Senior Pastor
Redeemer Community Church
Brian J. Wright (PhD, Ridley College in Melbourne, Australia) is author of more than a dozen books, including Communal Reading in the Time of Jesus (Fortress, 2017), as well as numerous academic studies, including ones published in the Journal of Theological Studies, Catholic Biblical Quarterly, Bulletin for Biblical Research, Trinity Journal, and Tyndale Bulletin. He is the founding pastor of Redeemer Community Church in Pensacola, FL, and periodically teaches for several universities and seminaries as an adjunct professor. Both his academic and pastoral work have been featured on several Christian media networks, such as Christianity Today, The Gospel Coalition, Desiring God, and Power for Living.
Friday, May 31, 2:20 PM – Main Room
“A Skewed Framework: How Certain Assumptions about Ancient Literacy Hinder New Testament Textual Criticism”
Modern New Testament Textual Criticism (NTTC) operates from the framework that reading and writing during the time of Jesus were primarily elitist activities, with around 90% of the population being illiterate. This perspective got a considerable boost in the academy after the publication of William H. Harris’s work in 1989, and then again after the publication of Catherine Hezser’s work in 2001.
Although this perspective has now become the prevailing assumption in NTTC, there is every good reason to pause, since this view fails at the crucial point of being substantiated by the evidence. Indeed, since the actual evidential basis for mass illiteracy in antiquity is so scant, one might wonder how and why such a view has become so commonplace in NTTC studies—usually parroted without argumentation by textual critics.
This essay will examine evidence that indicates widespread literacy in ancient everyday life, describe the communal reading culture of the first century AD, and discuss some New Testament passages relevant to this discussion, especially as they pertain to the field of NTTC and the transmission of the New Testament in its broad context.