Coimbra1982 said
Experts in the field usually says that it takes a long argument. If you’re interested, you should definitely read their work. His argument is not 1-10% but 10-15% at the best of times, allowing this is not an estimate to be considered *precise*.
Okay. That’s fine. I guess the same question remains, which is: what is the single best piece of evidence that a 15% upper limit estimate in the best of times is correct?
Stephen said
Look at it from this perspective. Why would hand to mouth day laborers need to learn to read much less write? Where would they learn? If they don’t work every day they don’t eat. When would they have time for school? Our literacy skews our perspective. The vast majority of human beings in all times and all places did not know how to read or write. Jesus’ upbringing would have been the norm, not ours. We’re the outliers.
Probably for the very same reason that modern day laborers learn to read and write.
Modern (and far better evidence-based) estimates of literacy in New England in the last 18th Century place it close to 100%, and yet formal education was almost universally parochial, with closer to zero in the way of publicly funded education. And, yes, the vast majority of late 18th Century New Englanders were subsistence farmers, who “didn’t eat if they didn’t work.”
It’s not enough to say, “Why would those yokels need to write,” to make your case for near-universally illiteracy. You need evidence.
I am not suggesting 90% literacy. But there are good reasons to believe that the theory of near-universal illiteracy is wrong.
Robert said
vergari said
… We get modern day scholars asserting 3% literacy, based on metrics no one can seem to explain. …
Why not try reading some of these modern-day scholars? Who knows, maybe they do actually seem to explain their metrics?
So I just read the essay ** you do not have permission to see this link ** by Catherine Hezser.
Since the evidence for the case of rural illiteracy in Palestine is highly minimal, I am re-producing her argument on this point below:
Thus, before 70 C.E, Tiberias seems to have been the only rudimentary developed larger town or “city” in Galilee. Yet even Tiberias did not have jurisdiction over the surrounding areas then.
I liken this to Bart’s claim that crucified First Century Jews would not have been buried and had their bones placed into ossuaries, in the face actual physical, archaeological evidence of a crucified First Century Jew having been buried and his bones placed into an ossuary. At some point the scholarly theory has to face tangible evidence.
Not to reopen a can of worms but we have good reason to think that the normal procedure for victims of crucifixion was to allow the bodies to rot and then be disposed of in mass graves. You may wish to look for a lengthy and at times rambunctious exchange I had a while back with godspell on just this topic. (Poor godspell. We just weren’t sufficiently deferential I guess.)
If 97% of a First Century Jews living in Palestine were illiterate, what kind of sense does it make that 500 different hands are found within the Dead Sea Scrolls?
As Prof Ehrman and others have pointed out the community at Qumran collected manuscripts as well as composed them.
In other words, we seem to have no idea.
No, scholars extrapolate from the conditions we know existed at the time. Prof Hezser’s comments seem eminently reasonable. (Unless one has a vested interest in coming up with a different conclusion of course.)
Coimbra1982
What are the chances that someone like Jesus could read and write?
There´s a book named “Jesus Literacy: Scribal Culture and the Teacher from Galilee” by Chris Keith.
I haven´t read the book and all that I have heard is that he thinks that Jesus was not trained in reading and writing, the way scribes in Palestine were.
Jesus is a composite character of historical fiction.
Two figures in the composite Jesus are: 1) child son of Mary of Bethezuba and 2) the governor of Tiberias / Jesus of Gamala, Galilee.
Perhaps Jesus of Gamala, governor of Tiberias, high priest killed by the Idumeans also was Josephus’ rival historian who learned Greek.
Stephen said
I liken this to Bart’s claim that crucified First Century Jews would not have been buried and had their bones placed into ossuaries, in the face actual physical, archaeological evidence of a crucified First Century Jew having been buried and his bones placed into an ossuary. At some point the scholarly theory has to face tangible evidence.Not to reopen a can of worms but we have good reason to think that the normal procedure for victims of crucifixion was to allow the bodies to rot and then be disposed of in mass graves. You may wish to look for a lengthy and at times rambunctious exchange I had a while back with godspell on just this topic. (Poor godspell. We just weren’t sufficiently deferential I guess.)
I too don’t want to get into it right now. If Bart wants to make that argument, fine. But his attitude on the topic, stating his (minority) opinion as virtual fact and even sneering at contrary opinions, attacking the motives of the person defending the opposite position, is revealing. In this particular case, we have Josephus Jewish Wars, we have the Sixth Century Digesta, and have the crucified heel bone of First Century Jew Yehohanan, the son of Hagakol, found in an ossuary (in other words, “buried”), as the best direct evidence we have. Bart has decided to take the contrary position based on — effectively — arguments from ignorance and an inference about the corpses of crucified for sedition with the assumption that Jesus was executed for sedition. It’s a highly tenuous argument in the face of near-overwhelming evidence, and Bart’s condescending treatment of those who have pointed the failings of his argument reveals more about his motives than his adversaries.
Stephen said
If 97% of a First Century Jews living in Palestine were illiterate, what kind of sense does it make that 500 different hands are found within the Dead Sea Scrolls?
As Prof Ehrman and others have pointed out the community at Qumran collected manuscripts as well as composed them.
Of course this is a complete guess. He doesn’t know that. Rather than stating these matters as facts (i.e., they “pointed it out”), I think it’s useful to add qualifiers such as “Prof Ehrman has argued…”
Stephen said
In other words, we seem to have no idea.
No, scholars extrapolate from the conditions we know existed at the time. Prof Hezser’s comments seem eminently reasonable. (Unless one has a vested interest in coming up with a different conclusion of course.)
Again, I don’t find the issue particularly critical. But the fact that these conclusions — which, best guesses as they are — are drawn from very, very, very little evidence should be remembered when treating Hezser’s arguments as fact. It’s not a fact; it’s an argument.
Perhaps I’m missing something – quite possibly.
If inscriptions, etc., index positively to the level of societal literacy, then a lack of inscriptions, etc., where they would otherwise be expected to be found were the society literate would seemingly be pretty good evidence for illiteracy. Clearly not dispositive, but probabilistically indicative.
Why wouldn’t paucity of evidence otherwise expected to be present be exactly what should be the case if the illiteracy rate were high? Is it that arguing from a lack of countervailing evidence is a bad form of argumentation, or is the issue more subtle than that?
Hngerhman said
Perhaps I’m missing something – quite possibly.If inscriptions, etc., index positively to the level of societal literacy, then a lack of inscriptions, etc., where they would otherwise be expected to be found were the society literate would seemingly be pretty good evidence for illiteracy. Clearly not dispositive, but probabilistically indicative.
Why wouldn’t paucity of evidence otherwise expected to be present be exactly what should be the case if the illiteracy rate were high? Is it that arguing from a lack of countervailing evidence is a bad form of argumentation, or is the issue more subtle than that?
So, a couple things here.
First, the argument really has to rest on Galilee; because when you look at Jerusalem, we have quite a few inscriptions, including in Greek. Now, obviously, the Temple being destroyed and the City being burned destroyed much of the archaeology; but there is little doubt that there were many inscriptions throughout Jerusalem.
Galilee becomes trickier, because there is just not a ton of archaeological remains at all from Galilee. It’s not so much the case that we have a ton of remains where we should be finding inscriptions, but they aren’t there; it’s more that there just aren’t a lot of remains where one would expect inscriptions to be found.
A related problem is that we just don’t know how much of the every day Galilean tongue would have been exclusively in Aramaic, as opposed to a bit of Greek. There are Aramaic words preserved through transliteration in Mark (and even in the Pauline corpus); so it’s reasonable to think those came from an ancient tradition connecting back to Jesus. However, we also know that Septuagint (used for Hebrew Bible references in the NT) was in wider use during the Second Temple period than previously realized, and Greek was the lingua franca of the region.
That being said, Paul calls Simon Peter “Cephas,” which is a transliteration of the Aramaic word Kepa, which means “rock.” In Koine Greek, the work πέτρος (petros) means “stone.” So, if Simon Peter was called “Kepa” by those who knew him, it would indicate that the every day language of Jesus and his disciples was Aramaic.
Illiteracy indexes positively (literacy, negatively) with the following (nonexhaustive):
– Antiquity
– Poverty
– Low social class
– Subsistence societies/vocations
– Rurality
– Patriarchality
None of the relationships is perfect nor linear, and given the data we have, these relations are somewhat limited to being relative (not absolute). But the farther back in time, the lower the socioeconomic class, the more the people are focused on hand-to-mouth existence, the further from major urban centers, and the more “traditional” the people, the higher the illiteracy rate.
I too don’t want to get into it right now.
Just enough to poison the well apparently. In my posts I cited multiple references from classical sources indicating that leaving bodies on the cross to rot was part of the punishment for crucifixion. I also addressed the problems with using Josephus as a source on this. While we certainly can’t say for sure what happened to Jesus’ body we have a good idea what normally happened and in the face of no evidence we should assume that what happened to Jesus is what normally happened. After all his executioners would have no reason to treat Jesus as special. On the other hand his followers would have every reason to claim the circumstances of his death were special.
Of course this is a complete guess.
Not unless you think the Essenes composed the book of Isaiah.
It’s not a fact; it’s an argument.
Yes but it’s a very good argument.
Stephen said
I too don’t want to get into it right now.Just enough to poison the well apparently. In my posts I cited multiple references from classical sources indicating that leaving bodies on the cross to rot was part of the punishment for crucifixion. I also addressed the problems with using Josephus as a source on this. While we certainly can’t say for sure what happened to Jesus’ body we have a good idea what normally happened and in the face of no evidence we should assume that what happened to Jesus is what normally happened. After all his executioners would have no reason to treat Jesus as special. On the other hand his followers would have every reason to claim the circumstances of his death were special.
Can you cite to one piece of evidence specific to First Century Palestine indicating that burying the body of a crucified criminal would even be unlikely? I’m not asking for references to how the Roman Empire dealt with slave revolts in Italy in the Second Century BCE. I’m asking about evidence particular to crucifixion within Palestine during the First Century.
Stephen said
Of course this is a complete guess.
Not unless you think the Essenes composed the book of Isaiah.
I think we may have a misunderstanding of what a “hand” means in this context. No one is arguing that the Essenes composed Isaiah. The question is who copied down the dozen or so versions of Isaiah which have been found at Qumran. Copies of Isaiah were found not only in multiple jars, but in at least four different caves.
Scholars have never found any evidence that the manuscript copies of these documents were written by anyone other than members of the Qumran community.
Stephen said
It’s not a fact; it’s an argument.
Yes but it’s a very good argument.
It might be the best argument to be made given the evidence; but the evidence is extraordinarily sparse; so any argument is going to be, by necessity, tenuous. For example, I have not read of any scholar positing a method by which these estimates can be made falsifiable. Have you?
Robert said
Do you know of any Galilean groups that maintained an extensive collection of texts, composing some and copying others, for over 200 years? Some of their texts were preserved even longer as far away as Cairo and one was still known independently of the discoveries made in Qumran. Presumably some of this was also done by temple priests in Judea, but I’m not aware of any other groups. Certainly this literary legacy required some amount of wealth and leisure. If all typical Galileans and Judeans of this period had this same capability, wouldn’t you expect that some trace of this should have survived? Instead, the later Jewish literature that did survive several centuries later was reputed for being transmitted orally for several generations of relativey elite scholars.
The obvious problem with this argument is that, if we were having this exact same discussion in 1946, you could say, “Do you know of any groups in Palestine (other than Temple priests) that maintained an extensive collection of texts, composing some and copying others, for over 200 years?”
We’re not aware of any such groups today — other than the Qumran community — and we only know about them through a historical accidence.
Robert said
Certainly this literary legacy required some amount of wealth and leisure. If all typical Galileans and Judeans of this period had this same capability, wouldn’t you expect that some trace of this should have survived?
This argument is both circular and falsified.
The conclusion that typical Galileans and Judeans did not have the same wealth and leisure as the Qumran community (because we don’t have surviving texts from them) presupposes that wealth and leisure are necessary conditions to writing texts.
What’s more, the only reason we have a trace of the Qumranians is because Bedouin shepherd stumbled upon caves that had the perfect conditions to preserve texts.
Is there any doubt you’d be arguing against the possibility of such a literary collection if the stumbled upon those caves?
Can you cite to one piece of evidence specific to First Century Palestine indicating that burying the body of a crucified criminal would even be unlikely? I’m not asking for references to how the Roman Empire dealt with slave revolts in Italy in the Second Century BCE. I’m asking about evidence particular to crucifixion within Palestine during the First Century.
All scholars bemoan the lack of knowledge we have about the actual process of crucifixion in the ancient world. What we have to go on are the occasional references writers made about the practice in various contexts. The humiliation of improper burial is almost always associated in these references with crucifixion. Why would you assume that the practice would be any different in Palestine than it was anywhere else?
I’ve always wondered if the horror at the probable fate of Jesus’ body might have been an impetus to the development of the stories about the Jesus having a special burial.
It might be the best argument to be made given the evidence; but the evidence is extraordinarily sparse; so any argument is going to be, by necessity, tenuous. For example, I have not read of any scholar positing a method by which these estimates can be made falsifiable. Have you?
History is not done in a lab. Frequently “the best argument to be made given the evidence” is all we have. When we discover new evidence we revise our arguments.
Robert said
No, as I alluded to above, we already knew quite a bit about this group and their writings through the Damascus Document, which was preserved in the Cairo genizah. One of my old professors wrote his doctoral dissertation on this group and their foundational document before the contents of the Dead Sea Scrolls were ever publicized.
I would love to read his dissertation. The Fragments of a Zadokite Work has only a single hand and less than 10,000 words, though, correct? Based on those 1897 fragments, I did not understand that scholarly opinion had extrapolated a sect (call it the Zakodite Party) that had maintained such an extensive collection of works in so many different hands. My point being is that, if we back up before 1897, we have really nothing in the way of surviving texts; and even after 1897, what we had something approaching a theory on this group, but not really anything supporting such a massive literary collection. Is it not the case that, upon news of the Qumran findings, scholars were highly skeptical these were authentic two millennia old documents?
Robert said
By the way, you side-stepped the reportedly oral beginnings of the Talmud for a few centuries.
I did not intend to do that, but, sincerely, I’m not sure where that was posted above. So I’m not sure of the specific argument. Apologies if I am missing this.
Robert said
[I]f you really do not believe that a literary corpus and legacy of the scope of the Dead Sea Scrolls requires some leisure and wealth to produce, collect, and maintain over 200 years and beyond, can you please cite some counter-examples?
The question here is what is meant by “some leisure and wealth.” Obviously, a single family of subsistence farmers is not going to produce a collection like the Dead Sea Scrolls. But we have many examples of monastic communities, which did not enjoy state patronage or taxing authority, creating and maintaining extensive literary collections (including over long periods). I’m not arguing that First Century Galilee was filled with these types of monastic communities; what I’m arguing is that Galilee is enough of a black box that we need to withhold a measure of certainty in conclusions about literacy, and that extrapolating literacy based upon our modern understanding of Galilean wealth and leisure time is fraught with problems.
Stephen said
Can you cite to one piece of evidence specific to First Century Palestine indicating that burying the body of a crucified criminal would even be unlikely? I’m not asking for references to how the Roman Empire dealt with slave revolts in Italy in the Second Century BCE. I’m asking about evidence particular to crucifixion within Palestine during the First Century.All scholars bemoan the lack of knowledge we have about the actual process of crucifixion in the ancient world. What we have to go on are the occasional references writers made about the practice in various contexts. The humiliation of improper burial is almost always associated in these references with crucifixion. Why would you assume that the practice would be any different in Palestine than it was anywhere else?
I’ve always wondered if the horror at the probable fate of Jesus’ body might have been an impetus to the development of the stories about the Jesus having a special burial.
So the question I asked was whether you could cite to one piece of evidence specific to First Century Palestine indicating that the burial of the body of a crucified criminal would even be unlikely. I take it from your response that the answer is “no.”
Stephen said
It might be the best argument to be made given the evidence; but the evidence is extraordinarily sparse; so any argument is going to be, by necessity, tenuous. For example, I have not read of any scholar positing a method by which these estimates can be made falsifiable. Have you?
History is not done in a lab. Frequently “the best argument to be made given the evidence” is all we have. When we discover new evidence we revise our arguments.
Fair enough. But, in your prior response you noted how scholars bemoan the lack of knowledge we have about the actual process of crucifixion. Well, as sparse as our knowledge of crucifixion practices are, our knowledge of First Century Galilean literacy is waaaaay more sparse. Again, I don’t want to dispute the estimates; what I’m seeking to do is to place those estimates in proper context, and admonish that we really shouldn’t be using those estimates as the foundation for other arguments.
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