Jeff Hull

"I did not suppose that what came out of books would help me as much as the utterances of a living and abiding voice."

--Papias of Hierapolis, quoted in Eusebius,
on preferring oral tradition over written.

 

According to Bart Ehrman, Papias was referring to his conversations with "the companions of the elders," by which he meant those who knew the apostles.

As an analogy, that is like my father telling me about his grandfather. I'd much rather hear my dad talk about his grandfather than read a book, though there will be much more in a book that my dad didn't know, didn't remember, or didn't think was important.

There is a place for both; and while oral tradition is a living interaction that allows probing and clarification, the study of texts are is usually confined to what we have in front of us.[1]

With each succeeding generation, like a game of telephone, an oral story changes, sometimes benignly, sometimes maliciously, but always at least a little one way or the other.

Jeff Hull
Jeff Hull was a character. Jeff went through school with me, starting in kindergarten. I knew him all the way through 10th Grade. I don't recall seeing him after that. We were not close friends. Just classmates. (Yes, this does relate, bear with me.)

Jeff taught me how to look up girls' dresses in kindergarten by crawling under the tables. He also frequently demonstrated how to get the tar whaled out of you.

Jeff was Vernondale Elementary School's biggest problem child. Vernondale Elementary School is on Wilkins Road in Millcreek, PA.

In 3rd Grade, when he refused to return to his desk, our teacher, Miss Anderson, left the room. We knew where she was going: the principal's office. It was a long walk even for a teacher. And we knew she was working up a head of steam with every step. And she'd get the principal worked up all the way back, and when they two of them entered the classroom, the 8-year-old version of the O.K. Corral would unfold.

Jeff sat in the back of the room holding a pair of scissors we'd been using on a craft; the rest of us breathed rapidly, looking blankly at him, at each other, like patrons in a western saloon tensing up while the cowboy in the black hat and the cowboy in the white hat stare each other down, hands poised above their six shooters.

Then Miss Anderson returned, with the principal, Mr Luscheon.

As soon as Jeff saw Mr Luscheon, he threw the scissors on the floor and said "Okay, I'll go back to my desk." But it was too late. Mr Luscheon cut him off at the pass, got him in a headlock under his left arm and went to town with his right until Jeff was crying good and loud.

I cringed and looked away.

No kid likes to see another kid get spanked, even if that other kid deserved it.

Fast-forward to 4th Grade
Mrs Budzynski is teaching us how stories change when they are retold. We play a game of telephone. She arranges the class in a semicircle and begins the game by telling something to the first person on one end of the semicircle. We each in turn listen and retell the story to the next. By the time the story gets to the other end, it is so unlike the original that it's obvious one of us exercised some creative license. Mrs Budzynski conducted an impromptu inquisition and discovered where the communication had broken down: Jeff.

Mrs Budzynski was unhappy enough that we didn't play it again. I was disappointed too. Even at that early age, I wanted to learn about this new aspect of language and storytelling.

Finally, the Point
However, I did learn something important, and that is the point of this post: Some stories are maliciously altered, but when this is done with a whisper (as in a game of telephone) or with an ancient manuscript (where authorship, provenience and cultural bias may be unknown), reassembling the pieces can be a challenge, if not impossible.

I suspect Papias' preference for oral tradition was less shared, in reciprocal measure, by succeeding generations.

Who was Papias of Hierapolis? >
Who is Bart Ehrman? >

This is Vernondale Elementary School today:

 

[1]
Lately (past few years) I've come to prefer listening to books read by the author rather than read them myself. The biggest and most delightfully pleasant surprise I've had while doing this was hearing William Peter Blatty read The Exorcist. His voice and meter is alternately lulling and frightful, but always enjoyable.

There is enduring value in real people talking about real subjects, on TV news op-ed shows, in the classroom, or around a campfire. Despite the transience of the medium, the experience is indelible in a different way than books.

Started: 2012-08-22