Holy Writ As Oral Lit: The Bible as Folklore

Alan Dundes

doi:10.5771/9780585165844

Summary

This book helps us resolve some of the mysteries and contradictions that evolved during the Bible's pre-written legacy and that persist in the Great Book today. Most biblical scholars acknowledge that both the Old and New Testaments were orally transmitted for decades before appearing in written form. With great reverence for the Bible, Dundes offers a new and exciting way to understand its variant texts. He uses the analytical framework of folklore to unearth and contrast the multiple versions of nearly every major biblical event, including the creation of woman, the flood, the ten commandments (there were once as many as eleven or twelve), the names of the twelve tribes, the naming of the disciples, the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord's Prayer, and the words inscribed on the Cross, among many others.

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Bibliographic data

Edition: 1/2000
Copyright Year: 2000
ISBN-Print: 978-0-8476-9197-5
ISBN-Online: 978-0-585-16584-4
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham
Language: English
Pages: 131
Product Type: Monograph

1. Contents No access
2. Acknowledgments No access
1. What Is Folklore? No access
2. Written Folklore No access
3. Previous Studies of Folklore and the Bible No access
4. 1. Variation in Number No access
  2. Variation in Name No access
  3. Variation in Sequence No access
5. More Duplicate Texts No access
6. The Ten Commandments No access
7. The Lord’s Prayer No access
8. Still More Duplicate Texts No access
9. Conclusion No access
Bibliography No access Pages 119 - 126
Index No access Pages 127 - 130
About the Author No access Pages 131 - 131