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Fun with the religious right.

Started by The Good Reverend Roger, April 10, 2013, 10:18:50 PM

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Pergamos

Quote from: Cain on April 16, 2013, 09:59:10 PM
I wonder if its to aid in memorization for reciting?  You see this kind of thing in Greek epic poetry too, as I recall.  Not so sure if that cultural influence carried over to the Israelites though...if Phox were around, she could no doubt tell us if I'm on the right track or not.

repetition is very common in oral stuff.  I don't know if the new testament was an oral work written down, but the old testament certainly is

P3nT4gR4m

Quote from: Pergamos on April 16, 2013, 10:01:57 PM
Quote from: Cain on April 16, 2013, 09:59:10 PM
I wonder if its to aid in memorization for reciting?  You see this kind of thing in Greek epic poetry too, as I recall.  Not so sure if that cultural influence carried over to the Israelites though...if Phox were around, she could no doubt tell us if I'm on the right track or not.

repetition is very common in oral stuff.  I don't know if the new testament was an oral work written down, but the old testament certainly is

Fuck, yeah! Makes perfect sense.

And P3nT learned another new thing today...

I'm up to my arse in Brexit Numpties, but I want more.  Target-rich environments are the new sexy.
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"computation is a pattern in the spacetime arrangement of particles, and it's not the particles but the pattern that really matters! Matter doesn't matter." -- Max Tegmark

deadfong

All composition in antiquity was done with the understanding that the audience would hear it rather than see (i.e. read) it, since no more than 10% of people ever knew how to read and write.  Repetition is a rhetorical technique to aid with oral performance of a text - some biblical scholars now think gospel readings done in the house churches actually involved recitation from memory rather than reading from a written text, because everything in the first century was written in continuous script, no spaces or punctuation, everything in capital letters, very difficult to read for an audience, especially by candle or lamplight.

deadfong

Quote from: Cain on April 16, 2013, 09:59:10 PM
I wonder if its to aid in memorization for reciting?  You see this kind of thing in Greek epic poetry too, as I recall.  Not so sure if that cultural influence carried over to the Israelites though...if Phox were around, she could no doubt tell us if I'm on the right track or not.

A professor of mine once said this is why you find so many stock phrases in Homer, like a certain way to describe someone getting hit with a spear, or the set number of epithets for each god or hero.  Performance was done from memory, and usually tailored to one degree or another for your specific audience.  You want your recitation to be in good hexameter lines, since that's what epic is composed in.  You know the number of syllables in all the standard phrases and epithets, so you can arrange them and drop them in where you need to in order to complete a line.

Cain

Quote from: deadfong on April 16, 2013, 10:20:02 PM
Quote from: Cain on April 16, 2013, 09:59:10 PM
I wonder if its to aid in memorization for reciting?  You see this kind of thing in Greek epic poetry too, as I recall.  Not so sure if that cultural influence carried over to the Israelites though...if Phox were around, she could no doubt tell us if I'm on the right track or not.

A professor of mine once said this is why you find so many stock phrases in Homer, like a certain way to describe someone getting hit with a spear, or the set number of epithets for each god or hero.  Performance was done from memory, and usually tailored to one degree or another for your specific audience.  You want your recitation to be in good hexameter lines, since that's what epic is composed in.  You know the number of syllables in all the standard phrases and epithets, so you can arrange them and drop them in where you need to in order to complete a line.

That's what I was taught too.

I would assume it was the same in Israel, but I didn't know for sure how well developed literacy was in that region.  My guess would be that it is roughly at the same level as Greece etc, but since it's not a period of history I'm especially interested in or knowledgeable about, I don't know for sure.  And so I dislike assuming.

deadfong

Quote from: Cain on April 16, 2013, 10:27:04 PM
Quote from: deadfong on April 16, 2013, 10:20:02 PM
Quote from: Cain on April 16, 2013, 09:59:10 PM
I wonder if its to aid in memorization for reciting?  You see this kind of thing in Greek epic poetry too, as I recall.  Not so sure if that cultural influence carried over to the Israelites though...if Phox were around, she could no doubt tell us if I'm on the right track or not.

A professor of mine once said this is why you find so many stock phrases in Homer, like a certain way to describe someone getting hit with a spear, or the set number of epithets for each god or hero.  Performance was done from memory, and usually tailored to one degree or another for your specific audience.  You want your recitation to be in good hexameter lines, since that's what epic is composed in.  You know the number of syllables in all the standard phrases and epithets, so you can arrange them and drop them in where you need to in order to complete a line.

That's what I was taught too.

I would assume it was the same in Israel, but I didn't know for sure how well developed literacy was in that region.  My guess would be that it is roughly at the same level as Greece etc, but since it's not a period of history I'm especially interested in or knowledgeable about, I don't know for sure.  And so I dislike assuming.

I don't know what it was like pre-Alexander, but after him, and especially after the Roman conquest, it was pretty much the same as anywhere else.

Sano

Not only it's an aid to recitation, but parallelism is a rhetoric and poetic device. You'll often find it in old chinese poetry as well.
Everything comes to an end, reader. It is an old truism to which may be added that not everything that lasts, lasts for long. This latter part is not readily admitted; on the contrary the idea that an air castle lasts longer than the very air of which it is made is hard to get out of a person's head, and this is fortunate, otherwise the custom of making those almost eternal constructions might be lost.

Pope Pixie Pickle

Quote from: deadfong on April 16, 2013, 10:20:02 PM
Quote from: Cain on April 16, 2013, 09:59:10 PM
I wonder if its to aid in memorization for reciting?  You see this kind of thing in Greek epic poetry too, as I recall.  Not so sure if that cultural influence carried over to the Israelites though...if Phox were around, she could no doubt tell us if I'm on the right track or not.

A professor of mine once said this is why you find so many stock phrases in Homer, like a certain way to describe someone getting hit with a spear, or the set number of epithets for each god or hero.  Performance was done from memory, and usually tailored to one degree or another for your specific audience.  You want your recitation to be in good hexameter lines, since that's what epic is composed in.  You know the number of syllables in all the standard phrases and epithets, so you can arrange them and drop them in where you need to in order to complete a line.

"Rosy-fingered Dawn" always made me giggle when I studied the Iliad at 17

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on April 16, 2013, 09:54:35 PM
Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on April 16, 2013, 02:54:01 PM
QuoteFor I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'

Okay so here's a tangent but I always wondered why the fuck so much of the bible follows this skull crushing formula of repeating a whole bunch of shit over and over like a game of "I went to market" but without the progression factor? Something to do with hypnotising your audience when you read the shit out in a loud booming monotone?

Think of it as the bronze age equivalent of an internet forum.

:lulz: :lulz: :lulz:
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


P3nT4gR4m

fuck, I totally missed that one! :lulz:

I'm up to my arse in Brexit Numpties, but I want more.  Target-rich environments are the new sexy.
Not actually a meat product.
Ass-Kicking & Foot-Stomping Ancient Master of SHIT FUCK FUCK FUCK
Awful and Bent Behemothic Results of Last Night's Painful Squat.
High Altitude Haggis-Filled Sex Bucket From Beyond Time and Space.
Internet Monkey Person of Filthy and Immoral Pygmy-Porn Wart Contagion
Octomom Auxillary Heat Exchanger Repairman
walking the fine line line between genius and batshit fucking crazy

"computation is a pattern in the spacetime arrangement of particles, and it's not the particles but the pattern that really matters! Matter doesn't matter." -- Max Tegmark

Anna Mae Bollocks

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on April 16, 2013, 09:54:35 PM
Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on April 16, 2013, 02:54:01 PM
QuoteFor I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'

Okay so here's a tangent but I always wondered why the fuck so much of the bible follows this skull crushing formula of repeating a whole bunch of shit over and over like a game of "I went to market" but without the progression factor? Something to do with hypnotising your audience when you read the shit out in a loud booming monotone?

Think of it as the bronze age equivalent of an internet forum.

:horrormirth: :horrormirth: :horrormirth:
Scantily-Clad Inspector of Gigantic and Unnecessary Cashews, Texas Division