History of education in ancient Israel and Judah

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Education has been defined as, "teaching and learning specific skills, and also something less tangible, but more profound: the imparting of knowledge, positive judgement and well-developed wisdom. Education has as one of its fundamental aspects the imparting of culture from generation to generation (see socialization)".

While curriculum and texts for schools has been found in other areas of the ancient near east, no direct evidence—either literary or archaeological—exists for schools in ancient Israel.{{cite journal |last1=Schniedewind |first1=William |title=Schools in Ancient Israel |journal=Oxford Bibliographies Online |date=26 May 2016 |doi=10.1093/OBO/9780195393361-0222 |url=https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780195393361/obo-9780195393361-0222.xml |publisher=Oxford University Press|url-access=subscription }}

There is no word for school in ancient (biblical) Hebrew, the earliest reference to a "house of study" (bet hammidrash) is found in the mid-Hellenistic period (2nd cent. BC) in the book of Ben Sira ([https://www.sefaria.org/Ben_Sira.51.23 51:23]).{{cite journal |last1=Crenshaw |first1=James L. |title=Education in Ancient Israel |journal=Journal of Biblical Literature |date=1985 |volume=104 |issue=4 |pages=601–615 |doi=10.2307/3260674 |jstor=3260674 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3260674 |issn=0021-9231|url-access=subscription }}

However, the writing of the Bible as well as the variety of inscriptional material from ancient Israel testifies to a relatively robust scribal culture that must have existed to create these textual artifacts. The best unambiguous evidence for schools in ancient Israel comes from a few abecedaries and accounting practice texts found at sites such as Izbet Sarta, Tel Zayit, Kadesh Barnea, and Kuntillet ʿAjrud. However, these were probably not schools in the traditional sense but rather an apprenticeship system located in the family.

The total literacy rate of Jews in Israel in the first centuries c.e. was "probably less than 3%". While this may seem very low by today's standards, it was relatively high in the ancient world. If we ignore women (on the ground of their not participating in society), take into consideration children above the age of seven only, forget the far-away farmers and regard literacy of the non-educated people (e.g., one who cannot read the Torah but reads a bulla, that is: pragmatic literacy), then the literacy rate (adult males in the centers), might be even 20%, a high rate in traditional society.

{{cite book |last1=Walton |first1=Steve |last2=Trebilco |first2=Paul |last3=Gill |first3=David W. J. |title=The Urban World and the First Christians |date=2017 |publisher=Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing |isbn=978-0-8028-7451-1 |pages=189–190 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rCxbDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA189}}

{{cite book |last1=Jaffee |first1=Martin S. |title=Torah in the Mouth: Writing and Oral Tradition in Palestinian Judaism, 200 BCE-400 CE |date=2001 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-514067-5 |page=164n7 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=U9bnCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA164}}

{{cite book |last1=Bar-Ilan |first1=Meir |editor1-last=Fishbane |editor1-first=S. |editor2-last=Schoenfeld |editor2-first=S. |editor3-last=Goldschlaeger |editor3-first=A. |title=Essays in the Social Scientific Study of Judaism and Jewish Society, II |date=1992 |publisher=Ktav |pages=46–61 |url=https://faculty.biu.ac.il/~barilm/articles/to_check/illitera.html |chapter=Illiteracy in the Land of Israel in the First Centuries C.E.}}