Orality And The Scriptures Composition, Translation, And Transmission [Paperback]

What does orality (oral forms of discourse) have to do with the Scriptures, a corpus of sacred written documents? The aim of these essays is to reveal how the field of orality studies concerns the manifold process of composing, translating, and transmitting the diverse texts of Scriptures. This oft-neglected oral/aural dimension of communication provides us with a sharper perception of and greater appreciation for the various literary features of the biblical writings and their associated semantic and spiritual implications. Part One, ORIENTATION, overviews the principal aspects of orality studies: key terms, methodologies, as well as controversies about the transmission of Scripture. Part Two, DOCUMENTATION, presents three illustrative case studies involving composition, featuring full-text analyses that expound an oral-oriented, literary-rhetorical hearing of Isaiah 66, John 17, and Philippians. Part Three, APPLICATION, invites readers to engage more actively with translating the biblical text by critically considering four additional passages from an oral-aural soundpoint -Song of Songs 8, Revelation 5, Philemon, and 1 Corinthians 13. The final chapter encourages the application of an orality-based methodology, to achieve an exegetically accurate, yet artistically dynamic transmission of the Bible in today's media-rich world. The book thus seeks to motivate its readers-whether teachers, students, translators, or mass-media communicators-to always lend a sensitive ear to the text whenever they engage the Scriptures. Throughout this book, Wendland progressively, and with increasing intensity, draws our attention to an enormous amount of detailed examples of the manifold poetic and rhetorical phenomena encoded in biblical orature. The cumulative effect of these detailed examples builds a powerful case for the necessity of recognizing and exploiting the expressive nature and potential of biblical oral arts. Clearly, oral verbal arts communicate much morl$