[aftoprokrustes]

Thank you, it is great to have the opinion of someone actually practicing this. I was indeed wondering if regular lectio of a text would lead almost automatically to memorizing it, but it seems not to be the case.

Still, I could imagine that the new testament is more easily memorized by getting "involved" in the story. I have this impression mostly by comparing with the pali canon (the oldest set of sacred buddhist scripture): buddhist pali texts (with a few exceptions, such as the dhammapada) are very technical and contain very little in terms of "story", and their structure contains much more repetition and structured lists than the bible. So much so that all written versions I know of abridge the repetitions, as it would otherwise be extremely boring to read. That biblical texts (or more poetic pali texts) did not have to resort to this makes me think that the meaning and emotional involvement with the text indeed helps in memorizing it.

[smeej]

The gospels and the Acts of the Apostles certainly have a strong narrative element; the letters rather less so. It doesn't surprise me that they could all be memorized in a decade, but not a year. I just think the techniques in this article might not be the way to do it, focused as they are on rapid memorization of dialogue.