This article clarifies a perennial problem relating to the concept of ‘orality’ in Gospels studies and attempts to provide some resolution to that problem. Specifically, Gospels criticism has struggled to conceptualize the relation between the Jesus tradition as it was orally performed and early textual (written) expressions of that tradition. The binary opposition ‘literacy/orality’ has failed to provide any help in this conceptualization, and this failure is rooted especially in the rather nebulous (yet widespread) concept of ‘orality’. New Testament scholarship requires a set of culturally specific models of textuality, including the non-communicative functions of written texts and the non-literate use of written traditions. Before we can develop the necessary models, however, we need to deal with the problems we have created by appealing to ‘orality’.
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