christ died. Is it reasonable to think that the writers could remember, word-for-word, exactly what was said, after that long? Without getting into the specific discussion, I should offer a historical note. Remember that at that time most people in the Mediterranean basin, as with many other ancient peoples, were functionally illiterate. They relied strongly on oral learning and memory. That is a reality of many ancient civilizations. Singers, for example, were able to memorize the entire Iliad and Odyssey, not to mention many other poems they recited as they moved from place to place. Even up to a few hundred years ago, there were numerous people who had, for example, memorized the entire Bible. Our culture has basically lost the power of memorization. There are a few exceptions -- stage actors, for example, can memorize parts that are beyond my ability to memorize -- Hamlet is an extraordinarily long part, yet stage actors have to memorize the entire part. But for the most part, we today have little understanding of how to memorize and how much and accurately one can memorize. (Not totally. You can probably remember the product of 7 times 9 even if you haven't brought that to mind for years.) This arises from several causes. Most obvious is our ability to write things down, so that we have no need to memorize them. In addition, we have so much more information to remember to survive in a modern society. Plus there is much more for us to read. Books galore. In 50 AD how many books did the average citizen have that he or she could memorize from? Plus, if the person whose words you are hearing or repeating is a prophet or messiah, you're going to pay particular attention to getting it right. I have no idea whether the gospels accurately reflect what Jesus said or not. But it is not at all surprising to me, given the culture of the time, that many of the thousands of people who heard him speak could repeat verbatim and quite accurately what they had heard him say, and that they would pass that oral tradition on quite accurartely over far more than 40-70 years. That's not surprising to me at all. In fact, it would surprise me a lot more if the reports were widely divergent.