Re: oral tradition

Lawrence Johnston (johnston@uidaho.edu)
Thu, 22 Jul 1999 07:45:34 -0700

From: mortongr@flash.net
Date sent: Wed, 21 Jul 1999 21:17:26 +0000
To: asa@calvin.edu
Subject: oral tradition
Hi, Glenn Glenn Morton wrote
> Many peoples have stated that it is improbable for oral tradition to pass a
> tradition for millenia upon millenia. Because this impacts how the origin
> of the Genesis account was formed, and the question of how long ago those
> events in early Genesis could have occurred, any evidence relating to the
> efficiency of oral tradition would be welcome.

William Foxwell Albright, IMHO still the greatest scholar of Biblical
origins and archeology (and human culture generally) had a very high
opinion of the reliability of oral tradition, especially that of the Torah.
See his _From the Stone Age to Christianity_ , p64ff. He places the
Flood at the end of the last Ice Age, about 9000BC, implying that oral
tradition carried that saga until writing came along, about 3000BC.
All the Best, Larry

=============================================
Lawrence H. Johnston 917 E. 8th st.
professor of physics, emeritus Moscow, Id 83843
University of Idaho (208) 882-2765
_http://www.uidaho.edu/~johnston/_ ==================