Interesting post. I agree the game of telephone analogy captures some true things about the passing on of the tradition but breaks down if carried too far, for the reasons you articulate. But I wonder if you're underselling the potential for significant legendary development over even a few months or years let alone a few decades, of such transmission. You state that contra the purpose of the telephone game being to muck things up, "the early Gospel tradition was designed to recall the teachings of a religious leader" and I question whether that's quite true. I'd suggest it's at best incomplete. The purpose was to win converts - and that's different. Not necessarily diametrically opposed to accurately preserving Jesus's teachings, but a different goal. There's a reason the gospel authors are sometimes referred to as "the evangelists" and not "the chroniclers." With evangelism a high priority (and as with modern apologetics, also encouraging and reassuring the faithful) stories get beefed up. Stories get invented. Stories that seem to get the best reception get emphasized (whether they were of the made up or exaggerated variety or closer to the truth) and polished. Think of how fast larger-than-life stories about real human figures during their own lifetime passed from the American West or the Alaskan frontier, back East so that within years the purported exploits of these figures far outsized the actual reality. While a linear telephone analogy is imperfect, I think the end impression it illustrates of stories quickly changing as they are told and retold even by and among and to groups (with evangelistic purpose and enthusiasm, often re-told by people who weren't eye witnesses and have heard the story - albeit while in a group - thirdhand with who knows how many embellishments already added to the version their group heard? Who is running around the Mediterranean curating and fact-checking to make sure all the various retellings adhere closely to the first telling to the first small group of people? I understand you aren't saying all of those things and have a nuanced understanding. But it still seems to me the *end result* of decades of transmission with evangelistic intent often by people who never even met another person who saw Jesus in person once let alone extensively interviewed one of the apostles, is likely quite similar to the end result of a game of telephone. Let me know if you think I've gone wrong here, though. I greatly appreciate your work.
Thank you Karl for your thoughtful remarks and critique. I do think my statement – "the early Gospel tradition was designed to recall the teachings of a religious leader" – is too strong, or at least incomplete if taken on its own. I have now changed it to: "one purpose of the early gospel tradition was to recall the teachings of a religious leader." I hope in a future series this year on different models of the traditioning process to flesh out what I mean by this. Of course, recall can involve invention, and as I suggest above, this is one of the reasons why the analogy works. Where I aver from Ehrman is quite how recklessly he deems this process. The linear-sequence/hearsay model he provides feeds into the idea that people all over the Mediterranean were inventing stories of Jesus to convert one another, and that this was entirely unchecked. Without going into detail here, I think this fails to account for (1) the theory on oral tradition provided by the very people Ehrman cites; (2) the likelihood that the early Jesus movement was very small and quite well-connected early on; and (3) the data we actually find in the gospels (which often assumes a Palestinian Jewish setting. I think it also runs the risk of circularity. A story with evangelistic potential is seen as being invented for evangelistic purposes; and the evidence that it was created for evangelistic purpose is its evangelistic potential! I will go into more detail on this in future posts, but thank you for helping me to clarify my piece!
For better or worse, Paul is our primary source for the critical period. In Galatians, Paul confirms the central importance of the Jerusalem church and the high status of, at least, Peter, James the brother of Jesus, and John. In other words, teachers who knew Jesus during his lifetime had a great deal of influence within the burgeoning movement. It would be naive to picture a fact checking operation centered on prominent first-generation disciples, but not to believe they had a broadly stabilizing effect on transmission of the recollections that made their way into the gospels.
Interesting post. I agree the game of telephone analogy captures some true things about the passing on of the tradition but breaks down if carried too far, for the reasons you articulate. But I wonder if you're underselling the potential for significant legendary development over even a few months or years let alone a few decades, of such transmission. You state that contra the purpose of the telephone game being to muck things up, "the early Gospel tradition was designed to recall the teachings of a religious leader" and I question whether that's quite true. I'd suggest it's at best incomplete. The purpose was to win converts - and that's different. Not necessarily diametrically opposed to accurately preserving Jesus's teachings, but a different goal. There's a reason the gospel authors are sometimes referred to as "the evangelists" and not "the chroniclers." With evangelism a high priority (and as with modern apologetics, also encouraging and reassuring the faithful) stories get beefed up. Stories get invented. Stories that seem to get the best reception get emphasized (whether they were of the made up or exaggerated variety or closer to the truth) and polished. Think of how fast larger-than-life stories about real human figures during their own lifetime passed from the American West or the Alaskan frontier, back East so that within years the purported exploits of these figures far outsized the actual reality. While a linear telephone analogy is imperfect, I think the end impression it illustrates of stories quickly changing as they are told and retold even by and among and to groups (with evangelistic purpose and enthusiasm, often re-told by people who weren't eye witnesses and have heard the story - albeit while in a group - thirdhand with who knows how many embellishments already added to the version their group heard? Who is running around the Mediterranean curating and fact-checking to make sure all the various retellings adhere closely to the first telling to the first small group of people? I understand you aren't saying all of those things and have a nuanced understanding. But it still seems to me the *end result* of decades of transmission with evangelistic intent often by people who never even met another person who saw Jesus in person once let alone extensively interviewed one of the apostles, is likely quite similar to the end result of a game of telephone. Let me know if you think I've gone wrong here, though. I greatly appreciate your work.
Thank you Karl for your thoughtful remarks and critique. I do think my statement – "the early Gospel tradition was designed to recall the teachings of a religious leader" – is too strong, or at least incomplete if taken on its own. I have now changed it to: "one purpose of the early gospel tradition was to recall the teachings of a religious leader." I hope in a future series this year on different models of the traditioning process to flesh out what I mean by this. Of course, recall can involve invention, and as I suggest above, this is one of the reasons why the analogy works. Where I aver from Ehrman is quite how recklessly he deems this process. The linear-sequence/hearsay model he provides feeds into the idea that people all over the Mediterranean were inventing stories of Jesus to convert one another, and that this was entirely unchecked. Without going into detail here, I think this fails to account for (1) the theory on oral tradition provided by the very people Ehrman cites; (2) the likelihood that the early Jesus movement was very small and quite well-connected early on; and (3) the data we actually find in the gospels (which often assumes a Palestinian Jewish setting. I think it also runs the risk of circularity. A story with evangelistic potential is seen as being invented for evangelistic purposes; and the evidence that it was created for evangelistic purpose is its evangelistic potential! I will go into more detail on this in future posts, but thank you for helping me to clarify my piece!
For better or worse, Paul is our primary source for the critical period. In Galatians, Paul confirms the central importance of the Jerusalem church and the high status of, at least, Peter, James the brother of Jesus, and John. In other words, teachers who knew Jesus during his lifetime had a great deal of influence within the burgeoning movement. It would be naive to picture a fact checking operation centered on prominent first-generation disciples, but not to believe they had a broadly stabilizing effect on transmission of the recollections that made their way into the gospels.