When I see stats on literacy in the Ancient Near East, they usually makes a distinction between the fraction who could read and the fraction who could also write, but it’s hard for me to see the need for the distinction. I can see how writing ability wouldn’t have been as important as reading ability (paper is expensive, and what would you write about?), but I don’t see how you can read but not write.
I appreciate that writing well takes much practice, but illiterate people could go to scribes and dictate a letter, so coming up with a flow of words to write shouldn’t have been hard.
Is it that the fine-motor skills necessary must be taught as a child so that literate adults would be clumsy when it came to writing, even though they know what all the letters look like and what letters are used to make up each word?
It’s not that simple. We so associate reading and writing that we forget they are two separate skills. For example, I read and speak Russian fairly fluently but if I had to sit down and compose a letter using the Cyrillic script I would be very slow. I’m way out of practice. Thinking through your pen is different than thinking through your mouth. It even uses different parts of your brain.
BobSeidensticker said
When I see stats on literacy in the Ancient Near East, they usually makes a distinction between the fraction who could read and the fraction who could also write, but it’s hard for me to see the need for the distinction. I can see how writing ability wouldn’t have been as important as reading ability (paper is expensive, and what would you write about?), but I don’t see how you can read but not write.I appreciate that writing well takes much practice, but illiterate people could go to scribes and dictate a letter, so coming up with a flow of words to write shouldn’t have been hard.
Is it that the fine-motor skills necessary must be taught as a child so that literate adults would be clumsy when it came to writing, even though they know what all the letters look like and what letters are used to make up each word?
Dysgraphia is a condition that causes trouble with written expression. The term comes from the Greek words dys (“impaired”) and graphia (“making letter forms by hand”). Dysgraphia is a brain-based issue. It’s not the result of a child being lazy.
Niels Bohr loved talking. He had a thorough dislike of writing.
Completely normal.
I tend to be rather articulate when reading and writing German, but having a conversation in it can be one troublesome problem for me, because they are two different sections of the brain.
Writing is connected primarily to our lexical segments of the brain, and motor cortex. Reading is associated to our visual and lexical centers. Speaking is connected to even more sections though.
For example, people with different forms of Aphasia may understand everything we say, or anything they read, but they will be unable to communicate it back to us in a meaningful way, because they have a problem with their brain lexicon while speaking.
Jesus himself quite possibly could have been this way.
I doubt very much Jesus could write…but…although most working class folks in the area he lived in could neither read or write there was also a subset of roughly 5 – 10% who could read some, even if at a very basic level, without being able to write. I think its very possible Jesus was in this group.
John 8:6 This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not.
Projecting the population characteristics of Jesus’ time onto Jesus is an error. These men were not like everyone else. For example, it’s said Peter was likely illiterate because he was a fisherman. Illiterate fishermen don’t become major apostles of new religious sects. The logic that Peter must be illiterate because of his occupation as a fisherman is equally balanced with the assertion that Peter must be literate because of his occupation as an apostle.
Likewise, we have the story about how Jesus as a boy was discovered in the temple after being missing for three days. The people in the temple were the smartest, most literate of their community.
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