Listening to the Text: Oral Patterning in Paul's Letters

by John D. Harvey

Book Overview

Enables readers to better understand the structure and meaning of Paul's letters by examining first-century speaking styles and showing how Paul used them in his writings.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0851114644
• ISBN13: 9780851114644
• Release Date: May 1999
• Publisher: Apollos
• Length: 376 Pages

Customer Reviews

Oral Greek Styles in Paul's Writings

In this volume, John Harvey reviews the recent studies on oral cultures, literacy and concepts of Orality. Extensive studies have been done in recent decades on the ancient cultures and the development of literature, such as in the Greek, Roman and Hebrew traditions. Harvey contributes greatly to our awareness of oral-culture characteristics in the ancient writings. Oral to Literate Harvey considers the oral patterning in literature in light of the established views of transitions from oral culture to literate culture. He applies this specifically to the study of Paul's writings in the New Testament. He analyzes passages minutely for style and pattern, shedding light on the meanings and uses of the writings. He enables us to envision the letter read aloud to the target community serve as the oral representative of Paul. Oral Culture Context The author establishes a clear foundation of cultural context, from his own analysis, and other experts in various disciplines which clearly show that writing was primarily a support of an oral culture. The writings of Homer and literature on up in to the Christian era, were written to be read to hearing audiences. One important insight, surprising to modern western cultures, is that silent reading, even in private study, was not the common pattern we now accept as normal. This practice was unknown in ancient times and was still considered a strange anomaly by Western scholars as late as Augustine. Different Culture A growing body of knowledge, analysis and literature has established the firm view that the ancient cultures, even with their written records, were not "literate cultures" as we use that term today. The culture, its thought and its common body of knowledge was not focused in writing and in the written materials amassed. This is a recent modern-culture phenomenon. Oral Characteristics In his analysis, Harvey details four key factors in the writings of the First Century AD. He analyzes these to find any commonality. He discovers that all that literature displays a pattern different from the historically recent Western analytical culture of literacy developed since the Enlightenment. This he summarizes in four characteristics: (1) the oral development of the message (entailing dictation, rather than silent writing or writing for the eye to read) (2) the writing format establishing the same oral "presence" of the writer to the audience (3) the thought patterns involved in such writing (4) and the fact that the writings would be read aloud in their circulation to the relevant communities. Concrete-Relational Culture Critical to this worldview difference is a view of reality categorized as concrete, rather than abstract, practical rather than analytical. I did not labor over the analysis of the Greek of every passage of the New Testament letters analyzed, since I was more familiar with these. I have, in fact, made notes over the years in my study Bibles in Greek and other languages o