The Question of Israelite Literacy

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How widespread was the ability to read and Write in ancient Israel? Until recently, the answer usually was, “Quite limited.” The ability to write, it was said, was restricted to a class of professional scribes, who possessed a skill considered close to magic. Since writing was so rare, the ability to read must have been equally rare.¹

Recent archaeological discoveries, however, have now given us an entirely different picture.

No one would deny that there was a class of skilled professional scribes or that they were responsible for many important texts. Professional scribes doubtless served monarchs, officials and the gentry where the royal court resided, writing such letters as Queen Jezebel’s order to kill Naboth so that Ahab could seize Naboth’s land (1 Kings 21), or recording deliveries of produce as in the famous Samaria Ostraca (see photo of Samaria Ostraca) discovered in the capital of the northern kingdom of Israel, or preserving the words a prophet like Jeremiah might dictate (Jeremiah 36). Yet, as we shall see, there were other people who were writing as well.

Ancient Hebrew inscriptions can be divided into three classes—monumental, formal and occasional.²

Monumental inscriptions are rare, but they do turn up from time to time. For example, in 1982 workmen preserving an ancient wall in Jerusalem came upon a fragment of stone with elegantly carved Hebrew lettering on it that appears to date to the seventh century B.C. Unfortunately, it is so fragmentary we can do little more than remark about its beautifully chiseled letters. In Yigal Shiloh’s recent excavations in the 024area of Jerusalem known as the City of David, he also found a fragment of a monumental inscription.^a It too, however, is quite fragmentary. Dated on the basis of the forms of the letters to the eighth or seventh century B.C., it contains only 15 letters, all of which, however, are clearly readable. These two fragmentary monumental inscriptions recently found in Jerusalem may now be placed beside Jerusalem’s two most famous monumental inscriptions—the Siloam inscription and the Royal Steward inscription.

The Siloam inscription commemorates the completion of the tunnel King Hezekiah dug under the city in the late eighth century B.C. to bring water into the city from a spring outside the walls, in preparation for a siege of the city by Sennacherib, king of Assyria, all as described in the Bible (2 Kings 20:20; 2 Chronicles 32:2–4).

The Royal Steward inscription, from the doorway of a tomb in the village of Siloam, was inscribed in about 700 B.C. in three lines of writing. It announced that the tomb belonged to a man whose name ended in “yahu” (“-iah” in the traditional English rendering of Hebrew names) who was a royal steward and that the tomb contained only his bones and his maid’s curse on anyone who opened it. Professor Nahman Avigad of the Hebrew University suggested the steward may have been the Shebna whom Isaiah condemned for his ostentatious tomb (Isaiah 22:15ff), his full name possibly being Shebaniah.³

The few fragments of monumental inscriptions that have been recovered, rare though they are, nevertheless prove that monumental inscriptions could be seen not only in the capital of Judah, but probably in other major cities as well. There they would be seen by men and women of all social classes, although, admittedly, this says little about how widespread was either the ability to read the monumental inscriptions or the ability to execute other kinds of writings.

The second class of inscription is the formal inscription. It includes such things as inscribed seals, and their impressions on lumps of clay (bullae) used to seal documents and letters, and accounts written with ink on broken pieces of 025pottery. These potsherds are called ostraca (singular, ostracon). The most famous collection of ostraca is the Samaria hoard, already referred to. They were found in 1910; according to a recent count, there are 102 of them, now in Istanbul, although 25 of these are illegible.⁴ These ostraca are mundane records of goods delivered: “In the ninth year from Quseh to Gadyaw, one jar of old wine”; “In the tenth year from Yasit, a jar of pure oil for Adoni‘am.”

The second largest corpus of formal ostraca comes from Arad in the Negev, recovered through the late Yohanan Aharoni’s insistence on “dipping” all excavated potsherds; that is, dipping each piece of pottery in water and examining it carefully to see if it contains an inscription. The Arad corpus contains letters addressed to and from the commander of the fort at Arad, and a variety of brief notes. Most of these pieces date to the early sixth century B.C.

Other formal inscriptions can be found on objects. Readers of Biblical Archaeology Review, BR’s sister magazine, are already familiar with the remarkable inscription on an ivory pomegranate (see photo of inscribed ivory pomegranate) bearing the words “Holy of the priests, the hou[se of Yahweh].”^b The part in brackets is missing and has been reconstructed by André Lemaire, who discovered the pomegranate in a Jerusalem antiquities shop. Other reconstructions are possible, although Lemaire’s reconstruction is quite likely.

The third class of inscriptions is what I call occasional documents—graffiti consisting of names and notes written in ink or scratched on pots and pans or scribbled in tombs. Occasional inscriptions are also found on potsherds (ostraca) and are distinguished from formal inscriptions on potsherds by their contents and style of writing. They were often written on the spur of the moment or in isolation. Two brothers wanted to make sure their mugs were not mixed up, so one got his name scratched on his. Someone waiting outside the governor’s office at Lachish began to scratch the letters of the alphabet on the step.

The question arises, were all these inscriptions written by professional scribes? I suppose in theory it is possible to argue that scribes sent from Jerusalem and Samaria, the capital cities, on special missions wrote all of the ostraca that have been recovered. However, the “occasional” nature of the contents of most of them makes it difficult to suppose that anyone would take the trouble to make journeys, long by ancient standards, in order to write notes of purely local and ephemeral interest.

It could also be argued that professional scribes were active in towns outside Samaria and Jerusalem. At major places like Lachish that would come as no surprise, but it is revealing to observe where Hebrew ostraca have been unearthed. In addition to Jerusalem and Samaria, there are at least 15 other sites where they have been found. And some of these places are relatively small settlements, forts or caravanserais like Horvat ‘Uza and Kuntillet ‘Ajrud.^c Should we assume there was a professional scribe operating at each of these places, or can we suppose that military or government employees, or even private citizens, able to write, lived in them?

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The question becomes more urgent with regard to the inscriptions I have labeled occasional texts. It is of course possible that some of these ostraca were carried from major cities like Jerusalem. But it is hard to accept that for all the pieces.

According to my count, over two dozen sites in Israel have yielded occasional texts—ostraca and graffiti. Were these, too, written by professional scribes, including the letters scratched or pecked on pots!

Let us set aside the larger collections of ostraca—from Samaria, Arad and Lachish—which were written by a skilled hand and can easily reflect the work of a professional scribe. What of the remainder, scattered across so many sites? If these are the work of professional scribes, they afford a miserable picture of the scribes’ work. Can it really be supposed that Israelite scribes did no more than write such trifles as the list of names from Tel Masos,^d or the incoherent complaint about a sequestered cloak from Mesad Hashavyahu⁵ (see photo of Mesad Hashavyahu ostracon), or scribbled notes about the class of wine in various jugs?⁶

I think we can conclude from these examples that the knowledge of writing was widespread in ancient Israel, not merely in the cities, but even in the remote outlying areas. The ability to write was not limited to professional scribes, but was available to private citizens as well.

These conclusions are reinforced when we examine what was the most common material on which inscriptions were written. Some scholars have argued that potsherds were the normal writing material in Israel.⁷ Evidence from the increasingly large number of bullae that are coming to light, however, easily refutes this contention. Obviously, the bullae were not used to seal potsherds. They were used to seal papyrus documents. Indeed, many of these papyrus documents have left the impress of their fibers on the backs of the clay bullae, and sometimes the marks of the cords that bound the folded sheets. The bullae are identical in application to the clay sealings found in Egypt still attached to papyri of the Persian period.⁸ They are clear testimony to the common use of papyrus in Israel. In Egypt the papyrus survived; in Israel only one scrap has done so (see the sidebar entitled, “A Hebrew Papyrus from the Days of the Prophets.”).

Potsherds were used as a writing material in Egypt, as in Israel, but, from the beginning of Egypt’s history, papyrus was the normal medium for administrative records and literary creations. What the scribes wrote on potsherds or flakes of stone were short messages, memoranda, scribal exercises and notes of all kinds. These writing materials were easy to find, cost nothing and could be discarded freely. The same was probably true in Israel. Only banal information of passing interest was consigned to ostraca. On the other hand, papyrus would be used in Israel for legal deeds settling matrimonial affairs, ownership of property and rights of inheritance. Letters from rulers, officials and private citizens would also be written on papyrus. This would be normal for any documents that were to be preserved for future consultation, such as the deed of sale for the field in Anathoth, which Jeremiah bought from his cousin (Jeremiah 32).

It is interesting to observe that neither in Egypt not in Israel is there a single ostracon that was certainly written to be kept in an archive or 027library, for someone to consult in the future.⁹

All this evidence combines to make a strong case for writing as a well-known phenomenon during the Israelite monarchy. However, the greater part of the material belongs after 750 B.C., in the last 150 years of Judah’s history. Texts of all sorts from earlier dates are sparse, the Samaria Ostraca alone witnessing to the use of writing in the administration of the northern kingdom of Israel. Faced with this pattern, we might assume the early monarchy—say from 1000 B.C. (David’s reign) to 750 B.C.—was a time of little writing, limited to the courts, not touching the consciousness of most Israelites at all.

It is a fallacy, however, to deduce directly from the absence of a feature in an archaeological horizon that it did not, or could not, exist in it. Texts from the earlier period will seldom be found because of the general archaeological truth that only the last phase of a building’s occupation and the remains of the last decades of a prosperous town yield finds in large numbers. Objects and texts dating from more than three generations before a destruction are comparatively uncommon. If a building was rebuilt after a number of years, little will be from its first period of use, and very little from its initial years. Even in Assyria, where the evidence of writing is so frequently on indestructible cuneiform clay tablets, very few ordinary legal and administrative deeds have survived at major sites like Assur, Kalah and Nineveh from the ninth century B.C., the time of a similar dearth in Israel, although that was the age of the powerful kings Ashurnasirpal II and Shalmaneser III. Details of their reigns reach us through monumental inscriptions on stone and through foundation deposits. There is no reason to doubt that Assyrian scribes were drawing up deeds on clay tablets then as they did during the next two centuries; in fact, a handful of examples proves they did.¹⁰

There is no good reason to project a different situation for Israel on this score. And indeed we have examples in Israel, though rare, from the United Monarchy and even from the early days of settlement in Canaan. Graffiti from Hazor demonstrate the currency of writing there before the Assyrian conquest in 720 B.C. The most outstanding specimen from the United Monarchy is the Gezer calendar (see photo of Gezer calendar) from the tenth century B.C. This small limestone tablet, which can be held in one hand, lists the duties of the farmer’s year in seven lines of slightly uneven letters. It is impossible to be sure that the language is Hebrew rather than a local Canaanite dialect.

An earlier example is the potsherd found in a disused storage pit in the little village of Izbet ‘Sartah on the hills east of Aphek.^e About 1100 B.C., someone passed the time tracing the letters of the alphabet in different directions on this piece of pottery. Unfortunately, the incisions are faint, and it is impossible to be certain what his purpose was. At least this piece is another witness to someone’s knowledge of writing in the days of the Judges, presumably someone living in this village (unless the sherd was brought from 029another place). There is no distinctive feature to prove the writing or the writer was Israelite, although the pattern of early Iron Age settlement allows that to be assumed.

These examples enable us to trace the use of writing further back and to see the same situation in force, with papyrus serving as the normal writing material and potsherds used for what I have called occasional inscriptions.

With this physical evidence before our eyes, there can be no question that writing was possible in Israel throughout the period of the monarchy. Equally beyond dispute is the widespread use of writing; courtiers could see Hebrew on monuments in Samaria and Jerusalem; peasants could see it on seal impressions, jars and jugs in country towns, and even in remote farmsteads.

If everyone could see examples of the alphabet, who could read or write it? At least theoretically, writing was within the competence of any ancient Israelite. Certainly the ability to write was not limited to a small scribal clan. The variety of ancient Hebrew inscriptions—from monumental texts on buildings, tombs and public works, to letters, seals, lists and names scratched on pots—surely suggests the widespread use of writing, especially when one considers that the vast majority of documents were written on papyrus that has not survived in Israel’s damp climate. But especially important to our argument are the casual or occasional texts, names on vessels and notes on potsherds. Here are visible the hands of schoolboys and workmen as well as of the trained scribes. These are the physical grounds for concluding that the possibility of writing was fairly common, even in outlying areas and by private citizens.

What evidence is there for the writing of books? Were these circulating at the time of the Israelite monarchy? Except for the fragments of monumental inscriptions, all the examples of Hebrew writing I have mentioned are mundane survivors from daily life. They reflect writing as primarily a utilitarian skill, which was the case when writing was invented sometime before 3000 B.C. It has been argued that for wisdom literature “the oral mode of communication was preferred even by those who could read and write.”¹¹

However, there is no reason to believe that any limit to what could be written ever existed after the initial stages in the invention of Near Eastern scripts. In Egypt, literary texts were created at least as early as the Pyramid age (c. 2700 to 2200 B.C.), and in Babylonia in the Jemdet Nasr period (c. 3000 B.C.). Nothing suggests the alphabet had any smaller scope when the Israelites settled in Canaan and adopted it.¹²

Indeed, during the last decade or so, two discoveries have proved there was writing and copying of literary texts in the monarchy era. The first is the Balaam text (see photo of Balaam text) from Tell Deir ‘Alla,¹³ already familiar to Biblical Archaeology Review readers.^f Here on the plaster wall of some kind of cult center was painted a prophetic literary text, referring to “Balaam, son of Beor,” who is known to us from Numbers 22–24. The text on the wall was copied in columns and is apparently the reproduction of columns of a scroll. Here we have, painted on plaster, a superb illustration of the papyrus scrolls that have not 030survived the centuries.

The second text that hints at a widespread awareness of literary texts is Ostracon 88 from Arad (see photo of Ostracon 88 from Arad), also familiar to Biblical Archaeology Review readers.^g It is a mere snippet, but enough survives that we can be sure it refers to a king who reigned and is strengthened. Whether a royal statement, a proclamation, a copy of an existing royal inscription or a school exercise,¹⁴ it displays the possibility of someone having access to such a document, someone who was not in a palace or major temple, but was stationed at the frontier fortress of Arad.

In Mesopotamia in the 17th century B.C., at Ugarit in Syria in the 14th century B.C. and at Elephantine in the Nile in the 5th century B.C., archives belonging to private individuals included both legal deeds and literary compositions, often without distinction by category. If true there, it was probably also true in Israel, although the examples do not survive.

We may conclude that few ancient Israelites were out of reach of the written word, a situation certainly facilitated by the simplicity of the alphabet, especially in comparison with the more cumbersome writing systems in Mesopotamia and Syria (cuneiform) and in Egypt (hieroglyphics). Where there was alphabetic writing there was certainly the possibility of literature, and of reading that literature.

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From all of this evidence, Passages in the Bible that mention writing gain credibility. A man divorcing his wife should have a written deed; this was no doubt a scribe’s work, yet a written document of which both Parties would be aware (Deuteronomy 24:1, 3). But Deuteronomy called for much more: the Israelites were to learn and teach the Commandments, always to talk about them and to “write them upon the doorposts of your house and upon your gates” (Deuteronomy 11:20, cf. 6:9).

Is it credible that these words were written in a society that was totally incapable of performing them? The evidence of ancient Hebrew epigraphy suggests the answer is no; the lawgiver’s commands could be fulfilled to a large degree. Apparently the people did have the technical ability to comply.

In this light, too, the prophetic books deserve reappraisal. Oracles could have existed in writing alongside oral traditions from the time they were uttered. The prophets, indeed, could have recorded and edited their words themselves. The relationships between written and oral traditions should be examined; but once something was in writing it may not have been so easy to alter or add to it as many experts have assumed.

Ancient Hebrew written documents, recovered by archaeology, demonstrate both that there were readers and writers in ancient Israel, and that they were by no means rare. Few places would have been without someone who could write, an few Israelites could have been unaware of writing.

(This article has been adapted from Biblical Archaeology Today [Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1985], pp. 301–312.)

How widespread was the ability to read and Write in ancient Israel? Until recently, the answer usually was, “Quite limited.” The ability to write, it was said, was restricted to a class of professional scribes, who possessed a skill considered close to magic. Since writing was so rare, the ability to read must have been equally rare.1 Recent archaeological discoveries, however, have now given us an entirely different picture. No one would deny that there was a class of skilled professional scribes or that they were responsible for many important texts. Professional scribes doubtless served monarchs, officials and the […]