Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
For the description of the site and discovery, see the press release, "Pittsburgh
Theological Seminary Professor Discovers Evidence of Oldest Known Securely Dateable
Abecedary," 9 November 2005, from Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, where Tappy
is G. Albert Shoemaker Professor of Bible and Archaeology; and from a public presentation by Tappy and P. Kyle McCarter at the annual meeting of the American
Schools of Oriental Research, 17 November 2005. Ron Tappy will publish a full treatment of the inscription. I thank him for reading this article and commenting on this
study. All interpretations are, of course, my own.
Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2006
Also available online - www.brill.nl
343
increase the evidence for the presence of a literacy that could be found
in rural areas as well as in state capitals and administrative centers.
Some of this evidence was summarized by the author in an earlier
discussion.2 It here remains to consider what this abecedary and other
recent studies provide in the way of a brief, interim assessment of this
question.
First, much of the evidence, in terms of Iron Age texts in and
around the areas traditionally assigned to the states of Israel and Judah,
was described earlier and need not be repeated here. It remains essential to note, however, that the importance of this evidence is primary
and crucial for understanding this question. Insofar as the biblical text
is in any sense understood as ideological or theological tendentious, it
remains suspect with respect to its evidence for reading and writing.
This is especially true in the Deuteronomistic literature where texts
are concerned to demonstrate the guilt of ancient Israelites in not following the written law of Yahweh and in worshiping other deities.
Such indictments gain significant force with the assumption that a representative group of Israelites could and did read and write this law.3
Thus there may have been motivation for making such claims. However,
even if one accepts the witness of the biblical text as authentic, sporadic statements such as occur in the text do not witness to a consistent testimony of reading and writing. Furthermore, the attestations
within a single body of literature such as the Bible require additional
and separate voices in order to establish any historical reality, ancient
or modern, by the means of multiple and separate sources of testimony.
Thus the evidence of Iron Age Hebrew inscriptions can provide an
invaluable starting point for the investigation of questions of literacy.
Indeed, in my earlier review of (then) recent writers on this subject,
including Young, Niditch, and Jamieson-Drake, an attempt was made
to appreciate the discussions and to move forward by arguing for the
need to assess all the available epigraphic evidence.4 As was the case
2
R.S. Hess, "literacy in Iron Age Israel", in V.P. Long, D.W. Baker and G.J.
Wenham (eds.), Windows into Old Testament History. Evidence, Argument, and the Crisis of
"Biblical Israel" (Grand Rapids/Cambridge, 2002), pp. 82-102.
3
Cf. texts such as Deut, vi 4-9; xvii 18-20. Compare also the negative evaluation
of Israel from the beginning (Judg. ii 10-13) with claims that its citizens could write
(Judg. viii 14).
4
I.M. Young, "Israelite literacy: interpreting the evidence, Part I", VT 48 (1998),
pp. 239-53; "Israelite literacy: interpreting the evidence, Part II", VT 48 (1998), pp.
408-22; S. Niditch, Oral Word and Written Word: Ancient Israelite literature (Louisville, 1996);
344
RICHARD S. HESS
345
5
F.M. Gross, Jr., "A Fragment of a Monumental Inscription from the City of
David", IE} 51 (2001), pp. 44-47.
6
Cf. A. G. Vaughn, Theology, History, and Archaeology in the Chronicler's Account o/Hezekiah
(Archaeology and Biblical Studies 4; Atlanta, 1999); Hess (note 2).
7
Young's (p. 567) reference to 485 inscriptions in my essay is not my own number but an earlier published assessment. The actual number of identified inscriptions
in pre-exilic Israel is several times that figure.
8
Cf. W.M. Schniedewind, "Orality and Literacy in Ancient Israel", Religious Studies
Review 26A (2000), p. 331; W.G. Dever, What Did the Biblical Writers Enow and When
Did They Know It? What Archaeology Can Tell Us about the Reality of Ancient Israel (Grand
Rapids and Cambridge, 2001), pp. 202-21.
9
Gf. A. Demsky and M. Bar-Dan, "Writing in Ancient Israel and Early Judaism,"
in M.J. Mulder (ed.), Mikra: Text, Translation, Reading and Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible
in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity (Assen/Maastricht, 1988), p. 15.
10
This argues against the view that only priests, government officials, and professional scribes could read or write. Contra Young, p. 566, it is not clear that this is
the picture found in the Bible. See, already, Judg. viii 14. See further the extrabiblical evidence of Lachish ostracon 3 and the interpretation (and full discussion of other
views) by W.M. Schniedewind, "Sociolinguistic Reflections on the Letter of a 'Literate'
Soldier (Lachish 3)", Ztschnfi fur AUhebraistik 13 (2000), pp. 157-67.
346
RICHARD S. HESS
The Tel Zayit abecedary from the tenth century follows by perhaps
a hundred years the Izbet Sartah abecedary that was found in the
Western hill country village by that name.11 The material culture of
that village conforms to the general culture of the Israelite hill country, although the script of the abecedary predates the distinctive Hebrew
script of the first millennium BCE. As with the seals and other inscriptions, the picture these texts suggest is one of learning to read and
write the alphabet in the villages of what would be known as ancient
Israel. This new discovery provides evidence that this practice was
going on in the tenth century BCE, as well as before and after that
time.
Abstract
The 2005 discovery of an abecedary from the tenth century BCE at the Judean site
of Tel Zayit dramatically attests to the increasing evidence for the presence of writing
during the Israelite monarchy. As an example from early in the history of the development of the Hebrew script, this text supplements epigraphic and biblical attestations
to the early and ongoing presence of readers and writers at many levels of Israelite
society.
11
Gf M. Kochavi, "An Ostracon of the Period of the Judges from Izbet Sartah",
Tel Aviv 4 (1977), pp. 1-13; A. Demsky, "A Proto-Canaanite Abecedary Dating from
the Period of the Judges and Its Implications for the History of the Alphabet", Tel Aviv
4 (1977), pp. 14-27; F.M. Cross, Jr., "Newly Found Inscriptions in Old Canaanite and
Early Phoenician Script", BASOR 238 (1980), pp. 8-15.
^ s
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