Originally posted by tabibito
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Still, it appears that literacy rate in ancient Israel fluctuated greatly over time.
For instance, David McLain Carr, professor of the Old Testament at the Union Theological Seminary in New York City, and regarded as a leading expert on the textual formation of the OT, says that literacy rates were very high right up until the Exile, when it declined sharply and only slowly rebuilt over the following centuries.
After an examination of documents from the period, Michael O. Wise, professor of Hebrew Bible and Ancient Languages at Northwestern University, indicates that between the time of Pompey and Hadrian, up to 5% of adult Jews in Judea were able to read books, while up to 16% could sign their name. In his Language and Literary in Roman Judaea: A Study of the Bar Kokhba Documents, Wise described the situation during that period thusly:
"A literate society filled with illiterates -- especially women: that was Roman Judea in a nutshell"
Catherine Hezser, a professor of Jewish Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, has estimated that at least 90% of the Jews in Roman Palestine in the first centuries CE were semi-literate (only able to write their names and such) or totally illiterate. But that leaves a 10% literacy rate.
OTOH, Meir Bar-Ilan, a professor at Bar-Ilan University's Department of Talmud and the Department of Jewish History, supports the idea that the literacy rate was low, but he makes a very interesting observation that if you exclude women the literacy rate among adult males in urban areas might have been as high as 20%.
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