Orality and Authority
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.
You can view the pdf overview here.
You can view the video presentation of this project here.