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  • From: Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>
  • To: "Christopher V. Kimball" <kimball AT ntplx.net>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Literature and literacy contemporary to the Torah.
  • Date: Thu, 08 Jul 2004 10:40:04 +0100

On 08/07/2004 01:13, Christopher V. Kimball wrote:



Taking the Torah as a 5-6 th century BCE document, what other documents OF COMPARABLE LENGTH, in any language, of this period are available?


I think immediately of Herodotus' Histories, from the 5th century and of comparable length. And then there are Hindu, Buddhist and Zoroastrian scriptures, maybe also Chinese writings, which may date back that far, but I'm not sure about length.

But then I don't accept your presupposition - perhaps for the more or less final form of the Torah, but not for much of the contents.


Again focusing on the 5-6 th century BCE, how many people (of a population of how many) could read the Torah, if they had a copy?


We can only guess, as we know almost nothing about the Israelite community of that time except for what is written in the Bible. Anything based on other communities of the time is highly speculative because we know that at least a few centuries later the Jewish community was much more literate than many surrounding peoples, and that distinction might date back to your period. The stronger limitation would probably have been whether people had copies; there would probably have been few copies in existence, and quite possibly only the priestly community had direct access to them.


--
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/





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