How could Jesus' audience hear Jesus without audio installation?

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You are right, communication before modern electronics relied more on the speaker yelling and a crowd who surrounding attentively. Consider the ancient Roman coliseum for example. This place could house an audience of 50,000+ and people would need to shout loud to the crowd and be heard.

When we imagine the crowds that Jesus spoke to a typical Jesus movie seems to portray it right. Sometimes crowds followed him to a place where he could be heard well, like for the sermon on the mount. Other times they pressed in on him and he even had to sort of hurry away so that it did not become too chaotic. Also many would be responding and discussing among themselves what the meaning was for something he had said. In these conditions many would not hear exactly what was said and only get bits and pieces. There is also the repetitive second hand reiteration of what he had said. For those who could not hear they would listen to the stories told by others, even late into the night throughout the towns where Jesus preached.

Then there is the example of the Baptist preaching by the river. Have you ever yelled in a valley and heard the echo carry your voice seemingly for ever?

In summary, one could definitely communicate to large crowds in ancient Rome, such as for entertainment in the amphitheaters or when generals gave pre-battle speeches for example. When large crowds were addressed, sometimes good places were chosen for the acoustics, and the crowd would be more aware of when to hush for the communication to be effective. Even making a makeshift blow horn with your hands could have been used as ancient Greek actors already had horn shaped mouths in their masks for this purpose. However, there would certainly be some, especially among noisy crowds, who could not hear and would rely on what others said.

Upvote:-2

There are still scenarios where a person attempts to speak to a large audience in different places. What happens in these scenarios, without the use of audio equipment, is that some people do not hear what is being said, some do and spread the word, some people mis-hear what is being said, and so forth. In other words it is not an efficient method communication similar to the children's game of "Chinese Whispers" or "Broken telephone" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_whispers

Some messages were communicated to some people some of time is likely the case.

Upvote:-1

Jesus was both 100% God and 100% man - The person who stilled the storm on the seas and who made the deaf to hear - God can make the impossible -possible - that is why He is God - beyond my intelligence.

Upvote:2

I would also explore the fact that we are speaking of the same Jesus who walked on waters and fed the same (5000 men) crowds with 5 loaves and 2 fish. So the physical laws that restrict us were not necessary a restriction for Him. 'They asked among themselves, what manner of man is this that even the winds and the seas obey His voice'. I imagine that when Jesus spoke, the wind carried those sound waves to reach every intended person in the audience.

I don't read of Jesus wearing a greek mask, but what i do read of is that He was the very one who spoke the worlds into existence so i would guess that every element of sound and that which may hamper it would hush at His voice.

God bless

Upvote:6

Quoting from http://www.philipvickersfithian.com/2013/12/how-loud-was-george-whitefield.html

The great preacher George Whitefield, who lived during the life of Ben Franklin, had a booming voice.

Whitefield appears several times in Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography. My favorite reference to Whitefield is the passage in which Franklin tries to calculate the number of people that can hear Whitefield's booming voice. Here is Franklin describing Whitefield:

He had a loud and clear voice, and articulated his words and sentences so perfectly, that he might be heard and understood at a great distance, especially as his auditories, however numerous, observ’d the most exact silence. He preach’d one evening from the top of the Court-house steps, which are in the middle of Market-street, and on the west side of Second-street, which crosses it at right angles. Both streets were fill’d with his hearers to a considerable distance. Being among the hindmost in Market-street, I had the curiosity to learn how far he could be heard, by retiring backwards down the street towards the river; and I found his voice distinct till I came near Front-street, when some noise in that street obscur’d it. Imagining then a semi-circle, of which my distance should be the radius, and that it were fill’d with auditors, to each of whom I allow’d two square feet, I computed that he might well be heard by more than thirty thousand. This reconcil’d me to the newspaper accounts of his having preach’d to twenty-five thousand people in the fields, and to the antient histories of generals haranguing whole armies, of which I had sometimes doubted.

As this passage indicates, Franklin estimated that Whitefield could be heard, without a microphone, by 30,000 people.

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