Memory techniques of Jesus

General Memory Chat
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Hi All,

Can anyone recommend a great,not good, book on the styles of teaching Jesus used to reinforce memory in his disciples and the people who weren’t disciples?

Thanks,
Stefos

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@Stefos, remember that the culture in Jesus’s day was primarily oral and that people were used to retaining information by memory. Of course, we don’t know how they did that but the form of parable that Jesus used to teach with is known and discussed often. In your search for great titles, look for books focusing on oral traditions especially from Jewish rabbinical teachings.

I haven’t read these next books yet but they can give you a start in case you don’t get other recommendations. Let me know if you get any good ones!

  • R. Steven Notley and Ze’ev Safrai, Parables of the Sages: Jewish Wisdom from Jesus to Rav Ashi, trans. R. Steven Notley, First edition. (Jerusalem: A Carta Hand Book, 2011)

  • Henry Wansbrough, ed., Jesus and the Oral Gospel Tradition (London; New York: T&T Clark, 2004)

They are academic books and therefore expensive. I acquired them through my Logos subscription but I couldn’t tell you how much they were there as I added a few collections they could have been a part of.

Searching on Amazon for “Jesus oral tradition” brings up more affordable choices. My pick would be this one:

Doug

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Hi Doug and Thank you,

I have the works you mention but they dont drill down into the methodologies of Jesus’s teaching.

Incidentally, I bought your 3 books and thank you for them…Are you planning on writing more?

Thanks and God bless…Follow the Lord :slight_smile: Stefos

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@Stefos, I pretty much gave up trying to extract out any useful teaching or memorizing techniques when nothing was really documented back then. People just have to deal with the end results and try to see if they can extrapolate backwards into a method looking for clues in any related material.

The material I read was very vague about discussing orality at least around the time of Jesus. I wonder if there’s a little more help in any rabbinical writings even though writings weren’t starting to be codified until around 200 CE with the Mishnah. Dig in to Sefaria: a Living Library of Jewish Texts Online and see what you can find. (Do you know who was one of the founders of Sefaria? It was memory champion Joshua Foer!) You probably already know another rabbi or two for discussing the topic.

Thanks for getting my books! I am a little over halfway through a volume that tries to be a set of training exercises for the Memory Techniques volume. There was a sample in my Memory Toolkit but I decided to go full bore on all of the techniques. I’m up to about 150 pages. I slowed down writing due to health concerns but I’d like to see it through.

I had thought of doing mnemonic stories for the OT or at least the Psalms. I figured that if the monks could do it, I could too. That’s on a back burner for sure. The OT would be three volumes if I was crazy enough to try it.

In Christ,
Doug

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Hi Doug,

Thank you for your input!

There actually are a lot of things written that archaeologists have discovered concerning Jesus teaching.

The methodologies uses are parables, humor, etc.

This is what I’m after actually.

Looking forward to your new book

Thanks again,
God Bless and follow the Lord (Hashem)
Stefos

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