On literacy in Iron Age II Judah

NORTHWEST SEMITIC EPIGRAPHY: Was literacy important in the biblical Kingdom of Judah? Expert offers answers. Questions related to literacy in ancient times are not an exclusive prerogative of academic studies on the Israelites (Rossella Tercatin, Jerusalem Post).

Jews are known as the "people of the book," but was literacy important in biblical times? As explained by Matthieu Richelle, a Professor of Old Testament at the Université Catholique de Louvain in a recent paper published in the latest volume of the Jerusalem Journal of Archaeology, "the subject of literacy in ancient Israel and Judah remains hotly debated among scholars, and the case of the Kingdom of Judah proves especially controversial."

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It's nice to see some new articles from Rossella Tercatin recently. This article is a good summary of a technical article published in the current volume (7, 2024) of the open-access Jerusalem Journal of Archaeology. I noted this volume, and its focus on Iron-Age II Hebrew epigraphy, here. The article and its abstract:

Literacy in the Kingdom of Judah: A Typology of Approaches and a Criticism of Quantitative Perspectives

Matthieu Richelle
Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium, matthieu.richelle@uclouvain.be

Abstract

The subject of literacy in ancient Israel and Judah remains hotly debated among scholars, and the case of the Kingdom of Judah proves especially controversial. To disentangle a complicated issue, this article first draws up a typology of approaches used by scholars to tackle questions such as the population’s rate of literacy, the Judeans’ ability to write down literary texts, and the development of literacy throughout the centuries. Then, it critically examines two quantitative approaches, which have been highly influential and currently promote the thesis that the levels of literacy were minimal in the early monarchic period in Judah (in contrast to the situation in Israel) and considerably increased at the end of this period.

Professor Richelle's observations and conclusions seem sensible to me. Given that most of the evidence, presumably written on fragile papyrus and vellum, is long gone, any conclusions should be provisional.

For reasons to hope for the discovery of surviving scrolls from this era, start here (toward the end) and follow the links.

For lots more on the question of literacy in First-Temple-era Judah, see the thread of posts that starts here and concludes here.

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