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Originally Posted by barryem
I wasn't making a religious comment at all. I'm not the least bit religious. I was talking about what might happen when stories change format. Actually though, my main point was more about the nature of the audience so I guess the thing about the Bible was a bit off-center.
Yes stories sometimes are written down. But imagine a situation where a story told in different ways by a lot of different people, is heard by someone who writes it down. Which version did he write down? Was it the most commonly told version? That's the most probable but how can we know? Perhaps he heard a variation that he liked that inspired him to put it into writing. We just don't know.
In any case I think it's likely that stories told by lots of storytellers in lots of ways to lots of small groups have a different effect on culture than a single version of a story being told to practically everyone, and that was really my point.
They heard stories back then from different people, told in different ways, and they surely believed those stories contained truth on some level but how could they know where truth ended and story began?
Today we all hear the same story at the same time: Bill Cosby drugged and raped women. We all hear it. We all wonder about it. Very few doubt that it's true. We're changed by that in different ways than the ancients were changed by the many and various versions of stories about their heroes.
Another, more bookish difference probably comes from the fact that today we have so many stories; so many novels and TV shows and movies. We encounter them and we know not to believe them but we can't help but be changed by them. That's the power of stories. But these stories move us in every imaginable direction.
How can we compare that to the same few stories being told and retold in various ways as truth. Almost as history. It's just not the same thing. Yes, one grew out of the other just like a butterfly grew out of a cocoon. But a butterfly isn't much like a cocoon.
Barry
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Aesop comes to mind.
Oh and on TV and movies can we say 60's, 70's and 80's redone.