34
theories can account for the similarities, what can be made of the variations? Can these be
explained away using only literary models? The answer is a resounding no.
To what degree orality shaped the written gospels is most likely unquantifiable. But the
fact that orality did play a part in the production of the gospels should not be questioned. There
is also one issue that has yet to be considered: the liturgical aspect of the tradition. In reading
through the New Testament, there are creedal statements and other recitation formulas that
were probably written for liturgical use. In all likelihood, these formulas and statements were
already being utilized in the liturgical setting of the early Church. To be sure, what Catholic
would not recognize these words used in the Eucharistic liturgy from 1 Corinthians:
23
For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus
on the night when he was betrayed took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks,
he broke it, and said, “This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance
of me.” 25 In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new
covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”
26
For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s
death until he comes. (1 Cor 11:23-27)
In this way the Jesus tradition is organic, its
teachings meant to be lived out in the Church
community.131 Modern Christian adults did not
learn the Lord’s Prayer or the Eucharistic prayer
above by reading it over and again until it was
committed to memory. No, just as their ancient ancestors in the faith, they learned them by
hearing them in Church over and again on Sundays and praying them with family and the
Church community. In this way the tradition is oral, even in a literary society of the modern first
131
Dunn, “Altering the Default Setting: Re-envisaging the Early Transmission of the Jesus Tradition,” 174.