From Bart Ehram’s post Help! My Views of Memory – … I find it disheartening when readers think that once the Gospels are shown to have discrepancies, implausibilities, and historical mistakes that we should just get rid of them and move on to other things. I find that disheartening because the Gospels are so much more than historical sources. They are memories of early Christians about the one they considered to be the most important person ever to walk the planet. Yes, these memories are all distorted, when seen from the perspective of historical reality. But that doesn’t rob them of their value. It simply makes them memories. All memories are distorted.
Below are links to his posts with excerpts from his 2017 book, Jesus Before the Gospels (HarperOne).
- https://ehrmanblog.org/do-people-in-oral-cultures-have-better-memories/
- https://ehrmanblog.org/how-do-we-know-about-oral-cultures-by-starting-where-youd-never-suspect/
- https://ehrmanblog.org/when-is-the-same-memory-tradition-story-not-actually-the-same/
- https://ehrmanblog.org/proof-that-historical-narratives-not-just-myths-constantly-change-in-oral-cultures/