It’s tempting to conclude that memorizing, say, a Gospel, is simply
impossible. The human brain is great at Thanksgiving etiquette, lousy
at Gospels. And that’s that.
But the evidence says otherwise.
In medieval times, many monasteries and convents wouldn’t let you
take your vows until you’d learned the entire Psalter, all 153
Psalms. In English, that’s over 2400 verses—about 47,000
words. Some scholars (not only the superstars) knew the entire New Testament.
But in the time of Jesus, many ordinary boys memorized the
entire Pentateuch. That’s Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers,
and Deuteronomy—about 5800 verses and 150,000 words. The
“smart” kids (as opposed to the B students who maxed out on the mere
Pentateuch) would continue and memorize more.
Pretty impressive. But that was in the Golden Days, right? Back when
the fairies sprinkled mnemonic pixie dust in every stream? Not so
fast. Modern people can memorize too.
In Africa, many villages still have a griot, a bard who can recite
epics and local genealogies. When Alex Haley wrote his family
history in Roots, he traveled to Africa to meet with a griot.
There are many, many Muslims today who have memorized the entire
Qur’an. The Qur’an is over 6,000 verses and over 77,000
words.
There are also Christians who have memorized all of Mark and other
whole books of the Bible. Some even have a club: the Network of
Biblical Storytellers (NOBS).
And the founder of NOBS, Tom Boomershine, mentions in his book
Story Journey that even today, many young Hasidic Jews have
memorized all of Genesis and Exodus, in Hebrew, by the ripe old age
of … four.
How long is Mark? 678 verses and about 15,000 words. No sweat.
We don’t have many modern memorizers in Western culture, but they do
exist. And they’d be the first to admit that they be may be smart, but
they don’t have photographic memories or any exotic superpower. Just
the usual superpower: an average memory.
This article is taken from my forthcoming book,
Memorize Mark: How to Learn a Whole Gospel by Heart, by Bill Powell. If you'd like to hear when this book comes out, please
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