Biblical Hebrew Forum

[George Athas <George.Athas AT moore.edu.au>]

Posted on behalf of John Leake <jesleake AT yahoo.co.uk>:

Yes, in Arabia, George. Look at Michael McDonald's book Literacy and Identity in Pre-Islamic Arabia for more info. A thesis of his is that written language in such an environment can have several purposes. There are a number of languages in nomadic environments (and this appears to include some of the pre-Islamic Arabian dialects) that are used more for 'making one's mark'—recording one's name and reading others'—then for functional literacy. But Arabic itself, it seems, was even in use as a literary language in pre-Islamic Arabia, not for prose but for verse 'daftars', notebooks used by poetic raw?s (reciters and repositories of oral poetry, usually attached to a poet, often in an apprenticeship relationship). Such books weren't 'published' but could act as an aide memoire and might be handed down.

From: George Athas <george.athas AT moore.edu.au>
Date: Thursday, 11 April 2013 10:19 PM
To: "Dr. Reinhard G. Lehmann" <lehmann AT uni-mainz.de>, B-Hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] akkadian bible?

Thanks for the input, Dr Lehmann. Oral tradition for nomadic cultures is, indeed, the norm. Writing is quite extraordinary. Do we have any examples of writing from ancient nomadic cultures?

GEORGE ATHAS

Dean of Research,

Moore Theological College (moore.edu.au)

Sydney, Australia