Oral-Formulaic Theory: Annotated Bibliography

Werner H. Kelber. "Mark and Oral Tradition," Semeia, 16:7-55.

Although fully acknowledging a pre-Markan synoptic oral tradition, he takes as his central thesis that "the gospel is to be perceived not as the natural outcome of oral developments, but as a critical alternative to the powers of orality" (46). Thus he disagrees with Bultmann's (1957) hypothesis of a smooth, organic transition from orality to writing and posits instead a shift from collectivity to individual authorship and a "crisis" of oral transmission brought on by the retreat of Jesus' oral presence into a necessarily textual history. Notes the oral traditional features of Mark's gospel (formulaic and thematic patterning, variants with other gospels, modulation in the order of events with relation to other sources) and the fact that Mark's chirographic enterprise went on in a milieu that included a contemporary synoptic oral tradition. An imaginative and stimulating article that takes account of current research on oral literature.
Area: BI