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Oral gospel traditions (German: mündliche Überlieferung) is that stage of Christian tradition which preceded the written Gospels. The oral tradition consisted of various types of stories, including parables, miracle stories, historical stories and legends, and a passion narrative. They were passed on as self-contained units without chronological order. Soon they were written down as collections of similar stories.

In the early 20th century, the oral traditions became the subject of study using the methods of form criticism, partly by German scholar Rudolf Bultmann. Bultmann, however, did not consider there to be a real border between oral and textual transmission.

Form criticism and biblical genres

Form criticism is the methodologies by which biblical scholars seek to discover the types ("forms") of literature contained in the bible. It begins by establishing the Sitz im Leben, "situation in life", which gave rise to a particular passage. When form critics discuss oral traditions about Jesus, they theorise about particular social situations in which different kinds of stories about Jesus were thought to be told. The Sitz im Leben for Jesus and his followers was Aramaic-speaking Palestine. This is important because the gospels show clearly both that they were based on oral traditions (as the Gospel of Luke indicates) and that these traditions had been around since Christianity first emerged in Palestine. .

Notes

1. Wansbrough 2004, p. 9.
2. Burkett 2011, p. 17.
3. Burkett 2002, p. 124.
4. Ehrman 2012, p. 85.
5. Kelber 1983, p. 1.
6. Hammann 2012, p. 107- "Eine prinzipielle Grenze zwischen der mündlichen und der schriftlichen Überlieferung gibt es nicht — so hält Bultmann diese Konsequenz seiner traditionsgeschichtlichen Perspektive fest"
7. Ehrman 2012, p. 84.
8. ^ Aune 2010, p. 144.
9. Ehrman 2012, p. 86-87.
10. Ehrman 2012, p. 84-87.

Sources

• Aune, David E. (2010). "Form Criticism". In Aune, David E. (ed.). The Blackwell Companion to The New Testament. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-4443-1894-4. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Burkett, Delbert, ed. (2011). The Blackwell Companion to Jesus. Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 978-1-4051-9362-7. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Burkett, Delbert (2002). An introduction to the New Testament and the origins of Christianity. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-00720-7. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Ehrman, Bart (2005). Lost Christianities: The Battles For Scripture And The Faiths We Never Knew. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195182491. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Ehrman, Bart D. (2012). Did Jesus Exist?: The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth. HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-06-220460-8. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Hammann, Konrad (2012). Rudolf Bultmann - Eine Biographie. ISBN 978-3-16-152013-6. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Kelber, Werner H. (1983). The oral and the written Gospel: the hermeneutics of speaking and writing in the synoptic tradition, Mark, Paul, and Q. Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-21097-5. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Wansbrough, Henry (2004). Wansbrough, Henry (ed.). Jesus and the Oral Gospel Tradition. Continuum International Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-567-04090-9. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Further reading

• Bockmuehl, Markus (2004) . This Jesus: Martyr, Lord, Messiah. Continuum International Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-567-08296-1.
• Casey, Maurice (2010). Jesus of Nazareth: An Independent Historian's Account of His Life and Teaching. Continuum International Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-567-64517-3.
• Dunn, James D. G. (2003). Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, Volume 1. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. ISBN 978-0-8028-3931-2.

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