Larry Hurtado's Oral Fixation Article

You have posed some great questions, Marlon. I find Hurtado's article a useful corrective to the wilder shores of Performance Criticism (probably more than just a 'needed balance' in your phrase). I agree with you that his treatment of written culture does not diminish the importance of orality (both/and rather than either/or, as you put it), but I do think it casts strong doubt on the claim that the reading of Scripture in antiquity can be characterised as kind of theatrical performance (unless, as you say, this is essentially the same thing as skilful public reading). Even if one were to take all of H's arguments on board I don't think there would be any very severe consequences for BT, since pretty much all the characteristics of translations should be determined by the host community (so we wouldn't need historical arguments about the Greco-Roman world to justify the presentation of translations as oral [or even theatrical] performance).

Thank you Simon for your response. Yes, I agree with your last sentence and think that PC has an added value. I would still like to see more interaction with Hurtado's article. Truth must be said that from my own reading Greek philosophers and in depth study of the synoptic problem for example, I have when I cam across PC as an academic discipline when reading some claims perceived that their is an overstatement of the claim for "universal theatrical performance" and the way writing was perceived. Personally I like a more wider notion of "performance" based exactly on other instances of Greco-Roman literature and its (meta) narrative on orality and writing. There are some phenomena in e.g. intertextuality, and the mentioned synoptic issues which do require an attitude to writing as we would have developed in modern times. Some other issues can be readily explained by orality of course. So from my very initial interaction with the field I would propagate a s"softcore"approach. To me there still some issues outstanding like the whole idea of different approaches to orality and writing in urban settings and in rural areas. This might the case of the pendulum swing, in the sense that in the past orality was totally ignored in some academic currents and maybe now we might be seeing an overreaction, somewhere in between the pendulum finds its equilibrium point, where orality did indeed play a role for sure, while at same time admitting that writing does and did create its own communication reality. In any case, I am still glad that PC has put orality and "embodied " performance on the academic map, and agree that "Even if one were to take all of H's arguments on board I don't think there would be any very severe consequences for BT, since pretty much all the characteristics of translations should be determined by the host community (so we wouldn't need historical arguments about the Greco-Roman world to justify the presentation of translations as oral [or even theatrical] performance)." Thanks for your response. Will see what other's think as we continue to ponder this important issue.

Great piece to discuss. Thanks Marlon! To Simon’s point, while audiences are free to use whatever criteria they want in translation (and I agree on this), I wonder how important historical judgements are to many communities so they feel “justified” or "safe" in their stylistic choices? If indeed communities who are to some extent sub-elites or aspiring sub-elites in today's world are interested in ancient socio-historical data to help them make their contemporary decisions, in presenting judgments about the early Christian use of written texts by sub-elites in the Roman world, in my view that historical judgment needs to be balanced with how they also appropriated vernacular aesthetics (oral registers), which were compelling enough in their own right to be appropriated. While Hurtado grants that the gospel writer may be using “oral registers” in the writing, in terms of the hierarchy of aesthetics, in terms of implicit ideologies, this is not a throw away point. (I think this may be one of the Performance Criticism contributions.) For contemporary translations, host communities and translators might consider how to celebrate the aesthetics of oral registers from their contexts (and the ideological implications of such choices) as well as including the more likely to be included sub-elite upwardly mobile aesthetics (and attendant ideologies) in their translations. Does that make sense?

Here is a link to the whole article, from Larry´s blog: https://larryhurtado.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/oral-fixation-in-nt-nts-2014.pdf

When I learned enough words and grammar to read a few verses the Hebrew Bible, the first thing that grabbed my chest was this sense of “orality”, that it was “spoken word” rather than “written word”. At least you feel that in Genesis. But (as I was telling Bob Bascom the other day): “most of the oral translation that I know of, are more a reading of one translation that was make for writing and, even when that is "oral" is not really a translation to "orality", it doesn't have the flavor (even when it's dramatize) of talking or telling a story, that you feel when you read the OT in Hebrew, for example.” When you feel the “orality power”, it is natural to want to recover that in some way as a translator. But not all the Bible is that way, and I think Hurtado is calling for a needed balance in the scene. About your second (rhetorical, real or neither) question, I am with Nathan: given that in some communities the traditional church is hesitant in some way to accept a new translations or a translation that suits the need of the present time and language, “historical judgments are important to many communities so they feel “justified” or "safe" in their stylistic choices.” In practice, as I said before, I haven´t seen any “oral translation” that feels “oral”. I am not saying that there are not any, but that I haven´t seen any, so we can not discard at all the study of PC and the study of "orality" in translation.

Thank you Nathan for responding, I think your comments do offer one way forward. As with any position or idea there are nuances with which we need to work. I think that indeed this following statement by you is key: " While Hurtado grants that the gospel writer may be using “oral registers” in the writing, in terms of the hierarchy of aesthetics, in terms of implicit ideologies, this is not a throw away point. (I think this may be one of the Performance Criticism contributions.) " So for me too, while totally seeing the importance of PC for hermeneutical and "translated culture" relevance, I do think there is value in a more "soft" or actually "nuanced" approach to draw from examples, realities from ancient times. I think the problem has been more in defining if performance always had to be "theatrical style" performance and to take on board a more differentiated oral-writing perspective depending on urban -rural and other sociolinguistic factors.