To the credit of Walter Ong (Orality and Literacy, 1982), and Werner Kelber (The Oral and the Written Gospel, 1983)—along with other recent scholars who have advanced the study of biblical orality—the oral culture of the biblical world has become more widely known.
But the full implications of orality studies (now expanded to media studies) have yet to be embraced. Paul Achtemeier (1990) faulted scholars for not considering the oral nature of the NT, both in terms of composition and performance. James Dunn, in his 2002 presidential address argued, “I believe we are confronted with a stark alternative: either we continue to operate within the literary paradigm . . . or we deliberately alter that default setting and attempt consciously to envision a world strange to us . . . a world where information was communicated orally, a world where knowledge in the vast majority of cases came from hearing rather than reading.”
The reality is, despite various proposals for an oral hermeneutic, most discussions of hermeneutics in the 21st century, such as Kevin Vanhoozer’s recent Mere Christian Hermeneutics, as well as most commentaries, have failed to emphasize the importance of orality.
In response, the thesis of this paper is that for all interpreters, whether in the academy or the church, an oral hermeneutic is necessary for correct biblical interpretation.
I will critique the two most recent proposals and demonstrations of oral hermeneutics: Borgman and Clark’s Written to Be Heard (2019), and Steffen and Bjoraker’s The Return of Oral Hermeneutics (2020).
One of my proposals will use Paul as an example. What he intended to communicate to an audience via a letter, which was designed to be presented orally, and what the original hearers understood—given their culture and life situation—is what we should seek to understand, no more and no less. The point is, the exclusive use of a literary hermeneutic to understand an oral communication, even though now embedded in written form, may inadequately represent both the speaker’s original intent and the meaning understood by the hearers.
__________________
Paul J. Achtemeier, “Omne verbum sonat: The New Testament and the Oral Environment of Late Western Antiquity,” JBL 109.1 (1990) 3-27.
Paul Borgman and Kelly James Clark, Written to Be Heard: Recovering the Messages of the Gospels (2019).
James D. G. Dunn, “Altering the Default Setting: Re-envisioning the Early Transmission of the Jesus Tradition,” New Test. Stud. 49 (2003), 139-75.
Werner H. Kelber, The Oral and the Written Gospel: The Hermeneutics of Speaking and Writing in the Synoptic Tradition, Mark, Paul, and Q (1983).
Walter J. Ong, Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word (1982).
Tom Steffen and William Bjoraker, The Return of Oral Hermeneutics: As Good Today as It Was for the Hebrew Bible and First-Century Christianity (2020).
Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Mere Christian Hermeneutics: Transfiguring What It Means to Read the Bible Theologically (Zondervan Academic, 2024).