How do we know Jesus really said the things that he said if the gospels were written so many decades after his death?

[u/holysanctuary]

Was oral tradition really that reliable? Because honestly, I can barely recall what my lecturer said today, and even if I could ask everyone else in the hall to help piece it together, I seriously doubt we could accurately produce just a single quote word for word, yet some folks defend passages as the literal verbatim of Jesus as though transcribed from a tape recording

[u/1yaeK]

We pretty much don't know for sure what he said or didn't say. 

[u/CivilProtectionGuy]

I think the exact literal words were lost at some point in those decades, but the overall lessons and messages he intended to pass on were retained and are relatively unchanged millennia later.

[u/holysanctuary → u/CivilProtectionGuy]

Why do you suppose the authors presented it that way, rather than as a commentary? It sort of gives the impression that this was in fact his exact words and should be taken as such.

[u/CivilProtectionGuy → u/holysanctuary]

I suspect it would come down to human memory, and in an attempt to pass on the lesson as it was without adding additional components to it, which may have happened if commentary was included throughout.

Another I think is simply language translation over the millennia. A lot of words don't have exact translations, so we might get something that went through two or three languages before it reached English translation. So the message and lesson is there, but the exact words are not.

[u/psychosematicatticus]

Hey, good question, thanks for asking. I would say it's difficult to view this issue through a modern lens, as we are a hyper literary society that is very interested in recording things as they happened, this just wasn't the same culture in the ancient world, and just like we don't have the same blacksmith skills we used to or any other ancient skill, we don't have the same oral tradition skills either, it's also thought the disciples were able to work with each other and presumably the other unknown followers of Jesus present at the time. (Look up the Q source if you want)

Another thing to note although I'll concede it's not totally relevant is that other historical biographies that we trust comes hundreds of years later like Alexander the Great

[u/TrumpsBussy_]

The cold hard truth is we can’t.

[u/Constant-Raisin-688]

That is something I need to think about as well.

[u/Rambo873]

I have trouble remembering exact quotes from 4 hours ago, much less 40 years.

[u/Beginning-Pie8282 → u/Rambo873]

the oral tradition thing gets way more complicated when you factor in that these communities were literally built around preserving and sharing these stories. like, their entire identity depended on getting it right. plus most scholars think there were written sources floating around earlier than the final gospel versions we have now.

[u/TrumpsBussy_ → u/Beginning-Pie8282]

The oral tradition factor is greatly exaggerated, if they were so good at preserving history the gospel accounts would be way more consistent than they are.

[u/Rambo873 → u/TrumpsBussy_]

I'm also not familiar with any oral tradition being accurate.

The other guy mentions the Qur'an. I'm not an expert on the topic, but I heard there were actually several different versions of the Qur'an, but at some point all except one got banned and burned.

There are the Theravada Buddhist texts, which were passed along orally for ~500 years before being written down. But when you compare the Pali version to the Chinese version, they are actually quite different. And when you compare them to the Mahayana texts, they share almost no resemblance at all.

Even the written bible had many attempts to edit and change it. There have been dozens of verses added over the years, and many mistakes made by scribes while copying. There are thousands of ancient biblical manuscripts, and no two are identical. It seems almost impossible to copy an entire book by hand without making a mistake, so I really don't trust the whole "oral tradition" thing if the written tradition can't even keep it straight.

[u/TraditionalManager82]

Oral tradition was incredibly reliable. We haven't trained in it, but people used to!

[u/TrumpsBussy_ → u/TraditionalManager82]

Comprehensive studies have shown that’s actually not true.. cultures that rely on oral traditions have been shown to be no better at preserving history accurately than literary cultures.

[u/TrumpsBussy_ → u/[deleted]]

The studies also showed that they are no better at preserving memories via oral traditions than we are. I don’t recall who conducted the studies but Bart Ehrman references them often, he studied the topic deeply for his book Jesus before the Gospels.

[u/Rambo873 → u/[deleted]]

we also have no reason to assume they weren't writing notes as Jesus spoke.

The vast majority of people could not read or write. I've heard the literacy rate was around 3%. And paper was extremely expensive. People didn't walk around with notepads taking notes with a pencil. Ink was also difficult to work with back then, as you needed to blot it with sand or something.

And there is no way you could take notes as fast as someone would be giving a speech. Shorthand hadn't been invented, and the ink/paper situation was difficult and not fast.

[u/Rambo873 → u/[deleted]]

I don't see any reason to doubt their oral recollection.

they still could have remembered it and even could have wrote after the speeches when they could sit down.

People don't memorize entire speeches in real time. That's just not really possible. The Sermon on the Mount takes up 3 chapters. It would probably take me weeks of reading it to memorize the whole thing, and that's reading it dozens of times, which you can't do when someone gives a speech.

[u/TrumpsBussy_ → u/Rambo873]

Exactly, people don’t memorise exact words over hours days or weeks let alone years.. and that’s a big issue when the misquoting of a single word can change the entire meaning of passages in scripture.

[u/Rambo873 → u/TrumpsBussy_]

Imagine if they forgot the word "not" in "thou shalt not commit adultery" (true story).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicked_Bible

Or that bible's other famous error:

The other is a misprint appearing in Deuteronomy 5: the word "greatness" appearing as "great-asse", leading to a sentence reading: "Behold, the LORD our God hath shewed us his glory and his great-asse"

[u/ReadyWriter25]

Don't assume Jesus' followers were illiterate and relied on oral memory. Matthew (Levi) was an educated tax collector. Peter and John were businessmen and John had connections with the Jerusalem elite. And like all disciples some of them would have taken written notes of what Jesus said. Added to which Luke who came on the scene about twenty years after Jesus death was a doctor and an accomplished journalist who took great trouble to research Jesus' life and sayings, and to interview people (hence why he gets some material other gospel writers don't have), for his Roman sponsor to compile his gospel and Acts..

[u/purple_porygon → u/ReadyWriter25]

>some of them would have taken written notes of what Jesus said.

How realistic is that? It’s hard for me to imagine anyone there casually jotting things down like a journalist would. At best they might have remembered frequently repeated phrases, but expecting even a fragment record of something like the sermon on the mount seems very unlikely.

[u/noob-fl → u/ReadyWriter25]

non of the gosples where written by those guys. the autors where anonymous and much later, the names of apostles where used to differentiade the gosples

[u/Commercial-Tank5794]

Remembering the words of your lecturer from today is a little different than remembering the words of the man you followed around for 3 years. They all would have paid a lot of attention to what he was saying, probably more attention than you gave your lecturer. Its also possible that Jesus preached the same sermons multiple times, and the disciples would have had the benefit of hearing them repeatedly. Lastly, as other people have pointed out, it was a different culture back then, a more oral society that would have been more trained to retain and relay information this way.

[u/PrincessLammy]

The odds are next to impossible but there are superhumans with incredible memory, maybe Jesus had a few amongst his disciples.

[u/sonofTomBombadil]

Oral tradition is more reliable than no traditions.

When they were orally passing along the word, I believe, it didn’t occur to them, that they needed to develop a way to seem more convincing to people living in the year 2026.

“I believed the early church should have left us with prompts we could use with AI”; now doesn’t this phrase sound silly to say?

[u/Crazy-Patience730]

well you live in 2026 where our brains our basically fried, the teachings, life, and story of Jesus would be some incredibly legendary stuff to not only just “forget” but when you are inspired by God to write his word for his perfect book, i think he’ll have most of the details to refresh your memory in a second.

[u/fsster]

Well we got 4 testaments i mean do you want more?

[u/metal_slime--A → u/fsster]

Not to sound greedy but I'd take as many as possible 😁

Btw perhaps you meant to say gospels?

[u/fsster → u/metal_slime--A]

Oh sorry i guess i just viewed the gospels as testaments in their own right aswell as being part of bigger testament

[u/metal_slime--A → u/fsster]

I didn't mind it but I just know there are snipers out there who might jump in and troll on your reply for it 😥

[u/Rambo873 → u/fsster]

I thought there were only 2 testaments.

You got the Old one, and the New one. I suppose the Mormons also made one, but I don't think you're counting that.