Abstract:
The 'formgeschichtliche' method has proved to be inadequate in its conclusions
on the pre-literary phase of literary documents. The study of
orality provides another means of investigating the oral stages of written
documents. After investigating the features of an oral culture, this article
points out that ancient writers communicated new information to their
readers or listeners by using fomulas and themes already known to their
audiences. The authors thus communicated something new to their
audiences by using the already known. In this article it is argued that
the Gospel of Matthew is suitable for illustrating the above principal, as
the Matthean language is highly formulaic.
