Bruce Waltke on Oral Tradition in the Old Testament

Bruce Waltke’s essay on oral tradition seeks to challenge some of the assumptions and principles upon which much of contemporary Old Testament criticism is based.[1]  Two crucial principles which are challenged by Waltke are: “(1) that most of the literature of the Old Testament had a long oral pre-history before being written down, and (2) that during its oral stage, the ‘literature’ was often transposed into new settings with new meanings.”[2]  These two principles are accepted by many who engage in the disciplines of form criticism, tradition criticism, and canonical criticism.  Waltke points to the importance of challenging such principles in that if allowed to stand these principles raise questions about authorial meaning of the text.  A highly fluid oral period calls into question the ability to accurately get at the meaning of the text itself.

            In seeking to “debunk” the two principles of oral tradition listed above Waltke focuses on three elements in his essay. First, he analyzes the ancient Near East evidence to show that the biblical literature had a short oral prehistory and was transmitted conservatively.  Second, Waltke briefly looks at other literature outside the Semitic realm and shows that even here there is little evidence to show that oral traditions were transmitted in a fluid state.  Third, and even more briefly, Waltke turns to discuss the issue of oral tradition in the prepatriarchial narratives.

The bulk of Waltke’s essay (pages 19-27) is taken up examining the evidence from ancient Near East documents and inscriptions. This provides the closest context from which to judge Israel’s literature.  Waltke looks at the early evidence for written texts being used with the goal of keeping one question in mind: “Did the people under investigation preserve their cultural heritage through an oral tradition subject to alteration or through written texts precisely with a view that its heritage not be corrupted?”[3]  Waltke surveys material from Ebla, Mesopotamia, the Hittites, the peoples of Ugarit, the Egyptians, and Northwest Semitic peoples.  Some of this evidence is contemporaneous with the biblical material but some of it, such as the royal archives of Ebla, pre-dates the Hebrew patriarchs by three to five centuries.  This evidence from Ebla shows their culture to be highly literate and that they preserved their culture in writing.  A similar dynamic of literacy and cultural preservation through written sources is found throughout the ANE material.  Furthermore, there is little evidence for a flexible oral tradition in these cultures.  This material from the ANE context comports well with the Old Testament’s witness to its transmission as utilizing written sources.

            Waltke next looks at other literature from non-Semitic speaking peoples, although  he recognizes that these sources “do not carry as much weight in deciding the issues as analogies from the ancient Near Eastern literature or from the Old Testament itself.”[4]  Examination of Homer, the Talmud, the Rig-veda, and the Quran reveals no large-scale textual reformulation over time.  “The best evidence for an oral tradition such as that proposed by modern source critics come from Indo-European peoples of a much later time, especially from Old Icelandic (c. A.D. 1300).”[5]  But here, as Waltke point out, the evidence is so far removed in time and culture so as to be unconvincing.  Thus, Waltke is able to conclude, “Having examined the literatures of the ancient Near East and other literatures as well, no evidence has been found in any Semitic cultures, including Islam, that tradents molded an oral tradition to meet changing situations over the centuries.”[6]

            Lastly, Waltke turns to briefly discuss the issue of oral tradition in the Patriarchal narratives.  He recognizes the case for oral tradition is most strong for the stories in Genesis 1-11.  It is here that Waltke quotes Gleason Archer as he invokes the role of the Holy Spirit:

The legacy of faith was handed down through the millennia fro Adam to Moses in oral form, for the most part, but the final written form into which Moses cast it must have especially superintended by the Holy Spirit in order to insure its divine trustworthiness.[7]

 

By this means Waltke is able to argue for the historicity and reliability of the Patriarchal narratives.

            Waltke’s essay is good at refuting the large-scale adoption of the principles of critical methodologies, especially as those methodologies argue for a lengthy oral period behind the biblical text that has undergone extensive morphing.  Only those predisposed to Waltke’s supernaturalism will follow his argument as he invokes the superintending work of the Spirit of God.  But this is just to recognize that larger worldview concerns always enter into the interpretation of facts and their meaning.  

            Waltke’s major point about the writing cultures of the ANE is his most powerful evidence.  Much more could have been written here to further substantiate the argument had he desired.  The literacy of some of these cultures was extensive.  For example,  P. J. Wiseman mentions that there are more than a quarter of a million cuneiform tablets that have been found.  He quotes the German Friedrich Delitzsch:

In truth when we find among the letters which have survived from those ancient times in great abundance, the letter of a woman to her husband in his travels, wherein after telling him that the little one are well, she ask advice on some trivial matter; or the missive of a son to his father, in which he informs that so-and-so has mortally offended him, that he would thrash the knave, but would like to ask his father’s advice first; or another letter in which a son urges his father to send at last the long-promised money, offering the insolent inducement that then he will pray for his father again—all this points to a well-organized system of communication by letter and of postal arrangements.[8]

 

Waltke’s argumentation could also further be strengthened by insights from anthropologists who specialize in analyzing oral cultures.  I agree with Waltke’s appeal to the work of the Holy Spirit in guaranteeing the trustworthiness of the Patriarchal narratives but there can and should be a defense of the historical trustworthiness of oral transmission. The insight of New Testament specialist Kenneth Bailey’s concept of “informal, controlled oral tradition” in which the community plays a preserving role in the transmission is important. Within the oral performance “the audience shares in the responsibility of accurately preserving the essential historical remembrances.  That is, if an oral performer misrepresents the tradition—sometimes in even relatively minor ways—the audience frequently corrects him in the midst of the performance.”[9]  The statement of social anthropologist Elizabeth Tonkin also speaks to this issue: “Oral history is not intrinsically more or less likely to be accurate than a written source.”[10]  Such reasoning and the field studies upon which they are based could be one more way to update Waltke’s argument and further strengthen his conclusions.

 

SOURCES CITED

Eddy, Paul Rhodes and Gregory A. Boyd. The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical 

Reliability of the Synoptic Tradition. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 2007.

 

Waltke, Bruce. “Oral Tradition.” Pages 17-34 in A Tribute to Gleason Archer, Walter C. Kaiser 

Jr. and Ronald F. Youngblood , eds. Chicago, Ill.: Moody Press, 1986.

 

Wiseman, P. J.  Ancient Records and the Structure of Genesis. Nashville, Tenn.: Thomas

 Nelson, 1985.

---

     [1]Bruce K. Waltke, “Oral Tradition” in A Tribute to Gleason Archer, Walter C. Kaiser Jr. and Ronald F. Youngblood , eds. (Chicago, Ill.: Moody Press, 1986), 17-34.

     [2]Waltke, “Oral Tradition,” 17.

     [3]Waltke, “Oral Tradition,” 19-20.

   [4]Waltke, “Oral Tradition,” 27.

     [5]Waltke, “Oral Tradition,” 29.

     [6]Waltke, “Oral Tradition,” 29-30.

     [7]Waltke, “Oral Tradition,” 30.  

     [8]P. J. Wiseman, Ancient Records and the Structure of Genesis(Nashville, Tenn.: Thomas Nelson, 1985), 50—emphasis added.

     [9]Paul Rhodes Eddy and Gregory A. Boyd, The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Tradition(Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 2007), 262.

     [10]Rhodes and Boyd, The Jesus Legend, 263.