Music as a Medium of Oral Transmission in Jesus Communities

Abstract

The oral transmission of early Christian traditions continues to be a subject of scholarly interest (see, e.g., Bauckham, J. Dewey, Dunn, Gerhardsson, Hearon, Kelber, Le Donne, Wire). Relatively unexplored is the intersection between the transmission of oral traditions and music as a medium of communication in the ancient world. In turn, while there is no shortage of studies on music, singing, and hymnody in the early church (Cosgrove, McKinnon, Quasten, J. A. Smith, W. S. Smith, Page, to name but a few), these studies tend to focus more on questions of terminology, origins, settings, and content than on how music functioned as a medium of communication. In this essay, I seek to fill this gap by examining music as a medium of communication in the ancient world and proposing ways in which attention to music opens new avenues of exploration in the study of oral traditions.