Select delivery location
See All Buying Options
Amazon book clubs early access
Loading your book clubs
There was a problem loading your book clubs. Please try again.
Not in a club? Learn more
Amazon book clubs early access

Join or create book clubs

Choose books together

Track your books
Bring your club to Amazon Book Clubs, start a new book club and invite your friends to join, or find a club that’s right for you for free.
Explore Amazon Book Clubs
Kindle app logo image

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

QR code to download the Kindle App

Follow the author

Christopher A. Rollston
+ Follow
More books from this author
Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.

Writing and Literacy in the World of Ancient Israel: Epigraphic Evidence from the Iron Age (Archaeology and Biblical Studies 11) (Sbl - Archaeology and Biblical Studies) Paperback – Illustrated, October 14, 2010

4.0 4.0 out of 5 stars 15 ratings
See all formats and editions
Ancient Northwest Semitic inscriptions from Israel, Phoenicia, Syria, Moab, Ammon, Edom, and Philistia enlighten and sharpen our vision of the Old Testament world in various ways. Writing and Literacy in the World of Ancient Israel focuses on this epigraphic evidence in order to broaden our understanding of the techniques and roles of writing, education, and literacy during this biblical period. To that end, the volume systematically covers scribal education; scribal implements; writing media such as stones, potsherds, and plaster; and the religious, administrative, and personal uses of writing. Its handbook format makes it easily accessible, including for use as a textbook in courses addressing the cultural context of ancient Israel.
Read more Read less
Previous page
  1. Print length
    192 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Society of Biblical Literature
  4. Publication date
    October 14, 2010
  5. Dimensions
    6 x 0.44 x 9 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    1589831071
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1589831070
  8. See all details
Next page
Amazon First Reads | Editors' picks at exclusive prices

Editorial Reviews

Review

Rollston has emerged as one of the most insightful, prodigious and authoritative of a younger generation of epigraphic scholars. This work is ... an indispensable resource. -- David Carr, Union Theological Seminary, NY

About the Author

Christopher A. Rollston holds a Ph.D. in Ancient Near Eastern Studies from the Johns Hopkins University. He is the editor of the scholarly journal MAARAV, has published widely in the field of epigraphy, and co-chairs the Epigraphy Sessions at the Annual Meetings of the Society of Biblical Literature and the American Schools of Oriental Research. He is currently the Toyozo W. Nakarai Professor of Old Testament and Semitic Studies at Emmanuel School of Religion in Johnson City, Tennessee.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Society of Biblical Literature; Illustrated edition (October 14, 2010)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 192 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1589831071
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1589831070
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 10.2 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.44 x 9 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.0 4.0 out of 5 stars 15 ratings

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
Christopher A. Rollston

Christopher A. Rollston

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Born in Michigan, Dr. Christopher Rollston is Professor of Northwest Semitic Languages and Literatures at George Washington University (Dept. of Classical and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations). He earned his MA and Ph.D. from The Johns Hopkins University in Hebrew Bible, Dead Sea Scrolls, ancient Northwest Semitic Languages and Literatures, and Second Temple Jewish Literature.

Professor Rollston works in around a dozen ancient languages and dialects, including Hebrew, Aramaic, Phoenician, Ugaritic, Akkadian, Sahidic Coptic, Hellenistic Greek and Classical Latin. Among his research and writing foci are Scribal Education in Ancient Israel, Writing and Literacy in Ancient Israel, Wisdom Literature in the Ancient Near East, Kingship in the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East, Prophetic Texts of the First Temple Period, Inscriptions from the First and Second Temple Period, New Testament & and Early Christianity, and the Rise of Islam. Rollston is a member of Phi Beta Kappa (Johns Hopkins University).

He has served as an Epigraphic Consultant for National Geographic (Washington, DC). Several years ago, he testified in Jerusalem in the Israeli Epigraphic Forgery Trial, as an expert witness for the prosecution. The National Endowment for the Humanities, the Society of Biblical Literature, and the American Schools of Oriental Research have funded his research.

Rollston has lectured widely in venues such as Yale University, the University of Helsinki, Hebrew University (Israel), Vanderbilt University, Brown University, Tel Aviv University, Catholic University of America, the University of Michigan, Duke University, Emory University, and DePaul University School of Law. He has conducted research and excavated throughout the Middle East, particularly Israel, Jordan,Lebanon, and Syria.

Rollston's new volume is entitled "Enemies and Friends of the State: Ancient Prophecy in Context" (Penn State University Press, Eisenbrauns imprint, 2018). Rollston's earlier monograph "Writing and Literacy in Ancient Israel" was selected (2011) by the American Schools of Oriental Research for the prestigious "Frank Moore Cross Prize" as the most substantial volume in the field of Northwest Semitic Epigraphy. Previously, Rollston edited a New Testament volume entitled "The Gospels according to Michael Goulder: A North American Response."

He has a forthcoming monograph entitled "Forging History in the Ancient World of the Bible & the Modern World of Biblical Studies" (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishers). And he is beginning research for a monograph on "Royal Assassination in the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East."

Dr. Rollston is the co-editor (with Dr. Eric H. Cline) of the Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, the editor of Maarav, and a member of the Council of the Society of Biblical Literature. He has published more than one hundred articles and reviews in a number of academic venues, including the Journal of Biblical Literature, Journal of the American Oriental Society, Near Eastern Archaeology, Israel Exploration Journal, the Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, and the journal Tel Aviv. He has also published in the Huffington Post and Archaeology Magazine. Some of his recent articles have been on the 'Isaiah' Bulla, the Early History of the Devil (ha-satan), the Qeiyafa Ostracon, the Tel Zayit Abecedary, Pejorative Personal Names in Ancient Texts, and the Talpiyot ("Jesus Family") Tombs.

He has taught at the undergraduate, master's, and Ph.D. levels, across the canonical corpus of the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament Apocrypha, and the Greek New Testament. After completing his Ph.D., Rollston held two consecutive post-doctoral fellowships at the Johns Hopkins University, Department of Near Eastern Studies, and for about a decade, he was the Toyozo Nakarai Professor of Old Testament and Semitic Languages at Emmanuel. In the past, he has also held Visiting Professorships at Tel Aviv University and George Washington University.

Beyond the classroom, Dr. Rollston enjoys foreign travel, antique furniture restoration, African art, Indian art, swimming, and bicycling.

Customer reviews

4 out of 5 stars
4 out of 5
15 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Steven Cowden
5.0 out of 5 stars An Unexpected Treat
Reviewed in the United States on May 14, 2016
Verified Purchase
Got the book yesterday afternoon; finished it this morning. I have no formal training in, and little familiarity with, archaeology/paleology. My interest in this subject is purely for background studies in the Old Testament for which I have acquired a working familiarity with biblical Hebrew.

I was expecting a book of mainly discussion on the topic with a few examples here and there. Instead I got lots of detailed examples with explanations (first half of book) and THEN evaluations and conclusions drawn from them. This is by far the best approach! I did have to expend some energy mastering the specialty language of ancient script analysis (graphene, phoneme, ductus, damming, etc.) but it was well worth it. There is a helpful glossary at the end of the book which repays the time spent - though it is a little sparse and does not cover all the specialized use of terminology (diachronic, synchronic, etc.)

The author is obviously a leader in his field and a clear and comprehensive master of his subject material. Given the technical and tedious nature of the material, he does an excellent job of making it accessible to the neophyte and, even more to his credit, drawing out the significance for the point being made as a foundation for later conclusions. Just when the technical explanations become a bit deep, he quickly turns and applies it to the topic in hand.

The book is full of diagrams/sketches of the representative inscriptions he evaluates. I am not sure that there is a diagram for every inscription mentioned, but it sure seems like it (sans some too large for the page size or too remote to matter). I have to admit, that when first perusing the book, the diagrams (most of which the author produced himself) seemed a bit cheesy. But it did not take long before realizing that a lot of work went into the diagrams and they are absolutely the best means of interacting with the actual inscriptions. This is especially evident when you come across an actual photo of the inscription and realize there is no way to discern the script and/or interact with it from the photo. NOTE: My nine year old grand-daughter sat with me for a while and asked what the book was about; after a few minutes of brief explanation she could easily identify mems, nuns and sameks in the author's diagrams.

By the time you get to the discussion/conclusion part of the book - the last half dealing with the nature of scribalism in Iron age Syro-Israel - you are definitely ready to intelligently track with the author's propositions and his rationale. In presenting his viewpoints, the author seems to deal with contra-opinion openly, plainly and fairly with plenty of quotation and reference so as not to misrepresent.

As mentioned by another, Daniel McClellan's review is very helpful for describing the content. Because there is no "Look Inside ..." feature, I will offer a summarized chapter list:

Part 1: The Epigraphic Record
01-Origins of Alphabetic Writing
02-Use of Phonecian Script / Rise of National Scripts
03-Nature of the Northwest Semitic Epigraphic Record

Part 2: The Scribe and Literacy
04-Status of the Scripe / Tools of the Trade
05-Scribal Education in Ancient Israel
06-Buildings for Education / Practice Texts / Home Exposure
07-Extent of Literacy in Ancient Israel
08-Inscriptions from the Market

I might add one event that captures my experience of the book: My daughter, who homeschools her 7th grade son, was in the process of 'convincing' him to focus on his reading assignment while I was in the process of reading chapter 4 about the 'Status of Scribes' in the ancient world. We had a good laugh as I read to them the colorful quotes from Mesopotamia and Egypt about the benefits of sticking to hard study and attaining to the highly beneficial scribal profession.

Thankyou Professor Rollston for an unexpected treat!

BTW, Alan Millard has a good review of this book on the Bible History Daily website.
5 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Neal Rappleye
5.0 out of 5 stars Concise and Readable Assessment of Northwest Semitic Epigraphy and Israelite Scribal Practice
Reviewed in the United States on November 15, 2016
Verified Purchase
As I picked up Rollston's book and prepared myself to slog through a difficult and dry read. I was pleased to quickly find that this book is actually a well written, easy, and even enjoyable reading experience, unlike some of the other books I've read on the same or similar topics. Rollston provides a concise review the major Northwest Semitic inscriptions, providing key information and assessments without droning on and on with technical, jargon filled arguments. This review of the epigraphic record is, by itself, highly valuable, though it is now somewhat out of date.

From there he adds an important discussion of scribal practice and education. Again, he is able to provide concise and clear summaries of evidence from epigraphy. Rollston maintains that the evidence strongly supports the existence of formal, standardized education for scribes, as well as government and military officials, along with other social elites. Rollston's discussion here is invaluable and brings considerable clarity to the issue, in particular in critiquing the objection to "schools" based on the lack of monumental architecture.

Rollston also tackles the issue of literacy. Rollston rightly pushes back against those who have vastly overstated how widespread literacy was in ancient Israel, although I think Rollston goes too far in the other direction. Rollston does well to discuss the definition of "literacy", but never stops to define "widespread." In antiquity, "widespread" need not mean that it was common for lower class citizens, or the "populace" to read and write. Even if literacy was confined to social elites, it could still spread considerably beyond what was usual for the ancient world. Rollston himself notes that literacy in Israel was probably above that of Mesopotamia or Egypt (where probably only 1-5% of the population could write), and notes that literacy spread beyond professional scribes to government and military officials, and Rollston even suggests some skilled tradesmen might have been able to read and write. While Rollston never gives an estimate himself, I find estimates (made by others) of 10-20% of ancient Israelites as literate, predominately social elites, to be quite reasonable. Such an estimate is, in my view, consistent with the available evidence, in harmony with Rollston's own assessment (and not contradicted by any of his arguments), and, by ancient standards, quite "widespread."

Disagreements with Rollston aside, this is an excellent volume, highly readable, and extremely useful. I would highly recommend it to anybody interested writing in the ancient world.
One person found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Twocents
4.0 out of 5 stars Very good exploration of the topic
Reviewed in the United States on October 8, 2014
Verified Purchase
Very good exploration of the topic. Even as a layman I learned a lot. The depth of knowledge about the writing styles and conclusions regarding the people and societies was truly impressive.
One person found this helpful
Helpful
 Report

Top reviews from other countries

Translate all reviews to English
Apóstolo Elias
5.0 out of 5 stars Estudo Histórico.
Reviewed in Brazil on December 22, 2021
Verified Purchase
Para quem estuda a Bíblia, nescessário é buscar conhecimento nós mínimos detalhes .
Report
Richard Abbott
5.0 out of 5 stars Well-researched, informative, and accessible to a general audience
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 2, 2012
Verified Purchase
I thoroughly enjoyed this book by Christopher Rollston, and would happily recommend it to anyone interested in the subject of ancient near eastern writing. Anyone who has been following Rollston's academic publications or blog articles will find few surprises, but a wide range of his ideas on iron age writing are gathered together in a convenient way. It has also provided the opportunity to give up to date (as at c.2010) descriptions of the relevant archaeological finds, many of which include line drawings of the items.

The book has two main sections, followed by a short discussion of the difficult issue of how to (and when not to) make use of pieces acquired from unknown or unidentified locations - an issue Rollston has campaigned on for some time now.

The first main part describes the collection of relevant source materials, from the eleventh century through to the sixth BCE. The geographic range is from Phoenicia through Israel to trans-Jordan. This section includes brief forays into topics which Rollston has investigated in more depth elsewhere. For example, there is a short passage outlining his disagreement with Sass concerning the date of the Phoenician royal inscriptions. Now, this highlights one of the minor weaknesses of the book. If you were interested in this matter (and it affects the reconstruction of the chronology of the ancient near east) you would not find enough in this book to satisfy you. There are plentiful references to help you find out more, but the summary in the book itself is so short that if you had not known about the issue previously, you could easily pass it by without realising its import.

Also in this first main section, there is a great deal of description, with diagrams, of the evolutionary development of particular letter shapes. This is in support of Rollston's main contention, that Hebrew did not emerge as a distinctive written script until the ninth century. He is careful to separate this from the question of when Hebrew might have emerged as a distinct spoken language, and gives several examples of how one written script may represent several spoken languages (for example, all of the many contemporary languages which use the Latin alphabet). But about written Hebrew, his ideas are very clear. For example, he says that before the middle of the ninth century BC "there is nothing distinctive of Old Hebrew... the Old Hebrew script had not yet been developed", and again, "Old Hebrew became a distinct national script during the ninth century... [it's creation was]... a nationalist statement, not merely an evolutionary development." He argues that the early written items which predate this and have been found within the borders of Israel use the Phoenician script, not Old Hebrew, but without that fact having a necessary connection to the ethnicity of the writer.

This will again come as no surprise to those who have followed his work, and Rollston is careful to point out those scholars who disagree with him, and give the main reasons for both positions. He comes over throughout the book as a fair and generous debater, though methodical and determined as regards his own views.

The second main section looks at the social position and training of the scribe, and the general level of literacy skills in the population at large. Once again his arguments will surprise no-one who has read his previous work. Writing, he holds, was the province of a skilled elite, trained in a variety of necessary talents. He is prepared to accept the existence of a wider group of people with very low levels of skill, perhaps able to read a few key words related to their job, or to roughly scrawl their name. However, he does not accept the older view that literacy was commonplace in an iron age society using an alphabetic script. Drawing on modern insights into the process of how literacy develops in childhood, as well as the ancient record itself, he argues his case persuasively. To be literate in the ancient world, whether using the newer alphabetic or the older syllabic scripts, required mastery of a range of skills, and demanded accuracy and consistency of production. This took time, and training.

This naturally flows into his high view of the office of scribe itself, which is best expressed in his own words: "the Old Hebrew epigraphic record reflects depth, sophistication, and consistency... most consistent with the presence of a mechanism for the formal, standardized education of scribal elites in ancient Israel."

To sum up, "Writing and Literacy in the World of Ancient Israel" is clearly written, and engaging in its range of topics and presentation. It seems to me to be highly accessible to a general audience, and readers who are not interested in the specific details of letter shapes can still readily follow the basic arguments that these support. Some readers may be disappointed that there is not more new material contained in its 171 pages, or more speculative advance into some issues relating to the production of complex and extensive literature in the first half of the first millennium BC. However, it is a very convenient and well-resourced summary of his stance on matters that interest him - and indeed me. I am very happy to have purchased it and have no hesitation in recommending it to others.

On a personal note, readers of my (fictional) work  In a Milk and Honeyed Land  will recognise that many of the assumptions there about the role of the scribe, and the general level of literacy, owe a great debt to Rollston's work. I am very happy to see that he has reaffirmed and indeed strengthened his position on these matters in this book!
Report