Evangelical Christian inerrantist scholars consistently maximize the extent of literary reading and writing abilities in ancient Israel, especially beyond scribes, priests, and other elites or professionals. How they frame the issues, handle the data, represent their work as academic historical research, and engage in certain recurring patterns of argumentation invites analysis. This article analyzes the publications of inerrantist scholars on Israelite literacy, in particular Alan Millard and Richard Hess, as examples of inerrantist discourse and argues that their scholarship on Israelite literacy is characterized by protective strategies that privilege biblical claims. The article thus aims to explore part of the historiography of scholarship on Israelite literacy, to provide an accurate account of what precisely inerrantist scholars are doing in their publications on the topic, and to reframe inerrantist scholarship on Israelite literacy as data for the study of religion.
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See, for example, Kitchen 2003: 3, 296, 497–500. I choose Kitchen’s On the Reliability of the Old Testament (2003) from the many possible examples since Hess commends it as a “work that represents one of the finest examples of applying ancient Near Eastern studies to the Bible” (Hess 2011: 668 n. 6; see also Hess 2014: 16). Some inerrantists even deny that their inerrancy-upholding work is shaped by presumptions of inerrancy and associated special interpretive methods; see, for instance, Waltke 2009a: 83–84, 93–94; 2009b: 115–18, 127–28.
For example, Millard 1995: 211–12, 215, 217; Hess 2002: 83, 95; 2009d: 418. See also Hess’ recent appendix in an Evangelical inerrantist “Apologetics” book (Hess 2011: 668–69).
For example, Kitchen 2003: 241–74, 307–12. It should be noted that many other inerrantists follow a more “straightforward” reading of certain biblical passages and, in conjunction with their assessments of archaeological and other historical data, locate the Exodus in the fifteenth century (e.g. Petrovich 2006).
See also Kitchen 2003: 297–99, 304–306. Also of note, Bruce Waltke uses the Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions and arguments for “widespread literacy” among “Northwest Semitic cultures” in the mid-second millennium to claim that we have “strong reason to think that Abraham’s descendants, though lowly slaves in Egypt, were literate” (Waltke 1988: 128).
Millard 1972: 102–103, 105, 108, 111; 1978: 68–70; 1985: 303, 306, 308; 1995: 207, 211, 212; 1998b: 701–702, 704; Hess 2002: 82–83, 95; 2006a: 146; 2006b: 344–45; 2009a; 2009b: 595–96; 2009c: 5, 8–9; see also Waltke 1988: 128–29.
Schniedewind’s new book (2013) is now available. It is worth noting that his chapter “The Democratization of Hebrew” (2013: 99–125) aligns, in substance, with his earlier discussions of the nature of “broader literacy.” He repeatedly stresses that uses of writing had become “widespread” (e.g. 2013: 100, 103) and that, starting in the late eighth century, there was a “broadening of literacy” and “a decisive shift toward increasing literacy” (2013: 121). Furthermore, this “democratization” involved the spread of such reading and writing skills “to a variety of social classes” (2013: 101, see also 120), “through different classes of Judean society” (2013: 104), and “to nonscribal classes” (2013: 109, see also 112, 117, 119, 120). Nevertheless, and to continue the contrast with how Hess has invoked Schniedewind’s earlier publications and claims about “broader literacy,” Schniedewind clarifies the nature of the “widespread” uses of writing in question. He consistently stresses that “mundane” (2013: 102, 104, 122), “rudimentary” (2013: 105, 107, 109), and “signature” or “craft” or “craftsman” (2013: 105, 114) levels of writing skills are in view – indeed, kinds of reading/writing skills that are decidedly different from the literary types associated with the “scribes” who were “responsible for the composition and editing of the Hebrew Bible” (2013: 115–21).
See, for example, Millard 1972: 102–103, 108 110; 1978: 69–70; 1985: 305, 307; Hess 2009b: 596; 2009c: 6–8. See also Waltke 1988: 128; Block 2001: 406; Kitchen 2003: 305.
See, for example, Warner 1980, which takes aim specifically at Millard 1972 and its claims about the alphabet and broader Israelite literacy. See also William Harris’ classic work (1989), which argued for relatively lower levels of literacy in Greece and the ancient world than are traditionally claimed. Numerous monographs and edited volumes have appeared that respond to, build upon, and criticize Harris. While a number of these studies contend that perhaps Harris overstressed the illiteracy of the general Mediterranean populous (e.g. Bagnall 2011), they nevertheless agree that when discussing literacy one must be careful to distinguish how kinds of literary literacy differ from kinds of competencies such as different “occupational literacies,” and that, on the whole, levels of literary literacy were much lower than previously thought. The following volumes appeared before the publications by Millard discussed in this paragraph: Humphrey 1991; Thomas 1992; Bowman and Woolf 1994.
Hess has in mind mainly Rollston 2006, and the research referenced therein.
Referencing Macdonald 2005. The anecdote involves stories about how some people among the Bedoin and Tuareg learned alphabets in under a day.
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Evangelical Christian inerrantist scholars consistently maximize the extent of literary reading and writing abilities in ancient Israel, especially beyond scribes, priests, and other elites or professionals. How they frame the issues, handle the data, represent their work as academic historical research, and engage in certain recurring patterns of argumentation invites analysis. This article analyzes the publications of inerrantist scholars on Israelite literacy, in particular Alan Millard and Richard Hess, as examples of inerrantist discourse and argues that their scholarship on Israelite literacy is characterized by protective strategies that privilege biblical claims. The article thus aims to explore part of the historiography of scholarship on Israelite literacy, to provide an accurate account of what precisely inerrantist scholars are doing in their publications on the topic, and to reframe inerrantist scholarship on Israelite literacy as data for the study of religion.
All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
---|---|---|---|
Abstract Views | 280 | 57 | 6 |
Full Text Views | 40 | 2 | 0 |
PDF Views & Downloads | 52 | 6 | 0 |