tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8925011239177942231.post1256762263981300460..comments2024-03-04T10:47:31.894-08:00Comments on The Textual Mechanic: Bursting Church Libraries in Fourth Century North AfricaTimothy N. Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10696299768205488795noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8925011239177942231.post-2479110406335503962016-09-05T13:00:22.974-07:002016-09-05T13:00:22.974-07:00Again, an excellent comparison and food for though...Again, an excellent comparison and food for thought.Timothy N. Mitchellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10696299768205488795noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8925011239177942231.post-49531638701164363322016-09-05T11:24:49.414-07:002016-09-05T11:24:49.414-07:00Yet in an average American church of 2000, what pe...Yet in an average American church of 2000, what percentage could (or would) handle a text of Augustine, no matter how contemporary the translation? Only on the narrowest possible definition of literacy is the American population 99% literate. When it comes to the ability to handle literary texts, or even to read the Scriptures, the number is well under 50%—the number that actually choses to do so is lower still. My main point being that while we do have higher literacy than ancient societies did the difference is not nearly so great as often imagined. Peter J. Montoro IVhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11893055527110529190noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8925011239177942231.post-64704830040322372542016-09-05T10:54:19.753-07:002016-09-05T10:54:19.753-07:00Thank you for that comparison Peter. It is definit...Thank you for that comparison Peter. It is definitely worth noting the modern levels of reading competency in a society such as America, which boasts somewhere in the 99% range of literacy. In antiquity, where so few could read or write at any level, these comments by Optatus are still very striking. On the next page of Houghton's book (p.22) he notes that just a few years later that people packed into the Churches to hear Augustine preach. Even if literacy levels were only 15%, a Church of 2,000 people could still have 300 or more people that had a decent reading competency. If one were to throw public reading into the mix, then the "market" for biblical manuscripts would increase even more. As Optatus mentioned above "The mouths of the lectors keep not silence," or in other words, they are always publicly reading out the texts.Timothy N. Mitchellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10696299768205488795noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8925011239177942231.post-60706847511802979232016-09-05T10:13:44.730-07:002016-09-05T10:13:44.730-07:00In comparisons between modern and ancient literacy...In comparisons between modern and ancient literacy it seems to me as though there is often an assumption that modern societies have achieved "full literacy" or close to it. Yet one must compare apples to apples. The vast majority of the population in the US is, when it comes to literary texts, functionally illiterate even today. Indeed, if one were to define literacy by the ability to make out a literary or religious text with some competency, one might find the gap between ancient and modern society to be much smaller than is often imagined. Such readers will always be in a minority in almost any conceivable society. (One thinks of the first few generations of the Bay Colony Puritans as a possible exception—but even that exception was short-lived)Peter J. Montoro IVhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11893055527110529190noreply@blogger.com