Ben Witherington: Sacred Texts in an Oral Culture—How Did They Function?
Ours is a text based culture, a culture of written documents. You need look no further than your computer screens to verify this assertion. There could only be an internet age if there was widespread literacy, which in turn leads to widespread production and reading of texts. It is thus difficult for us in a text-based culture to conceive of and understand the character of an oral culture, much less understand how sacred texts function in such an oral culture. Yet however difficult, it is important that we try to understand such a thing, since all of the cultures of the Bible were essentially oral cultures, not text-based cultures, and their texts were in fact oral texts, which some might think is an oxymoron on a part with Microsoft Works, but in fact it is not so.
The literacy rate in those Biblical cultures seems to have ranged from about 5% to 20% depending on the culture and which sub group within the culture we are discussing. …
Long article (almost as long as some of mine) but fascinating stuff.
Leave a Reply