1. Introduction
The book culture of early Christianity has been one of the most excitingand changingsub-disciplines of NT studies at least since the
publication of Gambles 1995 Books and Readers in the Early Church.1
Larry Hurtado has been a leading voice in this discussion. I went to the
University of Edinburgh in August of 2005 in order to write a Ph.D.
under Hurtado on the signicance of the textualization of the gospel
tradition from the perspective of the then-emerging methodology of
social memory theory. My primary supervisor ended up changing from
Hurtado to Helen Bond due to Hurtados 2005 sabbatical. My topic also
ended up changing, from the textualization of the gospel tradition to
literacy and the Pericope Adulterae. Nevertheless, my work remained
rmly anchored in scribal culture and I continued to meet with Hurtado
regularly, as he was a very involved secondary supervisor who read and
commented upon everything I wrote. I also continued to think upon
the textualization of the Jesus tradition and discuss with him a variety
of topics related to literacy and early Christian book culture. By the
beginning of my nal year at Edinburgh, the fruits of his 2005 sabbatical had been published as The Earliest Christian Artifacts: Manuscripts
and Christian Origins, a groundbreaking collection of essays on the
1. Harry Y. Gamble, Books and Readers in the Early Church: A History of Early
Christian Texts (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995). For two other important
studies situating early Christian book practices within broader Greco-Roman
practices, see Loveday Alexander, Ancient Book Production and the Circulation of
the Gospels, in The Gospels for All Christians: Rethinking the Gospel Audiences
(ed. Richard Bauckham; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), pp.71111; H. Gregory
Snyder, Teachers and Texts in the Ancient World: Philosophers, Jews and Christians
(RFCC; New York: Routledge, 2000). For an earlier, but still important, study,
see Colin H. Roberts, Manuscripts, Society and Belief in Early Christian Egypt
(London: British Academy, 1979).
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knowledge, Hurtado has not addressed the specic topic of the textualization of Marks Gospel since then, though he has, as recently as 2014,
continued to argue against a line of research whose roots are in Kelbers
approach (performance criticism).6 I will argue below that Johnsons
work invites a re-assessment of the signicance of the emergence of the
rst written Gospel that takes into consideration the reception-history for
the gospel tradition that Mark enabled when he textualized the oral
tradition.7 This perspective adds an important nuance to the proposals of
Kelber and Hurtado alike.
2. Books and Reading Cultures in the High Roman Empire
In a programmatic article published in the American Journal of Philology in 2000, classicist William A. Johnson outlined an approach to
Greco-Roman book culture that he described as a sociology of reading.8 He begins the article by briey rehearsing the history of research
on whether ancient Greeks and Romans ever read silently. Many scholars
have assumed that all ancient reading was aloud, and some have assumed
that scriptio continua required this vocalization of the text.9 (Johnson
includes in this history of research Achtemeiers inuential JBL essay
Omne verbum sonat.10) As Johnsons history of research reveals,
Evolutionary or Revolutionary Document?, JSNT 40 (1990), pp.1532; GrecoRoman Textuality and the Gospel of Mark: A Critical Assessment of Werner
Kelbers The Oral and the Written Gospel, BBR 7 (1997), pp.91106, respectively.
6. Larry W. Hurtado, Oral Fixation and New Testament Studies? Orality,
Performance and Reading Texts in Early Christianity, NTS 60 (2014), pp.32140.
7. This essay thus complements Chris Keith, Prolegomena on the Textualization
of Marks Gospel: Manuscript Culture, the Extended Situation, and the Emergence
of Written Gospels, in Memory and Identity in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity: A Conversation with Barry Schwartz (ed. Tom Thatcher; SemSt 78; Atlanta:
Society of Biblical Literature, 2014), 15984.
8. William A. Johnson, Toward a Sociology of Reading in Classical Antiquity,
AJP 121 (2000), pp.593627.
9. Johnson, Toward, 595, traces the connection between reading aloud and
scriptio continua to Josef Balogh, Voces Paginarum: Beitrge zur Geschichte des
lauten Lesens und Schreibens, Philologus 82 (1927), pp.84109, 20240. For a full
response to Balogh, see Bernard M. W. Knox, Silent Reading in Antiquity, GRBS
9 (1968), pp.42135.
10. Paul J. Achtemeier, Omne verbum sonat: The New Testament and the Oral
Environment of Late Western Antiquity, JBL 109.1 (1990), pp.327: It is apparent
that the generalindeed, from all the evidence, the exclusivepractice was to read
aloud (p.15); The sheer physical nature of the written page in classical antiquity
militated against its ease of reading and in that way also contributed to the cultures
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however, both claims are simply incorrect.11 There are plenty of instances
of silent reading in Greek and Roman sources and there are no good
reasons to suspect that ancient readers were cognitively or neurophysiologically incapable of reading scriptio continua silently.
Johnsons real problem, however, is not with this debate in and of
itself, but with the telescopic manner in which it has proceeded and
especially the manner in which the winning side of the debate expressed
the signicance of their ndings. He cites a 1997 article in which
Gavrilov concludes his demonstration that ancients did occasionally read
silently with the following statement: These ancient reections help us
to see that the phenomenon of reading itself is fundamentally the same in
modern and in ancient culture. Cultural diversity does not exclude an
underlying unity.12 Gavrilov meant that ancients could read aloud or
silently, just like modern readers. For Johnson, however, Gavrilovs
manner of expressing this point is roughly the equivalent of settling for
vanilla when fudge ripple was available. He says,
But is this a proper conclusion? If we accept that the ancients did read
silently, yet know also (what no one disputes) that they commonly read
aloud, does it follow that ancient reading was really so like our own? Has
this century of debate in fact brought us no better understanding than that
the ancient readers experience was, essentially, ours?13
For Johnson, the history of research and the sources culled for the sake
of making the arguments reveal a more interesting and protable line
of enquiry. As he says elsewhere, The question I wish to pose is not,
Did the Romans read silentlyof course they didbut how they
constructed the signicance of the circumstances in which reading took
place.14 Johnson sets out to demonstrate that ancient reading practices
reliance on the oral mode of communication (p.10). Similarly, Whitney Shiner,
Proclaiming the Gospel: First-Century Performance of Mark (Harrisburg: Trinity,
2003), p.1: First-century literary works were almost always heard in a communal
setting rather than read silently by individuals. This is generally accepted today.
11. Johnson, Toward, pp.5939. It is unfortunate that NT scholars have almost
entirely ignored the 1993 rebuttal of Achtemeier by Gilliard, also published in JBL:
Frank D. Gilliard, More Silent Reading in Antiquity: non omne verbum sonabat,
JBL 112.4 (1993), pp.68996.
12. A. K. Gavrilov, Techniques of Reading in Classical Antiquity, CQ 47
(1997), p.69.
13. Johnson, Toward, p.600.
14. William A. Johnson, Constructing Elite Reading Communities in the High
Empire, in Ancient Literacies: The Culture of Reading in Greece and Rome (ed.
William A. Johnson and Holt N. Parker; New York: Oxford University Press, 2009),
p.328 (emphasis original).
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were sometimes radically different from our own, but that these differences are most clear on a broader cultural level rather than through a
narrow consideration of reading as a cognitive act:
I prefer to look at reading as not an act, not even a process, but as a highly
complex sociocultural system that involves a great many considerations
beyond the decoding by the reader of the words of a text. Critical is the
observation that reading is not simply the cognitive process by the
individual of the technology of writing, but rather the negotiated construction of meaning within a particular sociocultural context.15
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and asks about the meaning of the word. The one who spoke the word
defers to a grammarian in their company. The grammarian claims that
the word is a lower-class term and thus unworthy of further comment, an
utterly plebeian expression.30 Fronto disagrees and cites Catos and
Varros usages of the term. Another friend claims that the word is used
in the Iphigenia of Ennius, and asks that the work be produced and read.
It is, and upon the reading of the passage, the shamed grammarian takes
his leave.
A second example from earlier in Attic Nights also features a text by
Varro. In a bookstore, Gellius comes upon a man trying to pass himself
off as a grammarian, boasting that he was the only one under all heaven
who could interpret the Satires of Marcus Varro.31 Gellius pulls out a
copy of the Satires and asks the would-be grammarian to read aloud a
particularly difcult passage. The man asks Gellius himself to read.
Playing the fool, Gellius insists that his reading would no doubt be
problematic for such a learned man. When others join in pressuring the
man to read, Gellius hands him the manuscript, upon which he performs
poorly (so wretchedly did he pronounce the words and murder the
thought),32 is mocked, and leaves, blaming his eyesight for his reading.
Signicantly in this honor/shame event, Gelliuss status is underscored
since his very possession of an ancient copy of Varro,33 as well as his
selection of the specic text that gave the grammarian difculty, displays
his own intricate knowledge of it and thus his status as a man of letters.
There are many interesting things about these examples, but I draw
attention to the manner in which the events consist entirely of knowledge
of the text and especially how the manuscript itself becomes an active
witness to an argument.34 Appreciation for, possession of, and intricate
knowledge of the texts in questionand the manuscripts that contain
themfunction as a social but nevertheless real border for group identity. Being able to read and recall intricate texts accurately determined
social realities about whether one stood on the rejected or accepted side
of a groups laughter. It is not insignicant that the shamed intellectuals
physically leave the scene of their defeat in both examples.
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is also signicant that Hurtado has been perhaps the most vocal of NT
scholars in drawing attention to the signicance of Johnsons work for
understanding early Christian book culture. Hurtado has typically offered
short descriptions of Johnsons work in service of underscoring the signicance of the material and visual features of early Christian manuscripts
such as the nomina sacra, readers aids, or manuscript layout.45 As noted
at the beginning of this essay, however, he has not yet given full consideration to the implications of Johnsons work for our understanding of
a manuscript itself as a material artifact. A consideration of this matter is
timely since it relates directly to Hurtados earlier criticisms of Kelber.
In The Oral and the Written Gospel, Kelber argued that Marks transition of the oral Jesus tradition into manuscript form was a cataclysmic
event that irreparably altered the Christian experience of stories of Jesus.
Far from being logical and evolutionary, as the form critics asserted,
Kelber argued that Marks actions were revolutionary, bringing about
a freezing of oral life into textual still life.46 If early Christianity was
profoundly illiterate, Kelber asked, what need did it have of a text?47
His answer to this question was that Mark sought to replace the oral
traditions Christology of a living Lord with a Christology focused on the
past of Jesus, and thus the media transition was part of a christological
replacement strategy.48 Perhaps more than any other study, this study
awakened NT scholars to the signicance of early Christianity being a
primarily illiterate and oral culture, though few would still afrm the
sharp juxtaposition of orality and textuality that pervades it or the notion
that a media transition necessarily entails a differing Christology.
45. See, for example, Larry W. Hurtado, Early Christian Manuscripts as Artifacts, in Jewish and Christian Scripture as Artifact and Canon (ed. Craig A. Evans
and H. Daniel Zacharias; LSTS 70/SSEJC 13; London: T&T Clark International,
2009), p.78; The Early New Testament Papyri: A Survey of Their Signicance, in
Papyrologie und Exegese: Die Auslegung des Neuen Testaments im Licht der Papyri
(ed. Jens Herzer; WUNT 2/341; Tbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012), p.16 n.54; Oral
Fixation, 32630, 337; What Do Early Christian Manuscripts Tell Us about Their
Readers?, in The World of Jesus and the Early Church: Identity and Interpretation
in Early Communities of Faith (ed. Craig A. Evans; Peabody: Hendrickson, 2011),
pp.18892. For a fuller application of Johnsons insights, see Larry W. Hurtado,
Manuscripts and the Sociology of Early Christian Reading, in Early Text, pp.49
62. Other New Testament scholars who have called attention to Johnsons work
include Kloppenborg, Literate, pp.25, 4058, as well as my contribution to
Hurtado and Keith, Writing, pp.778.
46. Kelber, Oral, p.91.
47. Kelber, Oral, pp.1434.
48. Kelber, Oral, pp.184226.
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49. See now the collection of essays in Werner Kelber, Imprints, Voiceprints,
and Footprints of Memory: Collected Essays of Werner H. Kelber (RBS 74; Atlanta:
Society of Biblical Literature, 2013).
50. D. C. Parker, The Living Text of the Gospels (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).
51. Werner H. Kelber, On the History of the Quest, or: The Reduction of
Polyvalency to Single Sense, in Imprints, p.255. Previous versions of this essay
appeared as The Quest for the Historical Jesus: From the Perspectives of Medieval,
Modern, and Post-Enlightenment Readings, and in View of Ancient, Oral Aesthetics, in The Jesus Controversy: Perspectives in Conict by John Dominic Crossan,
Luke Timothy Johnson, and Werner H. Kelber (Harrisburg: Trinity, 1999), pp.75
115, and Der historische Jesus: Bedenken zur gegenwrtigen Diskussion aus der
Perspektive mittelalterlicher, moderner und postmoderner Hermeneutik, in Der
historische Jesus: Tendenzen und Perspektiven der gegenwrtigen Forschung (ed.
Jens Schrter and Ralph Brucker; BZNW 114; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2002), pp.1566.
52. Werner H. Kelber, Orality and Biblical Scholarship: Seven Case Studies,
in Imprints, p.330 (emphasis original); repr. from Review of Biblical Literature 9
(2007), pp.124.
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Elsewhere, Dewey quite explicitly claims that Christian texts had little
signicance as manuscripts: While texts were produced that later
became very important within Christianity as texts, these texts began as
aids to orality, and seemingly had little importance in themselves.56
53. Werner Kelber, The History of the Closure of Biblical Texts, in The
Interface of Orality and Writing (ed. Annette Weissenrieder and Robert B. Coote;
WUNT 260; Tbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010), pp.7282; rev. and repr. in Imprints,
pp.41340.
54. Keith, Prolegomena, 161.
55. Joanna Dewey, The Gospel of Mark as Oral Hermeneutic, in Jesus, pp.72,
86.
56. Joanna Dewey, Textuality in an Oral Culture: A Survey of the Pauline
Traditions, in Orality and Textuality in Early Christian Literature (ed. Joanna
Dewey; Semeia 65; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 1995), p.51 (emphasis
original). Cf. similarly Richard A. Horsley, The Gospel of Mark in the Interface of
Orality and Writing, in Weissenrieder and Coote, eds., The Interface of Orality and
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(see Catherine Hezser, Jewish Literacy in Roman Palestine [TSAJ 81; Tbingen:
Mohr Siebeck, 2001]; Keith, Jesus Literacy, pp.71123). Hurtado is correct about
the cultural inuence of texts, however, and here Stocks distinction between
textuality and literacy is important (Brian Stock, The Implications of Literacy:
Written Language and Models of Interpretation in the Eleventh and Twelfth
Centuries [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983], p.7); see further Keith,
Jesus Literacy, pp.858. Hurtado offers more careful statements along these lines
in, for example, Gospel of Mark, pp.1617, and later in Earliest, p.25 n.59.
61. Hurtado, Gospel of Mark, p.17. See further Eric Eve, Behind the Gospels:
Understanding the Oral Tradition (London: SPCK, 2013), pp.114; Rafael Rodrguez, Oral Tradition and the New Testament: A Guide for the Perplexed (London:
T&T Clark International, 2014), pp.111.
62. Hurtado, Gospel of Mark, pp.1719; idem, Greco-Roman, pp.97105.
63. Hurtado, Gospel of Mark, p.19.
64. Hurtado, Greco-Roman, p.106.
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Although the developments of the Jesus tradition in that receptionhistory, such as the public reading of the texts as Scripture, the rise of the
fourfold gospel canon, Christian adoption of the codex, and the canonization of the New Testament, do indeed lie outside Marks horizon of
intentions, as Hurtado notes, scholars should not underestimate Marks
contribution to what came after him. Again, Mark might not have
intended this reception-history, but he did enable it.
For these reasons, although Kelber was not right concerning why
Marks act was signicant, he was entirely right in thinking that it was
signicant and that this signicance related directly to early Christian
identity. Hurtado has likewise insisted that Marks act was signicant,
and his most recent work on early Christian manuscripts as material
artifacts, including his incorporation of the perspective of Johnson on
ancient Roman reading cultures, points to one reason why. Manuscripts
not only reect reading cultures, they enable them. It remains for future
research in NT scholarship to esh out the fuller ramications of Marks
creation of a Gospel-reading culture in early Christianity.