To answer the basic question of our course, why the Bible emerged in ancient Israel and Judea rather than at the centers of ancient civilization, we're going to have to now turn our attention to the topic of education. And as I'm going to argue throughout this week, the education is the very raison d'ĂŞtre of the Bible, that is, the Bibles reason for existence. What unifies this literature is not least its pedagogical purpose. The formation of the Bible may be compared to educational reforms, which like many educational reforms in antiquity, and especially in more recent times, were introduced in response to major military defeats. Now written for a people after the loss of statehood, the Biblical authors articulate educational ideals that differ substantially from the practices attested in societies of ancient [INAUDIBLE] societies including those of the former kingdoms of Israel and Judah. The Hebrew Bible now has often constituted throughout history, the core of Jewish and Christian educational curricula. In early America, it was not only read on its own, but also incorporated into primers and textbooks, such as The New England Primer and The Blueback Speller, and McGuffy readers and several other works. OF those who place the Bible at the core of their education curricula, we're not appropriating religious writings for originally unintended educational purpose, rather, the pedagogical use of the Biblical text in these textbooks stands in direct continuity with the Bible's origins. So according to my thesis, the Bible is an educational curriculum that gives birth to a nation. And now we're coming to the basic point of the whole course. So the educational paradigm that we see promoted in the Bible, is what one might call today common civic education. It's not too far removed from what we have within the mooks, and the education that is really for the masses that we have online and so forth. And that is the notion that all members of society, not just the nobility and the elites, are obligated to bear and to bequeath to their children their people's treasured traditions of law, history, poetry, and wisdom. Knowledge is for everyone. And it's better when it is dispersed among a, all members of society. Now, so for the Biblical authors. Israel's traditions do not represent the special, preserved of the aristocracy, who in pre-modern societies, like elites today, often distinguish themselves from non-nobilities, or from non-elites, by the special duty they have to safeguard a cultural legacy, or to go to the most elite schools and so forth. But according to the Biblical ideals, this educational iddu, duty is incumbent upon the people as a whole. Even esoteric knowledge, priestly and prophetic knowledge becomes exoteric, becomes open in the hands of the Biblical authors. Just as they make sapiential teachings, that is, wisdom and law, available, indeed mandatory, for learning by a much larger audience rather than solely by elites and court officials. Now as in most other societies in the ancient Near East, education appears to have served in Israel and, and Judea, as one of the primary means adopted by elites, by those at the top of society, to distinguish themselves from commoners and to maintain a monopoly on their social status as well as their political power. But the Biblical authors, when collecting and reshaping earlier traditions as they formed this collection of writings, they abandoned this exploitation of education, as a way of demarcating a select group within society, or to be more precise, they collectivized it and they did so by applying the competitive quality that education gives you to the large, to their larger pedagogical project of forming a people that distinguishes its, itself as a whole from other people's. To explain what I mean by this statement let's look at Deuteronomy four. The text promises that Israel will be known far and wide as a great nation. You can see that in verse four six. Yet Israel will win this celebrity, not by conventional means such as undertaking great architectural feats or possessing unmatched military might. Rather, what will impress its peers among the nations, will be its wisdom and its discernment. In Hebrew it's [FOREIGN]. And it displays this wisdom and discernment by collectively performing both the statutes and the ordinances of the Torah, and by teaching them, to their children and their children's children. You can see that in verses five through 14 of chapter four. So here the sapiential qualities traditionally restricted to the ruling class, becomes a means by which the people of Israel as a whole demarcate themselves corporately from all other nations. In other words, the competitive edge offered by education is now democratized. I know that's anachronistic, but it's democratized, and transferred to Israel collectively as they compete with the nations of the world. Now, in keeping with this demotic turn, this turn towards the people as a whole, Moses is portrayed in this passage of Deuteronomy, Chapter Four, as the pedagogue of the nation. He teaches [FOREIGN] in Hebrew, the law, to the nation rather than just declaring or commanding it as we see in other passages. Later in the book, everyone, men, women, children, servants, they all gather in preparation to ratify the Covenant we can see that in Chapter 29. And in this way the author's delegate to the whole nation, responsibility for its collective future. Deuteronomy is by no means distinctive in this regard. Similar emphases resound throughout the Bible from Exodus to Ezra, Nehemiah. According to the Biblical narrative itself, it was really not until after Judea had been conquered, that they start to realize the educational ideals set forth in the Torah. It is Ezra the scribe from the Persian period who introduces educational reforms, what we call educational reforms. And he is portrayed as a kind of second Moses, having set his heart to study the Torah of Israel's God, and to do it, and to teach law and ordinances. This is a quote from Ezra seven, I think verse ten. This figure rises above the crowds, in a momentous scene, and reads the Torah to the assembled community in Jerusalem. And you can see that in Nehemiah eight. Now, as the story continues, the people gradually learn to read and study for themselves. This moment, when Israel becomes a people of the book, marks the realization of the Torah's education ideals. But here's the point. The plan set forth long ago at Sinai is realized significantly only after empires have conquered and now rule Israel and Judea. Now for more on Ezra Nehemiah, you can view my conversation with Professor Tamara con Escanazi, the leading expert on this book, and the interview is at the end of this week.
