oral tradition and the bible

DMB said:

Jack ... your question is a good one, but you're about to slowly slide into an interesting theological discussion. For example, I view 'oral tradition', 'copiest errors' and the OT Document Hypothesis all on the same level. For the true textual expert, each has a potential place (valid or not is arguable). But for the other 99% of the scholarly world, they're better seen as a 'crutch'. Unsubstantiated hypotheses introduced as virtually fact from which other poorly supported theories are introduced.

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The worst has got to be the hypothetical Johannine community of Brown and others, treated like solid fact; or even better, the Q community, a hypothetical community based upon a hypothetical document, though you wouldn't know that reading the scholars who somehow manage to write detailed histories of these communities. And we thought the pre-moderns were the only ones who mythologized history. 

tom collinge said:

Please, let us not get into a theological debate.  There are many of us who do believe in Q and in the Johannine community.

The OP asked about the oral tradition of passing down information.  Can we keep the topic on Logos and oral tradition.

Thanks.

You're right. My apologies (p.s. I accept there was a Q too). 

I just found this item that might interest You:
http://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=1078792453&searchurl=an%3Dhorsley%26bt.x%3D0%26bt.y%3D0%26sts%3Dt%26tn%3DOral%2BPerformance%2BHidden%2BTranscript
Read about it also on Amazon.
I might even buy it myself.

Note that the volume The Case for Mark Composed in Performance in the Biblical Performance -series, has approximately 12 pages on the ending of Mk, which is 5% of the entire volume, so if that's not a crucial point You'll learn nothing that You'd find useful from those pages.

Most of the authors of the book I linked to, are quoted very many times in the Biblical Performance Criticism Series.

Jack Nørdam said:

I am most interested in New Testament, especially because, I think there
is more literary evidence and because Logos has a new material on this
topic: 'Biblical Performance Criticism Series (4 vols.)' that in a way
looks interesting.

I don't think You'll find anyone who knows. I've posted the same question twice myself, a few days ago, once on Logos and once on Christianforums and I have nothing new to tell.

Jack Nørdam said:

Does anyone know those books?

Some/many details in the so called Documentary Hypthesis that concerns the beginning of the OT, are just assumptions and nothing more and have more recently been discarded. But other than that I wouldn't call it assumptions to any further degree than concerning some of the NT.
And some of this has been discarded quite recently: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tradition_history

Jack Nørdam said:

Old Testament is not that interesting for me because I think that the research on this topic mostly is based on assumptions. I might be wrong, but that's my thoughts.

A book dealing with both OT and NT I've been reading lately, is: The Language and Imagery of the Bible, ©G.B. Caird 1980. It's not dated because Caird was a language expert, he knew all of the NT by heart IN GREEK. There is information about him on Wikipedia. He and his wife worked in the Revised English Bible translation team. I have this book in hardcover. You can find it on for example abebooks. This book corrects some misunderstanding and explains basics in linguistics. I've read it through once, and I am reading it a second time. I'm gonna read it a third time and make corrections to Bibles I have printed and electronic.

Or Christianforums.com I've become a member 2003. Discussions tend to be long. Or if You start a very specific thread You don't always get the desired amount of answer: such as the thread where I want to discuss OT exegetical versions, comparison and opinions. There are some experts over there but some of them don't have time to answer that much on the forums, such as one Bible translator who has enough to research.

The forum is free to use. Most people don't pay anything. However if You pay a $20 yearly fee You get rid of most tracking cookies and ads, and Your Private Message in/out-box is expanded from 70 to 1000 messages. If You don't pay the fee You have to use for example Trend Micro Internet Security (designed for Windows 7) very frequently, to get rid of the tracking cookies, or delete all cookies in Your browser all the time. This is just caution. I've also been using it for years WITHOUT thinking about the tracking cookies.

Almost all sub-forums there, are for Christians only.

There are a lot of different sub-forums for theological discussions + many other areas of life if You don't mind sharing.

Likewise, I had overlooked this site.