This is part 2 of a 10 part series on faith, sacred text and the community of faith. Each post will give a little historical background, how that affects our understanding of sacred text and then some application and questions for the 21st century community of faith.
The Birth and Role of Sacred Text
Today we will wrestle with the evolution of the oral tradition into the written tradition. This one’s kind of long, but I couldn’t figure out how to do it justice any shorter.
Why does the community have to write down their sacred stories in an oral culture? How does a written sacred text affect the community of faith and the nature of belief? Does sacred text make claims on us?
Historical Background
1) The Birth…
Before we get to the New Testament… Jews at the time of Jesus used the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament. This included all the books we have and included the Apocrypha. So when anyone in the New Testament refers to Scripture (as in “all Scripture is God-breathed”) this refers to the Old Testament including the Apocrypha. The Apocrypha didn’t come into question in Christianity until the 16th century and the Protestant Reformation.
An Intro textbook I have (Introduction to the Bible Clyde E. Fant) lists 4 reasons the New Testament moved from the written to the oral stage…
1)As eyewitnesses to Jesus began to die it became obvious that these stories needed to be written down somehow, because pretty soon you wouldn’t be able to write Peter or John or anybody a letter and ask, “C’mon Pete! Did Jesus really say the thing about giving all your money to the poor? That’s a little extreme don’t you think?” 2)The end time did not happen as early Christians expected and instruction and interpretation was needed to explain this. 3)As Christianity spread problems arose in various churches that needed to be addressed and 4)new converts needed to be instructed in the faith. In fact the Gospels should perhaps be mostly understood as #4.
It also notes the general criteria by which documents were included in the canon. 1)apostolicity- the document was either written by an apostle or preserved the tradition of the apostles 2)orthodoxy- the writings must fit with the faith of the apostolic tradition 3)antiquity- the document needed to be written during the apostolic age while contact with the apostles was still possible 4)inspiration or divine influence- there needed to be some consensus that the document was inspired and not just a helpful document (like the Didache or Shepherd of Hermas) 5)widespread use- this was probably the most important criteria.
It is also helpful to realize that most of Paul’s letters were written prior to any of the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. So, they are an important window into the earliest theological developments of Christianity. We’ll spend more time on the Gospels when we get to The Historical Quest for Jesus. But I would point out one last important thing. Behind all of the New Testament lies an apostolic tradition centered in the death and resurrection of Jesus. In the midst of all the idiosyncrasies and contradictions of the Gospels, the Passion narrative of Jesus’ suffering and crucifixion are incredibly consistent among the Gospels.
2) The Role…
In many of Paul’s letters he quotes hymns or creeds (Philippians 2:6-11; 1 Cor. 15:3-8) to his readers to remind them of things they have already learned about the meaning of Jesus. Arguably the earliest fragment in the New Testament is the Hymn to Christ in Phillipians. These hymns and creeds were used as teaching tools. What we find in these earliest fragments is a highly developed Christology. Jesus is already considered “equal with God”, the incarnational theology is present, and the resurrection is present as well.
In 1 Corinthians 15:3 Paul says, “For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures (Old Testament)”. Regardless of whether or not you accept the claims of Christianity it seems clear that there is a very early development of Christology adn a pretty robust theology surrounding the meaning of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection.
So What?
We have to wade through various religious movements including the Protestant reformation to understand what the Bible is. As we walk backwards through time, I think it is important to shed our religious or philosophical skin, along with our pet doctrines and favorite understandings of what the Bible is to try and see it as it develops and evolves. I would say this safely means we can rid ourselves of the layers of doctrine we’ve stacked on the Bible, like inerrancy, plenary verbal inspiration or any other attempt to define what the Bible is beyond the earliest criteria of the canonization process.
Once the oral tradition is written down it moves from a dynamic tradition to a static form. For me this adequately explains any redaction, later editing or textual variants that pop up along the way. The movement from oral tradition to written tradition is not a moment in time, but a lengthy process.
What It Means Today
I believe that what Gary has called “the God experience” is not so much about belief as it is about practice. The Bible has been called a lot of things, rule book, blueprint, guide, literature, word of god, scripture, inerrant, inspired and on and on. For me the role of the sacred text we call the Bible is to enter into the story, the narrative and live it out in the world today.
Every text makes a claim on us, whether it is Shakespeare or Mein Kampf. We choose to place different values on those texts and their claims and in the case of Mein Kampf we hopefully reject its claims (though obviously many do not). For those who choose to accept the claims that the Bible makes on us it becomes different than other texts. It becomes sacred. I think it always begins with the text, even though the text is not the sum total of faith or the community of faith. Text is the starting point, unless we’re just making it up ourselves.
In an article by Eugene Peterson titled “Saint Mark: The Basic Text for Christian Spiriutality” he writes, “You need a text to read and study and learn from and here’s your text, the Gospel of Jesus Christ… none of us provides the content for our own spirituality.” That last line really struck me. thoughts?
that’s good stuff. I’m not sure if any tradition or text becomes static, though. I do believe it is more prone to be static, but in actuality I just think the oral tradition enters a new dynamic. Even this discussion reflects how dynamic text can be (which explains redactionism and editing for me). the fact that we wade through tradition, interpretation, translation, and understanding things like histo-critical methods and oral tradition proves for me how dynamic the the sacred text is.
i like what you said about the text being the starting point. this makes me think of the declaration of independence (which is a sacred text for many), and how people do not necessarily rely on the lives of the authors, or even the process as a starting point (although this is important), the focus is on the text and what it means.
[...] Gospels should form the New Testament. I described this process and the criteria somewhat in the last post. The point here is that alternative beliefs that arose were what forced the church to define [...]