'Atiqot 110: The Ancient Written Wor(l)d, open access

Discussion about the Hebrew Bible, Septuagint, pseudepigrapha, Philo, Josephus, Talmud, Dead Sea Scrolls, archaeology, etc.
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StephenGoranson
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'Atiqot 110: The Ancient Written Wor(l)d, open access

Post by StephenGoranson »

open access articles on old writing from Israel:

https://atiqot.org.il/
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StephenGoranson
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Re: 'Atiqot 110: The Ancient Written Wor(l)d, open access

Post by StephenGoranson »

A journalistic account of one of the articles from the issue mentioned above:

https://www.timesofisrael.com/2000-year ... -literacy/

(Yes, though maybe, someone in the ossuary business might be more literate than the average person.)

Added later: this does appear to be a genuine ancient inscription. In this case, no author red-flag name of Gershon Galil.
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DCHindley
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Re: 'Atiqot 110: The Ancient Written Wor(l)d, open access

Post by DCHindley »

Hello Stephen Goranson,

So, it sounds like this article is implying that finding one merchant's ledger in the city of Jerusalem makes just about everyone in 2nd temple Jerusalem literate.

Hmmm. Still, interesting. When we find ledgers in Egypt, does that mean everyone in Egypt was literate? Of course not.

I think that, like in most regions of the era, a fair number of merchants and some peasants were "functionally" illiterate, that is, able to do simple math with the aid of the knotted ropes or some sort of simplified notation. No flowery prose or extended narrative ability (they won't be writing treatises). Their reading, and writing, will be of certain types of texts only, ones that touched on their everyday livelihood. That is my take, FWIW.

DCH

Examples (and I am just musing):

As part of my misspent youth, I worked for a Finance Company in the late 1970s, in Los Angeles USA, that offered chattel loans in Culver City and later Inglewood, I'd say about 25% of our customers were completely illiterate, mostly the men. The spouses all seemed to be able to read & write. The man in these cases could not read the loan document, so we had to read it to them, with the person assenting by making a unique "mark" or even an inscribed "X" on loan documents (with notes that it was witnessed by me). Very few even used the unique mark.

These were employed persons, usually both spouses, he was usually a factory or warehouse worker and the spouse had an office job. Until then, my experience was in Ohio, USA. Here (in Ohio where I currently live) I have NOT run across illiterate persons before or after. My spouse has worked as a second mortgage originator for a major bank & "Bad Credit" auto loan underwriter in our area (Cleveland & NE OH), and she tells me that she has encountered a few herself.

I know you have or continue to work in your family's construction business. If you have worked with artisan contractors, their estimates often betray inability to spell very well. Wrong terms, misspellings, but it will give you labor & materials fine. That's their meat & potatoes. One guy, a painter, spelled "Hallway" as "Haul Way".

In school they may have slept thru English class but apparently stayed awake in math. No calculus, no algebra, just basic math, and chances are they used a calculator for that. Of course, in 100 BC-100 CE, few went to school.
StephenGoranson
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Re: 'Atiqot 110: The Ancient Written Wor(l)d, open access

Post by StephenGoranson »

DCH, I agree that literacy, the ability to read and write, back then, was known to a minority of the population.
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