Editing Four Noble Truths (section)

===Scholarly analysis of the oldest texts===
According to academic scholars, inconsistencies in the oldest texts may reveal developments in the oldest teachings.{{sfn|Vetter|1988|p=ix}}{{refn|group=note|name="development of teachings"}} While the Theravada-tradition holds that the Sutta Pitaka is "the definitive recension of the Buddha-word",{{sfn|Bhikkhu Bodhi|1995a|p=13}} and Theravadins argue that it is likely that the sutras date back to the Buddha himself, in an unbroken chain of oral transmission,<ref group=web>{{cite web |last1=Payutto |first1=P.A. |title=The Pali Canon What a Buddhist Must Know |url=http://www.watnyanaves.net/uploads/File/books/pdf/the_pali_canon_what_a_buddhist_must_know.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304023143/http://www.watnyanaves.net/uploads/File/books/pdf/the_pali_canon_what_a_buddhist_must_know.pdf |archive-date=4 March 2016 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref group=web name="BS_BB">{{citation |last1=Sujato |first1=Bhante |author-link1=Bhante Sujato |last2=Brahmali |first2=Bhikkhu |title=The Authenticity of the Early Buddhist Texts |url=https://ocbs.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/authenticity.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151224032237/http://ocbs.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/authenticity.pdf |archive-date=24 December 2015 |url-status=live |year=2015 |publisher=Chroniker Press |isbn=978-1312911505}}</ref>{{refn|group=note|[[Bhante Sujato|Bhikkhu Sujato]] & Bhikkhu Brahmali, p. 4: "Most academic scholars of Early Buddhism cautiously affirm that it is possible that the EBTS contain some authentic sayings of the Buddha. We contend that this drastically understates the evidence. A sympathetic assessment of relevant evidence shows that it is very likely that the bulk of the sayings in the EBTS that are attributed to the Buddha were actually spoken by him. It is very unlikely that most of these sayings are inauthentic.<ref group=web name="BS_BB"/>}} academic scholars have identified many such inconsistencies, and tried to explain them. Information of the oldest teachings of Buddhism, such as on the Four Noble Truths, has been obtained by analysis of the oldest texts and these inconsistencies, and are a matter of ongoing discussion and research.{{sfn|Bronkhorst|1993|p={{page needed|date=November 2020}}}}{{sfn|Vetter|1988}}{{sfn|Schmithausen|1981}}{{sfn|Gombrich|1997}} According to Schmithausen, three positions held by scholars of Buddhism can be distinguished regarding the possibility to retain knowledge of the oldest Buddhism:{{sfn|Bronkhorst|1993|p=vii}}
# "Stress on the fundamental homogeneity and substantial authenticity of at least a considerable part of the Nikayic materials;"{{refn|group=note|Well-known proponents of the first position are:<br />* [[A.K. Warder]]. According to A.K. Warder, in his 1970 publication "Indian Buddhism", from the oldest extant texts a common kernel can be drawn out,{{sfn|Warder|1999|loc=inside flap}} namely the [[Bodhipakkhiyādhammā]]. According to Warder, c.q. his publisher: "This kernel of doctrine is presumably common Buddhism of the period before the great schisms of the fourth and third centuries BC. It may be substantially the Buddhism of the Buddha himself, although this cannot be proved: at any rate it is a Buddhism presupposed by the schools as existing about a hundred years after the parinirvana of the Buddha, and there is no evidence to suggest that it was formulated by anyone else than the Buddha and his immediate followers."{{sfn|Warder|1999|loc=inside flap}}<br />* [[Richard Gombrich]]: "I have the greatest difficulty in accepting that the main edifice is not the work of a single genius. By "the main edifice" I mean the collections of the main body of sermons, the four Nikāyas, and of the main body of monastic rules."{{sfn|Gombrich|1997}}}}
# "Scepticism with regard to the possibility of retrieving the doctrine of earliest Buddhism;"{{refn|group=note|A proponent of the second position is Ronald Davidson: "While most scholars agree that there was a rough body of sacred literature (disputed)(sic) that a relatively early community (disputed)(sic) maintained and transmitted, we have little confidence that much, if any, of surviving Buddhist scripture is actually the word of the historic Buddha."{{sfn|Davidson|2003|p=147}}}}
# "Cautious optimism in this respect."{{refn|group=note|Well-known proponent of the third position are:<br />* J.W. de Jong: "It would be hypocritical to assert that nothing can be said about the doctrine of earliest Buddhism [...] the basic ideas of Buddhism found in the canonical writings could very well have been proclaimed by him [the Buddha], transmitted and developed by his disciples and, finally, codified in fixed formulas."{{sfn|Jong|1993|p=25}}<br />* Johannes Bronkhorst: "This position is to be preferred to (ii) for purely methodological reasons: only those who seek may find, even if no success is guaranteed."{{sfn|Bronkhorst|1993|p=vii}}<br />* Donald Lopez: "The original teachings of the historical Buddha are extremely difficult, if not impossible, to recover or reconstruct."{{sfn|Lopez|1995|p=4}}}}