By Gerald McDermott, Public Discourse.
Review: The Bible: A Global History, Bruce Gordon, Basic Books, 528p.
The second-century church father Papias is reported by Eusebius to have said, “I do not believe that things out of books are as beneficial to me as things from a living and enduring voice.” We moderns and postmoderns are shocked to read this, for we think that written texts are more reliable than oral communication. But our ancient and medieval forefathers disagreed. As Plato quotes Socrates in his Phaedrus,
For those who learn to use [written texts] it will result in forgetfulness, for they will no longer need to use their memory[.] You have discovered a medication not to increase memory but to increase dependence on being reminded. Thus you offer to your students only the appearance of wisdom, not true wisdom. For they will read much, but not be taught; they will appear to be knowledgeable, but on the whole they will be ignorant.
The problem, said Socrates and Plato, is what Brent Sandy has called decontextualization. As Plato put it, “[Y]ou might think [written words] spoke as if they had intelligence, but if you question them, wishing to know about their sayings, they always say only one and the same thing.”
A speaker, on the other hand, answers questions about what he has just said. He uses different tones, volume, and body language to emphasize and provide context. But a written text provides little of this. This is why all but two of Plato’s twenty-seven writings were dialogues. It is why Socrates and Epictetus wrote nothing when they surely could have. And it is also why Jesus wrote nothing and the early church was in no rush to get a written Bible into print. As Yale historian Bruce Gordon writes in his magnificent new book on the global history of the Bible:
Throughout most of its history, the Bible has been read by only a few. Most people encountered it in oral and visual forms—they heard it, talked about it, prayed with it, or saw it in worship; its stories were told in paintings and drawings both crude and exquisite.
In its first thousand years as the Hebrew Bible and then the next fifteen hundred years as the Christian Bible, it was more heard than read. It was an oral text more than a written text because people trusted the heard word more than the written word.