However old and widespread the notion of “the Bible” as a series of books may be,
though, it is a misleading concept.
The books of the Bible are not
books in the modern sense of the word and did not exist as books in the ancient
world. To see them as such distorts the historical reality. There were no
books in ancient Israel -- there were
only scrolls and clay tablets. In the late first century the early ancestor
of books – the codex (a Greek
invention) – began to gain popularity around the Mediterranean and in the Near
East. In the world of Jesus, scrolls were the popular material upon which
scribes wrote.
The Great Isaiah Scroll
It is important to
understand that only about 10% of the population could read and write. “High
literacy” was confined to a small group, to which scribes were the central figures. The account in Luke 4, where
Jesus is handed the scroll of Isaiah,
unrolls it and finds a specific section of the text and reads it to the
synagogue audience indicates that Jesus was a member of the 10% of the
population that possessed those skills. He was not an uneducated simple
peasant.
However, for the majority of the population word of mouth was
the principal channel of communication. The transmission of cultural lore – stories of origins, legends of ancestors and
heroes, dos and don’ts, professional skills and wisdom – was nearly always
accomplished by word of mouth. For most of the population “Scriptures” were heard
not read, memorized and repeated not written.
The primary places most people heard the scrolls read and discussed were in
synagogues and at the Temple.
As I said above, to speak about the “books of the Bible” is misleading.
Historically, the Hebrew Bible is a collection of scrolls, and scrolls
cannot be simply equated with books. The difference between the two is not
merely a matter of form; it affects the mode of writing, editorial strategies,
and the way in which readers use the text. Scrolls were hand copied by scribes
who wrote according to scribal rules to produce scrolls that would be read by
other scribes. It would take the invention of the printing press in the 15th
century to make books available to the masses.
The Second Temple was where the “official scrolls” were stored in the Treasury. There were workplaces in the Temple were temple scribes
would copy. Only copies of selected scrolls were kept at synagogues. The
central and most important scroll for the Jewish people from 458 BCE until now is
the Torah scroll. There were many other
scrolls stored in and copied at the Temple, but none were more important than
the Torah scroll.
The
Temple was also the place where people gathered to hear scribes and “learned men”
with access to the scrolls – scribes,
priests and sages -- discuss and teach from them. In 6 CE, at age twelve,
Jesus was found in the middle of those discussions. His parents found him in the temple, sitting
in the midst of the teachers, both listening to them and asking questions. And
all who heard him were astonished at his questions and answers. (Luke
2:46-47)
Scrolls
that you wouldn’t find at the Temple or hear Jesus discussing were scrolls that
contained the writings recorded in the New
Testament. Why? They had not been written yet. Neither Jesus nor any of his
followers ever saw or heard those words. Think about that the next time you
read the words of Jesus.
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Sources & Recommended Reading
Scribal Culture and the Making of the Hebrew Bible by Karel Van Der Toorn © 2007; Harvard University
Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, England.
Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible (Second Revised Edition) by Emanual TOV© 1992, 2001
Augsburg Fortress; Fortress Press, Minneapolis, MN.
Judaism in the
Beginning of Christianity by Jacob Neusner © 1984 Fortress Press, Philadelphia,
PA.
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