Post by TedCatherine Hezser
Since Judaism has always been seen as the quintessential 'religion of the
book', a high literacy rate amongst ancient Jews has usually been taken for
granted. Catherine Hezser presents the first critical analysis of the various
aspects of ancient Jewish literacy on the basis of all of the literary,
epigraphic, and papyrological material published so far. Thereby she takes
into consideration the analogies in Graeco-Roman culture and models and
theories developed in the social sciences. Rather than trying to determine
the exact literacy rate amongst ancient Jews, she examines the various types,
social contexts, and functions of writing and the relationship between
writing and oral forms of discourse. Following recent social-anthropological
approaches to literacy, the guiding question is: who used what type of
writing for which purpose? First Catherine Hezser examines the conditions
which would enable or prevent the spread of literacy, such as education and
schools, the availability and costs of writing materials, religious interest
in writing and books, the existence of archives and libraries, and the
question of multilingualism. Afterwards she looks at the different types of
writing, such as letters, documents, miscellaneous notes, inscriptions and
graffiti, and literary and magical texts until she finally draws conclusions
about the ways in which the various sectors of the populace were able to
participate in a literate society.
She has sold maybe 20 books? And that is being generous.
IT Appears here in a review of the book that your info was hearsay and
untrue. What you claimed is offset right in the 1st three paragraphs. It is
obvious that you never read her book.
BOOK REVIEW
Bart Ehrman interested me in this book when he claimed Hezser posited a
literacy rate in Roman Palestine at 3%, a figure that seemed astoundingly
low.
Ehrman was wrong. Hezser mentioned Bar Ilan's speculation about a 3% literacy
rate, but Hezser herself never gives any estimate, other than to postulate
that the literacy rate may have been below the standard 10-15% argued by
Harris and that it "must be considered to have been lower than the average
Roman rate" (p 496).. She may be a minimalist, but she is fair.
At any rate, this is an excellent book, absolutely exhaustive in detail, with
over 500 pages.
There is no easy answer to the question of how many people were literate in
the ancient world, but Palestine is especially vexing problem.
Various scholars have argued that, after the Maccabees especially, the Jewish
people became more focused on teaching every male child to be able to read
the Torah. Wilhelm Bacher wrote that "In the first centuries A.D. the Jewish
community was...united in...teaching...its written and oral traditions (as)
the highest 'national' goal" (p 40).
Bacher noted the reference to 480 "synagogues with associated schools...in
Jerusalem before the destruction of the city" (p 42) and that Shimon b.
Shetach ordained that all Jewish male children should attend school.
"According to Nathan Drazin, fathers continued to be expected to provide an
elementary school education to their sons in Second Temple times" (p 44), and
it is certainly likely that the most religious fathers would be anxious to
have their sons to read the Torah.
Gerhardsson believes that "toward the end of the Amoraic period, school
attendance was, to judge from the evidence, quite general, although not
compulsory, among the Jews" (p 45).
Reading was more frequently taught in ancient schools from Egypt to Rome than
writing. In Palestine, evidence in the form of abecedaries were discovered on
many ostraca and the occasional parchment across Palestine, also notably at
Qumran and at Masada. Abecederies were also found in funeral inscriptions,
clearly not educational in purpose.
There is also '4Q Therapeia' "a small piece of leather or parchment with
meaningless words on it" (p 87) and various ostraca with scribbles on them.
Exercises by children or...? The Lachish ostraca and the Elephantine papyri
caused Drazin to argue that both Hebrew and Aramaic were taught to Jewish
children from the 7th century B.C.
The Qumran community offers an example of strong religious belief coupled
with an insistence that every male be able to read the Torah, starting at the
age of ten. Those who joined the community later were taught to read. "Torah
reading seems to have been an important feature of all or at least some of
the pre-70 synagogues in Palestine" (p 452) and may explain why early
Christian communities read religious texts when the Christians were at
worship.
Although some scholars have dismissed the evidence from Qumran as likely only
being applicable to the Essenes, there is evidence that even very small
villages kept Torah rolls. In 50 AD, Josephus wrote that when an imperial
freedman was set upon and robbed, Cumanus ordered all nearby villages to be
raided. One of the soldiers burned up a Torah scroll. From a tiny village.
R. Shimon b. Gamliel wrote that there were some 500 'houses of scribes' "in
Bethar at the time of the Bar Kokhba revolt Even the smallest of these
schools is said to have been attended by not less than 500 children" (p 50).
It is also true that rabbis associated knowledge of the Torah with the
supporters of Bar Kokhba, "just as they thought that that knowledge was
prevalent amongst the inhabitants of pre-70 Jerusalem" (p 50).
Since the last years of the Second Temple, being able to "read the Torah is
repeatedly emphasized in Greek Jewish writings and by Josephus...Josephus
writes that the Torah 'orders that they (children) shall be taught
letters...and shall learn both the laws and deeds of the forefathers '" (p
68). The emphasis on the Torah appears to have been standard in all the
different types of Judaism. Hengel assumes that this education developed by
the Pharisees "gave rise to the later Rabbinate" (p 69).
Ancient education stressed memorization, so it is unsurprisingly to learn
that "Antigonos of Sokho (about 3rd B.C.) had two disciples who would repeat
...his words...and they would repeat them to disciples and disciples to
disciples'" (p 98). "Rabbis' claim to have accurate traditions from earlier
generations" (p 429)
The ancients, who "because of the classical training in mnemotechnics, Greeks
and Romans trusted their memories to an extent that we would never trust ours
today" (p 423). Which may explain why "Quotations were usually not checked"
(p 423).
When was the Jewish canon formed? "By the first century B.C.. most books
which would later form part of the canon were already in high esteem" (p
193). Torah scrolls were cherished. In 50 A.D. Josephus writes about a Roman
soldier burning a Torah school, causing rioting, and only the summary
execution of the soldier quelled the angry populace.
Hebrew was the common language in Palestine until the time of Alexander the
Great. Hebrew would remain the holy language, the language of Torah, but
Aramaic gained ascendancy over it among the populace as time passed.
After Alexander the Great, Greek towns were established across Palestine, and
it appears many, if not most, of Second Temple Jews spoke Aramaic and Greek.
Saul Lieberman's "studies have been groundbreaking in their argumentation for
a widespread knowledge of Greek amongst Palestinian Jews" (p 231).
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