Dear Jim,
I think that one should take into account that the old Graf-Welhausen Theory
and the issue of Oral Story-Telling needs to be completely scrapped and started
over again. So, please don't go with the so-called "missing link" idea.
Although it is written for the NT Studies, Richard Bauckham's, Jesus and the
Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony, brings out several studies
that find that eyewitnesses would have kept the stories essentially the same
even within the community that was now the protector of the original stories.
Theses eyewitnesses would have been the control over the retelling of the
stories to prevent inaccurate transmission of the stories; and yet, allow for
some variation in wording as long as this variation did not change the story.
Extrapolating from that, it would seem that the stories passed down from the
Patriarchs would be extremely accurate. Byskog, Gerhaddson, etc., should be
consulted. A lot of water has passed down the river since initial
historical-critical theory that has been shown to be wrong due to
presuppositions that are no longer tenable. Again, I point out that Bauckham's
book is about the Gospels and the issue of Eyewitnesses including memory
studies, etc. But, considering that the issue of the ANE and the area of
Canaan, later Israel (deliberately renamed Palestine by the Romans), it would
not be too much of a stretch to see that the same transmission techniques are
still employed.
Rev. Bryant J. Williams III
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