Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

FROM THE GOSPELS TO JESUS §8.3
2.4-5), Paul would certainly not have recognized such distinctions. 166 Kelber
forgets not only the continuity between oral and first writing (as initially written
orality), which he had earlier acknowledged, but he ignores the points
made above, that in an age of high illiteracy documents were written to be
heard and that a reading can also be likened to a performance. In claiming that,
in contrast to Mark's Gospel, 'Q effects a direct address to present hearers', 167
he ignores the fact that Q is generally regarded as a written source (above
§7.4). He also forgets the living character of tradition, that written as well as
oral tradition can effect a re-presentation (making present again) of ancient
teaching and events, 168 particularly in liturgy, as in Paul's recollection of Jesus'
words in regard to the Lord's Supper (1 Cor. 11.23-26). Regrettably then, once
again, the potential significance of recognizing the distinct character of the
oral traditioning process in the case of the Jesus tradition has been subverted
by another agenda and lost to sight.
g. R. A. Horsley and J. Draper
As Kelber made fruitful use of earlier work on the oral epic, so Horsley and
Draper have benefited from the subsequent work of J. M. Foley in the same
area. 169 Foley has advanced the debate on how oral performance functions (and
functioned) by drawing upon the 'receptionalist' theories of contemporary literary
criticism, particularly those of Iser and H. R. Jauss, to fill out what Foley
calls 'traditional referentiality'. The key point is that a text has to be heard within
the appropriate 'horizons of expectation' (Jauss); any text has 'gaps of indeterminacy'
(Iser) which can be bridged only from the hearer's prior understanding of
the text, author, and tradition. In other words, 'traditional referentiality' invokes
'a context that is enormously larger and more echoic than the text or work itself;
'the traditional phraseology and narrative patterns continue to provide ways for
the poet to convey meaning, to tap the traditional reservoir'. To elaborate the
point Foley uses the term 'metonymy' and the concept of 'metonymic reference'
166. Cf. F. Vouga, 'Mündliche Tradition, soziale Kontrolle und Literatur als theologischer
Protest', in G. Sellin and F. Vouga, eds., Logos und Buchstabe: Mündlichkeit und
Schriftlichkeit im Judentum und Christentum der Antike (Tübingen: Francke, 1997) 195-209
(here 205-206, and further 205-208).
167. Kelber, Oral 201.
168. Deut. 6.20-25: 'we were Pharaoh's slaves . . . and the Lord brought us out of
Egypt. . .'.
169. J. M. Foley, Immanent Art: From Structure to Meaning in Traditional Oral Epic
(Bloomington: Indiana University, 1991); also The Singer of Tales in Performance (Bloomington:
Indiana University, 1995).
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