Oral transmission in the Bible is reliable

Memory: Encoding in memory is a process of storing sensory input (sight,smell,sound, and taste) into memory. Your mind decides which memories are worth storing and which aren't. You can practice memory by repeating it over and over. Your short-term memory can change into long-term with practice. Oral transmission consists of many forms of mnemonic devices and is still practiced today in the middle east. We can test it's reliability from several different fields. Reliability of oral transmission in Academics: Research shows that college students who use mnemonic devices retain more factual information and that there is "evidence that instruction involving the use of mnemonic devices does enhance a student"s formal reasoning skills and that this has the potential for application of knowledge to more varied tasks" (2). Those who use mnemonic devices to learn vocabulary perform better than those who don't. It's also said that the most creative mnemonic devices are the most effective (3). Historical reliability : There are many cases of oral transmission being reliable in history. 2nd century poet Bardaisan composed stanza after stanza of 7 syllable lines of Syriac hymns. 200 years later, his work is still remembered. Ephrem used the same process and his works are still orally recited in the Atashi Syrian Orthodoxy seminary. Some go as far to say that there is no need for books (4). The Greco-Roman historian Thucydides wrote "I have given speeches in the manner in which it seemed to me that each of the speakers would best express what needed to be said about the ever prevailing situation, but I have kept as close as possible to the total opinion expressed by the actual words" (History of the Peloponnesian War, 1.22.1)." "Plato says that the Sophist Hippias of Elis "was able to repeat fifty names after hearing them only once." Pliny the Elder reports that Cyrus was able to name every man in his army, and that Lucius Scipio remembered the names of every person in the Roman Empire, and that one named Charmadas "recited by heart any book in the libraries." Seneca boasted of being able in his youth to repeat 2000 names read to him "and recite in reverse order over two hundred verses his fellow students told him..." (5) "If, then, any one came, who had been a follower of the elders, I questioned him in regard to the words of the elders"what Andrew or what Peter said, or what was said by Philip, or by Thomas, or by James, or by John, or by Matthew, or by any other of the disciples of the Lord, and what things Aristion and the presbyter John, the disciples of the Lord, say. For I did not think that what was to be gotten from the books would profit me as much as what came from the living and abiding voice" Eusebius "Church history" Historian Charles Fornara, Tacitus (1st century historian), ". . .presented speeches responsibly, refused to invent them, and searched them out when it was possible to do so". He concludes that, "We are not entitled to proceed on the assumption that the historians considered themselves at liberty to write up speeches out of their own heads." (6) Psychological reliability: An associate professor at Howard university states that making personal connections to material increases retention. Students who use normal methods do worse than those who use mnemonic devices. Another study shows that doodling increases chances of doing better during exams than those who do not (7). Empirical observations: It's been documented that people can recite very long epics from memory (8). People have been observed reciting oral stories lasting up to 25 hours and several days from memory (9). Biblical scholar, Xavier Leon Dufour records of an illterate woman who can recite hindu prayers as long as his 285-page book from memory (10). Kenneth Bailey's studies: Kenneth Bailey was a professor of the New Testament and has lived in the middle east for around 30 years studying the reliability of oral transmission. He notes the following: "1) Middle Eastern people express their values through proverbs, the creating and preserving of wisdom and sayings; 2) Story riddles - a teacher is presented with an unsolvable problem; 3) poetry - a distinct unlettered form of verse. The person who recites this is called a Sajali; 4) parable or story; 5) Well-told accounts of the important figures in the history of the village or community " (11). There are different degrees of flexibility allowed in communities reciting oral transmission: 1) No flexibility - People must repeat the story word for word with absolutely no mistakes. If just one mistake is made, the community corrects that person 2) some flexibility - The flow of the story and conclusion must remain the same as well as the basic outline and summary. 3) Total flexibility - Total flexibility is only allowed for things irrelevant like gossip. John Hogg, the founder of the Egyptian Evangelical community did many things causing the people to orally preserve them. His daughter wrote them down on paper and 50 years later, he came back to compare the two. He found that they were essentially the same wording. There is simply overwhelming evidence for the reliability of oral transmission. Now what about the eye-witness testimony of the Gospels? Is it possible for the Gospels to be treated as historical documents? Yes, oral stories have been used as valid testimony in the court of law. A famous example is Delgamuukw v. British Columbia. Delgamuukw. Finally, oral history was accepted as legal evidence. Chief Justice Lamar of the Supreme court of Canada said: "The laws of evidence must be adapted in order that [oral] evidence can be accommodated and placed on an equal footing with the types of historical evidence that courts are familiar with, which largely consists of historical documents. . . . To quote Dickson C.J., given that most aboriginal societies "did not keep written records," the failure to do so would "impose an impossible burden of proof" on aboriginal peoples, and "render nugatory" any rights that they have (Simon v. The Queen, [1985] 2 S.C.R. 387, at p. 408). This process must be undertaken on a case-by-case basis." Numerous other courts accepted oral traditions as evidence and laid out terms on how to correctly interpret the evidence (Squamish Indian Band v. Canada (2001 FCT 480) and R. v. Ironeagle (2000 2 CNLR 163). Oral transmission although is mostly contested in legal matters is currently being considered as evidence in court testimony (12). The evidence cannot be denied. The authors of the Bible were not gullible or ignorant. They were absolutely not careless in their transmission of the Bible. They used very advanced techniques deemed as more accurate than writing by some experts to very accurately transmit the Bible through oral transmission until finally being written down. Sources: 1. http://science.howstuffworks.com... 2. http://www.hraljournal.com... 3. http://en.wikipedia.org... 4. Bailey, Kenneth. "Informal, Controlled, Oral Tradition and the Synoptic Gospels." Asia Journal of Theology. 5.1 (1991) 40 5. http://www.tektonics.org... 6. http://ratiochristi.org... 7. http://abcnews.go.com... 8. Honko, "Introduction: Oral and Semiliterary Epics," in The Epic: Oral and Written (eds., L. Honko, J. Handoo, and J. M. Foley; Mysore, India: Central Institute of Indian Languages, 1998) 9. - See more at: http://reknew.org... 9. Honko himself has witnessed one oral narrative that took seven days to complete. Honko, Textualizing the Siri Epic, 15. - See more at: http://reknew.org... 10. (Xavier Leon-Dufour, The Gospels of the Jesus of History, trans. and ed. John Hchugh. (New York: Desclee Company, 1968) 195) 11. Bailey, Kenneth. "Informal, Controlled, Oral Tradition and the Synoptic Gospels." Asia Journal of Theology. 5.1 (1991) 41-42 12. John Borrows, "Listening for a Change: The Courts and Oral Tradition," Osgoode Hall Law Journal 39, no. 1 (2001): 10.