HOW TO READ AN ANCIENT TEXT? LITERACY IN THE PAST AND PRESENT

In the past few centuries, mass literacy was unimaginable. Most people did not read or write but told stories orally, from one generation to another, and, often they embellished their contents to make the events come alive or reflect the realities of their own situations (See, article on “Literacy” in ABD, pp. V: 1022 ff).

In the ancient Middle East, writing emerged in South Mesopotamia in the 4^th millennium BCE. Egyptian hieroglyphics came out around the same time. People used clay or papyrus to write down their messages. Romans used vellum (animal skin) for their written texts. The first hand-written books appeared in Rome in the 1^st cent. BCE. Guttenberg, a goldsmith, is usually cited as the inventor of the printing press in Germany in the 15^th cent. CE. And metal presses began to surface only in the early 1800.

There are a number of rabbinic texts showing that in some communities of the past, only one or two people knew how to read and write, and only a few could actually read from the Torah (that is from the Hebrew scriptures, in the original) ( See Tos. Meg. 3:12 and many others). Most people who needed official documents went to see the TUPSHAR (an Akkadian word, meaning a professional scribe), who studied at the E-DUBBA (namely, in “the house of the scribe”). In the Hebrew Bible, the SOFER (“scribe”), living in the court or local temples, had the same role.

I grew up in Turkey. My father went to College in Paris and became an engineer. His father, however, went only to elementary school. My grandmother, on my father’s side, never went to school. My own mother went to an American High school in Istanbul but did not go to College. Her parents did not have a formal education at all. I, on the other hand, went to Law School in Istanbul, attended the Rabbinic institute in Paris, and later on received ordination from the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati (in 1966), and even got a Ph.D from the U. of Penn (in 1975). The same year my brother went to College in Istanbul and became an electrical engineer.

In our time, it is expected that most people will go to College. My students at Framingham State University are mostly first generation college students. However, it is becoming more and more evident that College today is what we had in High School in the past. In order to get anywhere in life today, you need to get a Master’s degree.

Furthermore, it is becoming evident that now we also need to be proficient in computer technology. You simply cannot function in society these days if you do not know how to work with a laptop. Cell phones are now “de rigueur.” We are paying the price for it, too: few people pay attention to proper English, correct spelling or punctuation.

The other challenge for us is to try to understand what exactly ancient people meant when they used terms that we still do in our time. Even though, in some cases, the meaning remained constant, often basic concepts such as love, wisdom, or law have undergone major changes. Therefore, when we read an ancient text, like the Hebrew Bible or the Quran, or even a medieval document, we must try to understand what it meant in its own time first and, only then, attempt to find relevance for our own days.

Rabbi Rifat Sonsino, Ph.D.

Feb. 25, 2020

SONSINO’S BLOG, rsonsino.blogspot.com

Temple Beth Shalom, Rabbi Emeritus

Framingham State University, Dept. of Psych. and Philosophy