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December 30, 2008
Scribal Culture of the Heart
While traveling last week I read David Carr's Writing on the Tablet of the Heart: Origins of Scripture and Literature (Oxford University Press, 2005) and finished reading the endnotes to Karel van der Toorn's Scribal Culture and the Making of the Hebrew Bible (Harvard University Press, 2007). I read the body of Toorn's work and a few of the notes about a year ago. For the record, I continue to prefer notes at the foot of the page. This is particularly true when the notes contain more than simple references. For this reason, I started with a prejudice in favor of the format of Carr's book that may have carried over to a somewhat more positive judgment of the book itself.
Both books build upon an almost identical set of evidence. They ask nearly the same questions of that evidence. They both reach several similar conclusions. Both attempt to explain the origin, preservation, and eventual canonization of "long-lived texts" in settings where literacy is limited. Simply put, long-lived texts owe their origin and their longevity to the training and practices of literate elites. The similarities, best observed from a distance, often reveal, upon closer inspection, significant differences.
The theses of both authors rely on the interplay between the text, oral learning/presentation and the enculturation of literate elites in the Near East and beyond. Carr's explanation of that interplay is crisper and more helpful than that of van der Toorn. For this reason (and a few others), I think Carr's discussion is the better of the two. But both are extremely thoughtful works. Both have their highlights and their problems. People with abnormal interests should read them both and read them together.
Having now finished both works and putting my intellectual questions to the side, I am somewhat disappointed in one thing. Carr's work came out at least one year, perhaps two whole years, before van der Toorn's. Van der Toorn was aware of Carr's work. He gave Carr credit for the use of the word "enculturation" in a note (page 306, note 90). Van der Toorn was aware of Carr's work. He gave Carr credit for the use of the word "enculturation" in a note (page 306, note 90) and he references him a few other places. But scholarship would have benefited from a more thorough engagement. Yes, I know that van der Toorn's research was largely parallel to Carr's. Works of this quality take more than a year or two to research and write. But since Carr's work was in van der Toorn's hands in time for a single reference, it is too bad that he didn't take time to say a little more.
I'll will have more to say about these two works over the next week or so.
Posted by Duane Smith at December 30, 2008 8:22 AM | Read more on Scribal Schools |
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