{"id":3218,"date":"2008-12-17T11:37:00","date_gmt":"2008-12-17T11:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2008\/12\/quote-of-the-day-catherine-heszer\/"},"modified":"2008-12-17T11:37:00","modified_gmt":"2008-12-17T11:37:00","slug":"quote-of-the-day-catherine-heszer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2008\/12\/quote-of-the-day-catherine-heszer.html","title":{"rendered":"Quote of the Day (Catherine Heszer)"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><div align=\"center\"><span style=\"font-size:130%;color:#660000\">\u201cScholars of classical antiquity have argued that ancient literary composition was essentially an oral process based on one\u2019s memory rather than on piles of written notes. What was composed orally was subsequently dictated to a scribe who was the actual writer of the text. Once the author had \u201cpublished\u201d his work by allowing its reproduction by booksellers and friends, he had lost all influence on its further development. Since no copyright laws existed, the author had no protection against the introduction of changes into his text. In fact, not one authoritative version but many more or less identical versions of each text circulated in antiquity\u2026<\/span><\/div>\n<div align=\"center\"> <\/div>\n<div align=\"center\"><span style=\"font-size:130%;color:#660000\"><\/span><\/div>\n<div align=\"center\"><span style=\"font-size:130%;color:#660000\">The accuracy of the remembered was not particularly important to the authors. Without stenographers or tape recorders accuracy was also impossible to achieve. The gist of what had been said or heard or read was more relevant that the repetition of verbatim statements. Quotations were usually not checked. Ancient authors such as Plutarch streamlined, compressed, and dislocated the material, conflated similar items, and even invented additional examples to support an argument.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n<div align=\"right\">\u2014 Catherine Hezser, <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/3161475461?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=jamefmcgrshom-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=3161475461\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Jewish Literacy in Roman Palestine<\/a><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" height=\"1\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=jamefmcgrshom-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=3161475461\" width=\"1\" border=\"0\"><\/em> <\/div>\n<div align=\"right\">(Tuebingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2001) pp.422-424.<\/div>\n<div class=\"blogger-post-footer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" src=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/tracker\/7622297540113836091-8852430739713556483?l=exploringourmatrix.blogspot.com\" alt=\"\"><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cScholars of classical antiquity have argued that ancient literary composition was essentially an oral process based on one\u2019s memory rather than on piles of written notes. What was composed orally was subsequently dictated to a scribe who was the actual writer of the text. Once the author had \u201cpublished\u201d his work by allowing its reproduction [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Quote of the Day (Catherine Heszer)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"&quot;Scholars of classical antiquity have argued that ancient literary composition was essentially an oral process based on one&#039;s memory rather than on piles\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2008\/12\/quote-of-the-day-catherine-heszer.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Quote of the Day (Catherine Heszer)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"&quot;Scholars of classical antiquity have argued that ancient literary composition was essentially an oral process based on one&#039;s memory rather than on piles\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2008\/12\/quote-of-the-day-catherine-heszer.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. 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