> Acts contains the oldest Christian traditions. Oral traditions, natch.
The Oral Tradition hypothesis holds that where Matthew and Luke agree against Mark, rather than using a Q Source, the source is oral traditions. Prior to Mark and the letters of Paul, surely there had to be oral traditions passed on for decades. Luke may refer to these in the first two verses of his gospel.
But since the synoptic gospels all attest together to a number of events, known as the Triple Tradition, including Jesus' baptism and crucifixion, and many details in between, and Acts begins with the replacement of Judas with Matthias, detailing further events only after this event, I don't see how the earliest oral traditions could be found in Acts.
Clearly the baptism, temptation, gathering of disciples, etc., all occurred prior to Mathias elected to replace Judas, and if drawn at least partially from oral tradition, how could the later traditions predate the earlier? Without earlier oral traditions including key elements from Jesus' life, how could oral traditions concerning much later events in Acts begin to develop?
Oral traditions detailing the spread of the gospel predating the oral traditions of the gospels themselves is difficult to imagine and implies early Christians developed what necessarily then becomes a backstory, or prequel, namely Jesus' ministry, only after developing the oral traditions concerning the oral transfer of those earlier events. That would be a neat trick, as the narratives about the oral transfer of those chronologically earlier narratives somehow would predate the content of the oral transfer detailed in Acts.
The Oral Tradition hypothesis holds that where Matthew and Luke agree against Mark, rather than using a Q Source, the source is oral traditions. Prior to Mark and the letters of Paul, surely there had to be oral traditions passed on for decades. Luke may refer to these in the first two verses of his gospel.
But since the synoptic gospels all attest together to a number of events, known as the Triple Tradition, including Jesus' baptism and crucifixion, and many details in between, and Acts begins with the replacement of Judas with Matthias, detailing further events only after this event, I don't see how the earliest oral traditions could be found in Acts.
Clearly the baptism, temptation, gathering of disciples, etc., all occurred prior to Mathias elected to replace Judas, and if drawn at least partially from oral tradition, how could the later traditions predate the earlier? Without earlier oral traditions including key elements from Jesus' life, how could oral traditions concerning much later events in Acts begin to develop?
Oral traditions detailing the spread of the gospel predating the oral traditions of the gospels themselves is difficult to imagine and implies early Christians developed what necessarily then becomes a backstory, or prequel, namely Jesus' ministry, only after developing the oral traditions concerning the oral transfer of those earlier events. That would be a neat trick, as the narratives about the oral transfer of those chronologically earlier narratives somehow would predate the content of the oral transfer detailed in Acts.