Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

§19.1 Jesus Remembered
pact. Any other 'historical Jesus' will, unavoidably and inevitably, be the consequence
of inserting other factors and ideological concerns into the business of
constructing 'the historical Jesus'. (3) The impact itself, in large part, took the
form of tradition. For most of those who had been so decisively influenced by Jesus,
who had found his challenge literally life-transforming, could not have
failed to speak of that impact to others who shared the new appreciation of God's
kingship and its consequences for their living in the here and now. That impactexpressed-in-verbal-formulation
was itself the beginning of the Jesus tradition
proper — as also of embryonic ritual, as the disciple groups met together to share
that tradition, no doubt regularly in the context of the shared meals which had
themselves been so characteristic of Jesus' mission.
b. The new perspective on the Jesus tradition as oral tradition dovetails into
the new perspective on the initiating formative influence determining that tradition.
It constitutes a deliberate attempt to break out from the centuries-old cultural
conditioning of a literary, print-dominated mindset which has determined how the
early transmission of the Jesus tradition has been conceived by NT scholarship
generally. It does not deny literary interdependence between the Synoptic Gospels.
But it questions whether the interrelations between the traditions utilized by
the Synoptics are adequately conceptualized in exclusively literary and
intertextual terms. It disputes a conceptualization of the Jesus tradition as in effect
restricted within the bounds of two or four literary channels. It disputes even more
fiercely any suggestion that any such channels were in effect independent of the
others and exclusive to one or more churches. It asks whether it is not more realistic
in historical terms, in reference to groups/churches functioning initially in a
highly oral society, to conceive of these groups/churches all having quite extensive
repertoires of Jesus tradition, overlapping with that of other groups/churches
and regularly shared by those (apostles, prophets and teachers) who moved
among these groups/churches. And it asks for a reconceptualization of the use
made of Jesus tradition, including its transmission to new converts and other
groups/churches, in terms of oral performance rather than of written editions.
The strength of this new perspective lies in the conjunction of two factors.
One is the character of oral tradition as it has been illuminated by repeated studies
of community tradition (quite different from personal reminiscence) as a
combination of stability and flexibility, of stories and teaching material being
maintained in identity of subject matter and/or structure and core content, in and
through the diversity of detail in sequential performances. The other is the character
of the Jesus/Synoptic tradition as attesting the same type of traditioning
process. Characteristically in the Synoptic tradition we see traditions which were
all important in one degree or other to the identity of the communities which rehearsed
them. In the stabilities and diversities of the tradition, still evident in its
permanent form (textual variations apart — or included!), we can trace the conti-
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