Davide's Notes

It would be interesting to spend some time reflecting on the differences in educational paths, comparing for example traditional Jewish education vs education in the Roman world.

Some pointers:

• Holman Bible Dictionary
• Baker's Evangelical Dictionary

"There is no Mosaic legislation requiring the establishment of schools for formal religious instruction." (Holman)

Is this (can it be) any different in other ANE cultures? To start with, it seems to me that by "school" here we mean a place that somewhat sees beyond dynastic/sectarian/exclusive participation, and that seems anachronistic. Also, such a "school" seems to presuppose a significant literacy level and perhaps urban centers of some size (there was recently a brief note by NP Lemche on this).

On the other hand, the self-consciousness of the Israelites as the "chosen people" has the direct consequence that Torah itself is a kind of "formal religion instruction".

I think we should also be aware of the tendency to presuppose that formal instruction is required to be "producers of literary/cultural activity": see Amos and Micah for counter-examples.

Baker notes the following five points distinguishing the Israelite from other ANE religions:

1. Emphasis upon individual personality
2. Emphasis on the fatherhood of God (and importance of memory)
3. Personal freedom (free will -- although this is not always very clear, see notes on Essenes, Pharisees, Sadducees)
4. Israelites as a divinely chosen people hence nationalistic overtones. Perhaps this needs to be better qualified. Nationalism seems a late concept. See paper by David Goodblatt (which I would do well to study carefully also in its references), applying nationalism to the Second Temple period.
5. The doctrine of human sin and sinfulness. Perhaps better words here could be "trust/fidelity" and "memory" (human sin seems to evoke its Christian incarnation -- on the other hand, see e.g. 1QS, the Book of the Watchers, etc.).

Back for a moment to Goodblatt's paper, he says that "Second Temple sources which refer to education among the Jews do not mention a network of elementary schools or publicly supported teachers as the means by which children learn. Instead they refer to other means of education, such as private tutors for the wealthy and, most commonly, instruction by parents in the home." (think of Sirach here, both as a teacher for wealthy Jerusalem young men and in his typified picture of the role of the scribe, which may certainly assume a school.)

So, home (in the broad sense typical of a clan society) definitely seems to have a relevant role.

On the other hand, public readings may well have been a way of education (with varying degrees of formality). 2 Kings 23:1-3 is a "one time event" according to Goodblatt; I wonder whether the significance of the public reading in that case is for the audience in the fact that it was exceptional, or rather in that it was common practice but applied to the "new discovery". Deut 31:10-13 requires public reading of the Mosaic law every 7th year. It seems clear to me that such public reading events were integral part of the various festivals. NT Gospels attest in several places to the tradition of public readings in synagogues.

According to Josephus (Ant. IV,8,12), Moses said:

When the multitude are assembled together unto the holy city for sacrificing every seventh year, at the feast of tabernacles, let the high priest stand upon a high desk, whence he may be heard, and let him read the laws to all the people; and let neither the women nor the children be hindered from hearing, no, nor the servants neither; for it is a good thing that those laws should be engraven in their souls, and preserved in their memories, that so it may not be possible to blot them out; for by this means they will not be guilty of sin, when they cannot plead ignorance of what the laws have enjoined them. [...] Let the children also learn the laws, as the first thing they are taught, which will be the best thing they can be taught, and will be the cause of their future felicity.

Specifically on children's education, in Apion II,26 he writes that the law

commands us to bring those children up in learning, and to exercise them in the laws, and make them acquainted with the acts of their predecessors, in order to their imitation of them, and that they might be nourished up in the laws from their infancy, and might neither transgress them, nor have any pretense for their ignorance of them.

(ignorantia legis neminem excusat we would say, normally in a much more narrow sense)

In terms of methodology, perhaps it can be enclosed between, on the one hand, this quote from Novalis:

For the ancients, religion was already to a certain extent what it should become for us -- practical poetry

(romanticism and Jewish tradition? interesting. Think of Novalis' symbol of the blue flower?). This puts emphasis on rituals and practical hints in the context of tradition.

And, on the other hand, on the exposition method typical e.g. of the Mishnah. Cf the article "Talmud" by R. Goldenberg:

While the Mishnah looks like a code of rules for Jewish life, it apparently is something else. It requires more elucidation than it supplies, and it fails to tell how its contents might actually be put into practice. It is (he is speaking of Mishnah Berakhot), however, a remarkably seductive text: anyone studying these chapters will almost inevitable frame a list of questions for further inquiry [...] The Mishnah serves extremely well for the training of disciples or for the education of a community [...] [it] teaches the most important point of all: Jewish life is a life of constant study; one's Jewish learning is never complete while any part of it remains unexplained or incompletely integrated with the rest.

Further hints to be explored: Levites/Priests, Scribes, Prophets, Sages, Rabbi.