“Regular public reading of the Torah,” Wikipedia (as of today) reports, “was introduced by Ezra the Scribe after the return of the Judean exiles from the Babylonian captivity.” The original source for this claim was certainly not the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, which report a public reading of the Torah (so we think) but make no mention that the practice did or should continue, whether on a regular or irregular basis. Rather, the Wikipedia article repeats a claim popular today – whose origin I have not tracked down – that conflates at least two rabbinic traditions. One of these traditions, in the Palestinian Talmud, Megilla 4:1, attributes the regular reading of the Torah on Shabbat mornings to Moses. Another, in the Babylonian Talmud, Bava Qama 82a, ascribes to Ezra the beginning of regular Torah readings on Shabbat afternoon and Monday and Thursday mornings. I suspect that earlier scholars were uncomfortable with ascribing any part of the practice to Moses, so simply assimilated that claim to the Ezra tradition.
The more interesting question, though, is whether it is true. It turns out that there is no – none – evidence for the regular public reading of the Torah until the first century BCE to first century CE, and even then our information is very fragmentary. A single inscription from a synagogue in Jerusalem seems to mention the reading of the Torah, but how often, how much, and in what form is not stated. In the New Testament, the synagogue is portrayed as a place of teaching, although in very few cases is it explicit that what is taught is the Bible, and in even fewer that it was read aloud. Our evidence instead seems to point more toward the second or even third centuries, CE, when regular Torah reading (especially in Palestine) may have started in some form.
This, then, leads to another question: If Jews were not hearing the Torah (or any other part of our Bible) read regularly, and if they were highly illiterate and in any case would have had limited access to biblical scrolls, did they know the Bible at all? If so, how and how much?
Outside of Judea/Palestine, at least in the first century CE, the Bible was probably better known than inside. The Torah had been translated into Greek centuries earlier and several other books were translated over the course of time. These books all became the inspiration for a rich cultural production that drew upon them. Even if someone never heard or read the Bible itself, they may have read Philo or Artapanus, and thus learned parts of it in an ad hoc fashion.
But in Jerusalem that was not the case. The priests and other ritual experts largely controlled access to it, and they would have disseminated knowledge through (1) the teaching of short selected passages; (2) the deployment of certain oracular or prophetic passages to prove a point; or (3) practical use of passages, e.g., to heal a child or write an amulet. Surely people would have known some stories that can be found in the Bible, but their knowledge of them would have been secondary or tertiary and learned orally. Knowledge of the Bible would have been spotty at best and almost never sequential. This would change for many in late antiquity with the institution of regular readings in the synagogue, but that change was yet to come.
So now, would anyone like to make the appropriate changes to Wikipedia?
How do you know all this?
There are a few claims here, but if you mean how do I “know” that the regular reading of the Torah in synagogues in Jerusalem did not begin with Ezra, the answer is that I don’t “know” but the evidence certainly leans that way. All of our evidence for reading the Torah (and in what form and regularity remains unclear) in Israel dates from the first century BCE- first century CE. For a review of this data, see Lee I. Levine, The Ancient Synagogue (Yale, 2000), chapter 5. For the purposes of this post, I present a somewhat more skeptical reading of the sources than Levine, but in any case the evidence all dates from centuries after Ezra.
I did a short paper on this topic about 24 years ago. It’s true that some kind of reading commenced with Ezra/Nehemia, but the exact form evolved over centuries. For example, from some of the midrashic collections, it seems that there was a tri-ennial cycle of Torah-reading in some places, but the exact divisions of each sidrah are unclear. It also seems to be the case — as one of the Gospel-anecdotes shows — that the reading in synagogues could be non-sequential and might not involve Torah at all. Tractate Megillah later talks about the need to begin where you left off, but that was because the choice of readings seemed to lack uniformity at that time. As to whether the general public was “illiterate,” the evidence is less clear. There seems to have been some rudimentary instruction. But how much?
How much indeed! I think that in most first century CE Jewish communities there was basically no public education (there is a much later rabbinic tradition to the contrary, but it cannot be trusted as a reliable historical source), but that the rich got tutors for their children. Catherine Hezser’s book on Jewish Literacy is good to look at on this.
Hi, Michael. R. Mellon, the question of how widespread literacy was is a big one, but just factoring in the economics – what use is literacy to a subsistence farmer or laborer,, the bulk of the population? – would suggest literacy was limited to the wealthy, the small merchant class, and state and temple functionaries. Here’s the question for Michael – if there was little public reading of any sort, why does the DSS collections contain the fragments of so many different/redundant texts for the same books – Torah, Psalms, etc.? A couple of copies at most would service even a sizable literate community.
A possible answer: Qumran was different! Not only did that community put more emphasis on scripture (a term, by the way, that then and there went well beyond what we consider to be its limits), but it was also probably composed of wealthier and thereby better educated members.
The Chrstian bible reports synagogue readings of “the law and the prophets” in the book of Acts, ch. 13, which is (I believe) usually dated to 2nd c. CE, and some theories speak of Haftarah readings in place by 1st c. BCE, so it would seem that that practice was in place earlier than you say…. Right?
Actually, I think that the practice started earlier outside of Palestine and Acts, I think, best represents the author’s own contemporary situation. I don’t want to push my point too far – I think that there was somewhat regular but disorganized “reading” in one way or another of Scripture in synagogues in Palestine in the first century CE. It just really doesn’t add up to a coherent “scriptural education”, which in turn raises the intriguing question of scriptural literacy among the common folk. In any case, dating the practice back to Ezra is totally unjustified.
In looking at more recent dating of the NT, it would appear that Acts was a mid 1st century document. As St. Paul also mentions use of the written word.
I think that this is mistaken. Most scholars today see Acts as dating from late first to early second century CE.
Are you sure about that. Here are a couple who are for earlier dating, such as Dead Sea Scrolls Translator Fr. Jean Carmignac & J.A.T. Robinson.
Fr. Carmignac, in his book “The Birth of the Synoptics” is particularly interesting.
Hecateus of Abdera, a 3rd Cent. BCE Greek historian, is quoted by Diodorus Siculus (a Latin non-Jewish author) in Menachem Stern’s Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism, Vol 1, p. 28, as stating that the Jews “do reverence to the High Priest when he expounds the commandments to them. And at the end of their laws there is even appended the statement ‘These are the words that Moses heard from God and declares onto the Jews.'” This sounds suspiciously like the people stating after the Torah portion is read, “This is the Torah that Moses placed before the Children of Israel” (Deut. 4:44) which, of course, we still say today along with “according to the mouth of the Lord in the hand of Moses” (Num. 9:23). So, in reality, Hecateus may be attesting to a regular reading of the Torah by his time.
Great source! This makes two claims: (1) the high priest (and only he) “expounds” commandments; and (2) the law of the Jews is attributed to Moses which he heard from God. The first is not necessarily, although it can be, reading of the Torah (it can also be a lesson in laws). The second does indeed look like a quote from the Torah (or something close to it), but this is more of a statement about the supposed origin of the Jewish law (see Stern’s commentary on this) than anything else. Finally, even if you are right, he might also be commenting on a regular practice of Diaspora Jews that he projects unto the high priest – the issue of Hecateus’s sources is complicated – he says other things in that passage that are quite mystifying.
What were men doing all morning long with their tefillin on if not reading the Torah at least a couple of times a week?
/Ira
Tefillin – another problem! See Yehudah Cohn’s book, Tangled up in Text on the practice (or non-practice) of tefillin-wearing at the time.
An interesting article and commentary. I’m curious if you would speculate on whether there’s any link to be made between this absence of evidence for regular, prescribed public / synagogue Torah instruction before first century BCE or later on the one hand, and the fairly well established, perhaps even growing disdain in Israelite or Second Temple or rabbinic times for the “am ha’aretz” on the other.
(I’m prompted by a couple of comments:
Yours:
“I think that there was somewhat regular but disorganized “reading” in one way or another of Scripture in synagogues in Palestine in the first century CE. It just really doesn’t add up to a coherent “scriptural education”, which in turn raises the intriguing question of scriptural literacy among the common folk.”
and this one:
“Hi, Michael. R. Mellon, the question of how widespread literacy was is a big one, but just factoring in the economics – what use is literacy to a subsistence farmer or laborer, the bulk of the population? – would suggest literacy was limited to the wealthy, the small merchant class, and state and temple functionaries.”
I’m not sure that we find growing disdain for the “amme’ ha-arets” (ordinary Jews) among the rabbis until third-fourth century Babylonia. See the article by Shaye Cohen on the status of the rabbis, in the Cambridge History of Judaism, vol. 3.
If ones examines the question of the proper allotment of Torah sentences for the Rosh Chodesh Torah reading (B Megillah 21b-22a) it is obvious the Rava (circa 300-350 CE), arguably the leading Torah Sage of his generation, did not possess a tradition of how to allot the sentences (such that a minimum of 3 sentences are read per aliya and that 2 sentences are not remaining in a paragraph that are yet to be read). Now how is it possible that the greatest sage of the generation, Rava, did not immediately have a tradition of the allocation of sentences. It seems to me, that in Rava’s locale they had not as yet commenced reading the Torah on Rosh Chodesh, demonstrating that reading the Torah was an evolutionary process, in flux as late as Rava’s time.
Right! And, of course, the Palestinians for a long time followed a triennial reading of the Torah, probably beginning in the third century or so CE (after the time I am talking about in this post). Lee Levine, The Ancient Synagogue, provides a good starting discussion for this.
During the Second Temple Period there was a vibrant and educated Jewish community in Babylon. Another was in Syria. What do you think they were doing? Who were the teachers of the rabbis in training before the 1st century BCE? No yeshivot? This article seems too narrowly focused.
Interesting! What historical sources do you have in mind that support these claims?
The Bible itself may provide some of the answers. In the Law (in fact the full Shema passage) it is assumed that the Law will be read and studied daily as a part of the life of G-d’s people. The testimony of the Prophets however is that this was seldom the practice to the extent that the scrolls themselves were lost. Judges depicts the breakdown of both the Levirate teaching role and the familial teaching role. 1 Samuel tells us that the corruption of the Levites was so great that the people turned from worship and the word of G-d was rare. This lack of knowledge led to their destruction and after the return from exile the priesthood and eventually even non-priestly scholars determined that such would not be the case again.
I would suggest that we have to look at this in terms of the cyclic nature of Jews concerning their times of obedience and times of rebellion.
Clearly the children of Israel were instructed to read and reflect on the Torah daily by God.
Blessed is the man Who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly,
Nor stands in the path of sinners, Nor sits in the seat of the scornful;
2 But his delight is in the law of the Lord, And in His law he meditates day and night.
3 He shall be like a tree Planted by the rivers of water, That brings forth its fruit in its season, Whose leaf also shall not wither; And whatever he does shall prosper.
4 The ungodly are not so, But are like the chaff which the wind drives away. Psalm 1:1-4
“Therefore you shall lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 19 You shall teach them to your children, speaking of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. 20 And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, 21 that your days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land of which the Lord swore to your fathers to give them, like the days of the heavens above the earth. Deuteronomy 11:18-21
This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. Joshua 1:8
This is a very impressive conversation with many good points, a number of references, and civil.
Including the specific quotes from the references would be helpful in determining the references worth.
But how much the Jews of antiquity knew about the Bible, (I would use Tanakh, et al in place of “Bible” and add the word implementing after “about”), does not however depend much at all on the public Torah readings and the current situation is such today. We all know as much as we put time into learning it. However, we still see that a lifetime of studying what is purportedly Torah, doesn’t benefit the world at least in the sense of the nations saying, “surely this is a wise and understanding people……”
When do the term מקרא and expressions like ככתוב first appear? I wonder whether the data could support your interesting thesis. Still, keep in mind that it is D that systematically replaces 3D, interactive religion with text everywhere outside the temple. This includes repeating text, teaching text, wearing text (in Qumran at the latest they understood it that way), etching it in significant public places, hearing it read out every seven years, etc. To judge by the findings at Qumran, at least some circles took this really seriously, literally even. To judge by Jewish literature of the Persian and Hellenistic period, biblical and non-biblical, some authors knew the earlier texts in amazing detail and engaged them as nothing less than a labor of love. And some circles continued to copy this material diligently and precisely (relatively) so that it has eventually come down to us. I ask simply, not rhetorically, do you think all this work remained fairly marginal? Perhaps midrashic material demonstrates precisely how thoroughly the darshanim knew all the material but also the completely processed and reconstituted form in which the audience received it?
Sorry it took so long to reply to this. ככתוב first appears (in a relevant context) in Nehemiah, and then in the Dead Sea scrolls, but this only shows that some Jews considered these texts as authoritative, which I think is true – it doesn’t show more widespread diffusion. מקרא is a more interesting word, and I also wonder when it first began to have the meaning of the biblical text. The answer is probably readily available in the volume Mikra!