You see, we have a nasty habit of reading the present into the past. We have a nasty habit of reading the present into the past, and seeing things that happened thousands of years ago as though the people who were there were just like us. You and I, we have a bunch of digital cameras around us all the time. From where I'm sitting in my office, I have 3 in arm's reach (laptop, 3ds, cell phone). If I want to take a picture of something, I'm seconds away from doing so. If something essential happens, if there's a big to-do, I can capture it in still or in video, upload it instantly, and get it out there. As a result, in this world, if I make an elaborate claim, people can bust my chops by essentially saying that old classic 'pics or it didn't happen!'
This is where our understanding of oral traditions has to kick itself into high gear. And this is helpful for us as Canadians, becasue we have a built-in knowledge of oral traditions, or at least we should. In an age of quick video, and instant messaging, in an age in which we have access to media as soon as it has happened, this country and this society has had a real, legitimate issue with oral history and tradition before.
You see, our great nation has had a great many and various number of first nations groups who have laid claim to land, who have brought forward suit, and who have not had anything like what we would consider to be 'evidence' to back it up. So, no evidence, no case, right? Welllllllllll, not exactly. As of late, the people who have only an oral history have actually had said evidence heard in court as admissible in court. That is, the good people of our first nations, who told stories, danced dances, sang songs, and didn't have what we would call a written history, can have their oral histories and traditions heard as admissible in a court of law in this great nation.
What does this mean for us? It means that perhaps oral tradition is more important than we thought it may have been to begin with. It means that we can get a lot done with our oral tradition that can stand up to rigorous scrutiny, provided that it is a matter of public record well known by the people who use it. And this is the thing. The case cited involves stories, songs, and dances that had been used for thousands of years. The gap in the Biblical record, from when stuff happened to when it was written down, was about twenty years, at the smallest.
You and I , as I say, we have a deep desire to read the present into the past, to see people, texts, events, as though it was us looking at it, and saying to ourselves, 'gosh, I sure wouldn't trust this at all.' But we can't, and we ought not. Or to put it another way, we know that Jesus is the most important guy who has ever lived ever, but of those living at the time, only the Christians worked out that he was. Nobody else paid much attention to this itinerant street preacher, save those who were internalizing his message. And with that being the case, Jesus remains shockingly well known amongst those who were in the world at the time. If you compare him with others who were around at the time, comprable people who had their names known through oral tradition and history, you'd find that very few of those still remain. With Jesus, there are more copies, earlier manuscripts, and a greater depth of knowledge than the overwhelmingly vast majority of othe people who lived at the time.
It's really interesting, actually, once you start getting into it. And when you do get into it, the entire history of the scriptures opens up and blossoms in front of you. You see the copies and evidence of sources. You see the way in which the scriptures were written down for you, and you see the fingerprints of the eyewitnesses all over their stories. In other words, the deeper into this you get, the more interesting it becomes, and the less you can dismiss it by just saying 'oh, well, that's unreliable.'
