Literacy and Education in Ancient Israel Research Papers (original) (raw)

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- Ancient History, Classics, Aristophanes, Literacy

Revue annuelle publiée par l'Association Semitica & classica, avec le concours du CNRS et le soutien de l'UMR 8167 « Orient & Méditerranée » (Mondes sémitiques, Antiquité classique et tardive, Monde byzantin, Médecine grecque, Islam... more

Arad is a well preserved desert fort on the southern frontier of the biblical kingdom of Judah. Excavation of the site yielded over 100 Hebrew ostraca (ink inscriptions on potsherds) dated to ca. 600 BCE, the eve of Nebuchadnezzar's destruction of Jerusalem. Due to the site's isolation, small size and texts that were written in a short time span, the Arad corpus holds important keys to understanding dissemination of literacy in Judah. Here we present the handwriting analysis of 18 Arad inscriptions, including more than 150 pair-wise assessments of writer's identity. The examination was performed by two new algorithmic handwriting analysis methods and independently by a professional forensic document examiner. To the best of our knowledge, no such large-scale pair-wise assessments of ancient documents by a forensic expert has previously been published. Comparison of forensic examination with algorithmic analysis is also unique. Our study demonstrates substantial agreement between the results of these independent methods of investigation. Remarkably, the forensic examination reveals a high probability of at least 12 writers within the analyzed corpus. This is a major increment over the previously published algorithmic estimations, which revealed 4-7 writers for the same assemblage. The high literacy rate detected within the small Arad stronghold, estimated (using broadly-accepted paleo-demographic coefficients) to have accommodated 20-30 soldiers, demonstrates widespread literacy in the late 7 th century BCE Judahite military and administration apparatuses, with the ability to compose biblical texts during this period a possible by-product.

Past excavations in Samaria, capital of biblical Israel, yielded a corpus of Hebrew ink on clay inscriptions (ostraca) that documents wine and oil shipments to the palace from surrounding localities. Many questions regarding these early 8 th century BCE texts, in particular the location of their composition, have been debated. Authorship in countryside villages or estates would attest to widespread literacy in a relatively early phase of ancient Israel's history. Here we report an algorithmic investigation of 31 of the inscriptions. Our study establishes that they were most likely written by two scribes who recorded the shipments in Samaria. We achieved our results through a method comprised of image processing and newly developed statistical learning techniques. These outcomes contrast with our previous results, which indicated widespread literacy in the kingdom of Judah a century and half to two centuries later, ca. 600 BCE.

- by Jaeyoung Jeon
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- Literacy, Hebrew Language, Scribes, Literacy and Education in Ancient Israel

I submitted this response to JBL in January 2018, but after almost 8 months the editorial board made a decision that my "response seems too focused on the Evans article to be of broad interest to our readership" and that my "differences might best be discussed personally … rather than published in an academic journal." I maintain that I should have had an opportunity for a public response in the journal, since, in my opinion, Evans made gross misrepresentations of my work, even after I had had private interactions with him to correct his misrepresentations of my own work. In fact, in my opinion, the JBL's peer review process failed both me, because his article never should have been published. Thus, I have decided to post my response here for anyone who might be interested.
Abstract: In "Creating a New 'Great Divide,'" Paul Evans critiques "recent applications of orality studies" to the Hebrew Bible, focusing primarily on the work of Susan Niditch, David Carr, and Raymond Person. Person demonstrates how Evans' critique is full of misrepresentations because it is (1) based on only a few, earlier publications, thereby ignoring the majority of their recent publications on the topic, (2) is a misrepresentative reading of those few works to which he refers, and (3) is a selective reading of secondary sources from which they drew.

A complete, intact early Roman inkwell recovered in excavations at ancient Shiloh adds to the limited number of inkwells known from the period. The ceramic item is somewhat small and poorly made, but its apparently handmade, inverted trapezoidal shape is unique among extant early Roman inkwells from Judea and adds a relatively small site to the list of places where inkwells have appeared.

The relationship between the expansion of literacy in Judah and composition of biblical texts has attracted scholarly attention for over a century. Information on this issue can be deduced from Hebrew inscriptions from the final phase of the first Temple period. We report our investigation of 16 inscriptions from the Judahite desert fortress of Arad, dated ca. 600 BCE—the eve of Nebuchadnezzar’s destruction of Jerusalem. The inquiry is based on new methods for image processing and document analysis, as well as machine learning algorithms. These techniques enable identification of the minimal number of authors in a given group of inscriptions. Our algorithmic analysis, complemented by the textual information, reveals a minimum of six authors within the examined inscriptions. The results indicate that in this remote fort literacy had spread throughout the military hierarchy, down to the quartermaster and probably even below that rank. This implies that an educational infrastructure that could support the composition of literary texts in Judah already existed before the destruction of the first Temple. A similar level of literacy in this area is attested again only 400 y later, ca. 200 BCE.

- by Shira Faigenbaum-Golovin and +5
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- Archaeology, Humanities Computing (Digital Humanities), Literacy, Image Processing

- by Katherine Streckert and +1
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- Archaeology of Early Roman Period, Inkwells, Literacy and Education in Ancient Israel

The hypothesis that scribes, priests and the upper class formed the literate segment of ancient Israelite society seems to be the best reading of the evidence. Israel was therefore a literate society in that the use of writing was widespread, and was for many a day-to-day part of life. Nevertheless, the majority of the population had access to the literate world only through intermediaries.

An article by Richard Hess is framed as if it is a response to my earlier article on Israelite literacy. Hess argues that epigraphic evidence must be given first place when discussing Israelite literacy. However, this evidence on its own is unable to tell us anything about the extent of literacy. Instead, a clear picture emerges from biblical and non-biblical evidence that ancient Israelite literacy was generally confined to priests, scribes and government officials.

The relationship between the expansion of literacy in Judah and composition of biblical texts has attracted scholarly attention for over a century. Information on this issue can be deduced from Hebrew inscriptions from the final phase of the first Temple period. We report our investigation of 16 inscriptions from the Judahite desert fortress of Arad, datedca 600 BCE-the eve of Nebuchadnezzar's destruction of Jerusalem. The inquiry is based on new methods for image processing and document analysis, as well as machine learning algorithms. These techniques enable identification of the minimal number of authors in a given group of inscriptions. Our algorithmic analysis, complemented by the textual information, reveals a minimum of six authors within the examined inscriptions. The results indicate that in this remote fort literacy had spread throughout the military hierarchy, down to the quartermaster and probably even below that rank. This implies that an educational infrastructure ...

- by eli turkel
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- Archaeology, Literacy, Image Processing, Machine Learning

In this paper, I argue that polar ’im clauses in oaths should not be seen as conditional protases that elide a self-curse, but rather as rhetorical questions. When we apply this line of argumentation to the אם clauses in the oath in Lachish 3 (lines 9–13), the interpretation of the letter shifts from a soldier’s defense of his literary abilities to a straightforward acknowledgement of his inability to make sense of the letter from his superior. My reading of the ’im clauses in Lachish 3 (lines 9–13) as a pair of rhetorical questions is based on two general patterns in the Hebrew Bible: the form of double ’im clauses and restrictions on the use of וגם. This reading is also supported by the soldier’s use of the idiom to »open his eyes« (lines 4–5), which I argue should be understood on the basis of similar usage in the Hebrew Bible, such as II Reg 6,17.