Josh Stigall Video Documentary
Dear all,
Please find my video documentary here. A pdf script can be found here.
As a brief introduction and overview to my presentation: This presentation is titled, “Orality, Literacy, and Authority.” In particular, the question I will address in this presentation is this, “Does print equal unambiguous authority or accuracy?” The test case for this presentation will be the Christian Scriptures. This is an appropriate lens for this presentation because the Christian tradition began as an oral tradition and very quickly moved to a literary tradition, which was then codified. This codification became the standard for orthodoxy. In this way, the written text took the place of the spoken word as the authority for Christian doctrine. The reason for this was, in part, because oral tradition was seen as mutable and fluid, but the textual tradition was seen as fixed and unchangeable. It was, therefore, unchangeable.
I look forward to any conversation that arises from my presentation.
Josh,
You are a wonderful speaker! Great job and such interesting points! I found your point about transcription very interesting. It is very possible in transcription to change meaning by the simple placement of a comma and that therefore does put the authority of the written text into question.