Starr is So Hot Right Now OR Why the Study of Reading Circles is Taking the Field of New Testament and Early Christianity by Storm

[1]In the past decade, the work of Raymond J. Starr on reading circles have become more and more popular in the work of early Christianity. Starr’s analysis of Roman practice of reading and writing through concentric circles of social networks challenges the idea of a point action authorship but rather suggests peer editing was a common practice.[2] His argument presents texts as social creations rather than the isolated ideas of one particular individual. William A. Johnson’s argument of elite reading circles in Roman antiquity shows that reading was an equally social practice.[3] Harry Gamble has shown that Christian use of books was not fundamentally different from the larger Roman use.[4] This creates a fundamental continuity between reading and writing. Both are social practices and challenge the concept of point authorship and audience. This has been very attractive to scholars of early Christianity because the practical implications of the theory cause one to look into the text to attempt to find the community reflected in it. This came as a breath of fresh air to a scholarly community that struggled to find author’s who are separate from the text which thereby drove the analysis away from the text and into a highly speculative practice of psychoanalyzing a person one has never met.[5]

Reading as a social act

It is well known that literacy rates in the ancient world were limited. To be as generous as possible, the very most literate society might have up to 30% literacy.[6] Most communities, though, literacy was probably somewhere between 5-10%. Catherine Hezser has argued that contrary to some popular opinion, Jewish literacy in Roman Palestine was probably at least no higher than any other community. In fact, there is some evidence to suggest literacy would have been even lower than other areas of the Roman Empire.[7] As such, it is true that books were a social status symbol. Owning books suggested that one could read and that one could afford such a luxury. It is from this observation that William Johnson develops his idea of elite reading circles.[8] However, as Mary Beard points out, it is not necessary to be able to read to be involved in literary practice.[9] Those who attend a community reading event are listening to and studying the text – real question can be asked how “illiterate” these people are. They do not possess the technical skill of being able to read; however, they certainly are literate in its true sense of the term. This is precisely why reading “circles” are so helpful – one did not need to read so long as one in the group could read. In this way, reading was always a social act.

It has long been held that reading in the ancient world was always “out-loud.” The argument that silent reading did not exist was primarily based upon Augustine’s famous observation of Ambrose silently reading and his surprise. However, the challenge of the reading is far less an issue of the ability to silently read as much as Ambrose not following the social protocol of creating a reading circle. Augustine writes in his Confessions:

When Ambrose read, his eyes ran over the columns of writing and his heart searched out the meaning, but his voice and his tongue were at rest. Often when I was present – for he did not close his door to anyone and it was customary to come in unannounced – I have seen him reading silently, never in fact otherwise. I would sit for a long time in silence, not daring to disturb someone so deep in though, and then go on my way. I asked myself why he read in this way. Was it that he did not wish to be interrupted in those rare moments he found to refresh his mind and rest from the tumult of others’ affairs? Or perhaps he was worried that he would have to explain the obscurities in the text to some eager listener, or discuss other difficult problems? For he would thereby lose time and be prevented from reading as much as he had planned. But the preservation of his voice, which easily became hoarse, may well have been the true cause of his silent reading.[10]

What is noteworthy is Augustine’s surprise. The surprise is far less that Ambrose could read silently and far more that Augustine walked into his office to learn and rather than reading aloud to his auditor, Ambrose forced Augustine to simply sit there quietly while he read to himself. The usual practice would have created a social element – that Ambrose would read out loud so his audience could hear. This is functionally abandoned when Ambrose ceases from doing this.[11]

Johnson goes even farther and argues that the reason reading out loud was so common was merely because reading was an expected social action. To read by oneself was not nearly as popular. Silent reading certainly happened in private – usually as a follow up study of what was read in social actions.[12]

In these reading circles, reading was certainly a social act, but not formally a performative one. There was a key difference between reading and acting in a play. Acting suggests a memorized script and a dramatization. This can pull the audience from the text and into the theatre of action. Reading, on the other hand, while it was aloud, is not the same thing. It was often done at the dinner table. The lector is certainly not drawing the audience to the drama of his reading but rather into the words of the text.[13] It is in this sense that such reading was literary rather than performative and the blurring of the lines between the literate and illiterate.

Martin Jaffee has made a clear distinction between the Oral and Written Torah which is a very helpful illustration of this issue. Jaffee argues that all Torah (both written and oral) was spoken. The difference lies in its use.

[The distinction] did not at first describe the media in which texts were composed or preserved. Rather, they described the modes of their public performance as literature…The Written Torah was ‘read’ (qr’)  in the sense that the text was sung aloud from a scroll in the course of its study and exposition. The Oral Torah, by contrast, was ‘repeated’ (snh) – quoted from memory, without recourse to the mnemonic crutch of a written text.[14]

Jaffee’s point shows that the distinction between reading “out loud” or silently is always due to its use in a social context.

Christianity did have a formally public act of reading in their early services. As early as we have evidence for the Christian worship service, the reading of text seems integral. At first, this reading was only of the Hebrew Bible, but then the New Testament quickly took root in the same manner. Therefore, reading was a social act encouraged by the use of the same in the ritual practice of the church that then spilled over into the private lives of the individuals. At Christian gatherings that were not necessarily worship services, the prospect of reading socially was present and encouraged.[15]

Continuity Between Reading and Writing

This analysis is not particularly surprising for a culture wherein such a small percentage could read. It has been presented for quite a long time that ancient literacy needs to be understood in its cultural context. One should not expect something like unto the modern dependence on literacy for a culture wherein such a small portion could read. Instead, one should expect a culture where reading was not as essential to one’s life.[16] If that is so, then it is not surprising that reading was done socially which provided access to the illiterate to the knowledge found in written text. This solves the seeming contradiction of the vast amount of written text that is preserved while at the same time having a culture with such a small minority able to read it.

What is less appreciated is that writing is as much a social act as reading is. Writing of works in the ancient world is not that different from the modern world. Most people do not publish works on their first drafts (except for those of us who decide to publish on blog sites!). Rather, authors usually present portions of their work to colleagues who provide feedback. Further, peer editing is frequently done. There is no suggestion that the sending out the work to be edited is “publishing” it. Rather, publishing is not done until after the feedback is given (often a number of times), it is presented to a company who oversees it and even sends out some “blind” reviewers to provide even more feedback. Writing is clearly a social activity in the modern world.

The ancient world had a generally similar practice. Johnson points out that in these elite literary circles authors could read out their own work. Authors could then get feedback on the work and would rewrite based on that feedback (not unlike a conference paper in the academic world).[17] Starr goes a step farther and discusses the type of peer review an author used – through friendship networks – to get feedback. He argues that an author would send the work out to some friends with the understanding that it was not a finished work. Instead, the author wanted feedback to rewrite. After that first round, the author would generally then send out a new draft to a larger audience – who were still in the friendship network – again, with the idea that it was not yet finished. Finally, the author would send it out to some very far from his own friendship network (nearly like the “blind review”) and gain feedback. After all of this, then the work was “complete” and “published” – sent to the same people with the idea that it was complete and that the recipients could feel free to copy it and distribute it as they liked.[18]

Through this practice, it is clear that both reading and writing were social acts that involved a large community. It is then fair to expect that the work was relevant to that community and that the feedback one received led an author to make it relevant. It is not, therefore, surprising to find the community’s interest in a work.

When considering religious texts, the community interest can be even further expressed into identity discourse. A religious text developed socially should portray the larger community within the text. Therefore, it should not surprise us to find a community of non-apostolic Christians who hold to something like unto the theology of the cross expressed in the Gospel with the ironic insider/outsider dichotomy wherein the disciples cannot understand Jesus’ works of power or suffering whereas the outsiders (encapsulated in the Centurion) completely understand who Jesus is (despite the type of secrecy that is presented).

Advantages of this approach to the field of Early Christianity

The value of this approach for the study of the New Testament and later literature is that it, as compared with traditional discussions of authorship, pragmatically pushes one into the text rather than distancing oneself from it.   

In the more traditional discussion of authorship of New Testament, one expects all authors to work in the way that Paul seemed to work. Paul wrote letters to real communities which he wrote relatively quickly in order to address particular issues. The assumption seems to be that he wrote them mostly by himself (though the extent to which Sylvanus and Timothy helped is unclear) either through dictation or actually penning them. We are left to assume that he did not write these to present to his friends but rather to address very real issues in churches where he was not present. In fact, most of the letters are merely precursors to his arrival where he will really address the controversies he explains. This type of work would not seem – at least on the surface – to fit with the concept of reading circles expressed by Gamble, Starr, and Johnson.

While Paul’s model works very well for Paul’s letters, there is no indication that any other work in the New Testament should be expected to be written in the same way. For example, the Gospels and Acts are not texts that address particular communities at particular times the way that a letter would. In fact, it is usually assumed that the gospels were written to support one’s own community and their identity. If that is the case, then most all of what Starr and Johnson are presenting would fit nicely into the context of the New Testament.

The Gospels do seem to see themselves as presenting a type of literature that will be edifying for more than a point event of one author’s idea at one time. Further, they seem to be texts that reflect community ideas of the identity of the group. There does seem to be an indication that the gospels were written so that readers could identify themselves in relationship with the story of Christ. Therefore, we should expect that the Gospel of Matthew is written for an audience that is probably a mixed group of Jews and Gentiles who probably follow many aspects of Torah obligation.

The value of this type of analysis is its pragmatism. It has been argued previously that looking for the author of the text pushes one from examining the text and into an apologetic conversation concerning the merits of Christian tradition. While there might be much value in Ecclesiastical tradition (and it surely is an absolutely fascinating study), it is not particularly helpful for considering the meaning of the gospels. For example, whether one thinks that Mark is written by someone who had a relationship with Peter and Paul does not change its meaning. However, considering the texts as documents of a community will push one to look closely at the text itself – not ecclesiastical tradition – for identity discourse.

Some might argue that both activities – considering an author in ecclesiastical tradition and looking for community identity developed in the text take away from the “plain sense” of scripture. While I firmly agree with the former, the latter could be debated. I would present, however, major challenges in how “plain” plain sense of scripture is. In order to understand the text at all, it is necessary to set up an ideological platform. The platform of “what seems to make sense” is the sneakiest of all because it does not admit to using a theoretical background. Here, I am not necessarily arguing that Starr and Johnson’s approach is the best approach to understanding texts in Early Christianity. I am merely arguing that compared with an idea of “authorship,” the social world of writing and reading is better suited to aiding in understanding the actual texts themselves. Any theoretical analysis should be measured by how well it explains the texts at hand and the concept of “reading circles” certainly pushes one further into the text while “authorship” philosophically separates oneself from them.

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[1] My compliments to Alex Kocar – and Will Ferrell – for this title

[2] Raymond J. Starr “Circulation of Literary Texts in the Roman World.” Classical Quarterly, New Series, 37(1), 1987, 213-223.

[3] William A. Johnson, Readers and Reading Culture in the High Roman Empire: A Study of Elite Communities (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010).

[4] Harry Y. Gamble, Books and Readers in the Early Christianity: A History of Early Christian Texts (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1995).

[5] See my previous blog post “Authorship as Remoteness: How the Discussion of Authorship in the New Testament is Distanced from the Study of the Text.”

[6] William Harris FILL IN REST OF CITATION

[7] Catherine Hezser, Jewish Literacy in Roman Palestine (Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001).

[8] Johnson, Readers and Reading Culture, 3-16.

[9] Mary Beard, “Writing in Religion: Ancient Literacy and the function of the written word in Roman religion” in Mary Beard (ed.) Literacy in the Roman World (Ann Arbor: Journal of Roman Archaeology Supplement Series 3, 1991) 35-58.

[10] Augustine, Confessions, 6.3.3.

[11] The common argument that Uncial manuscripts (with no divisions between words) forced one to read out loud as Gamble (203) presents is equally unpersuasive. The idea that an Uncial manuscript could not be understood without sounding it out loud is simply inaccurate. If one looks at an English uncial manuscript, it is certainly possible to read it without speaking aloud. The reader might find that it is easiest to “mouth” the letters, but there is no reason one needs to express them. If this were the case, it would be even more the case that Hebrew consonantal texts would be impossible to express without sounding them out for which there is also no good data that suggests such.

[12] Holt N. Parker “Books and Reading in Latin Poetry” in William A. Johnson and Holt N. Parker (eds.), Ancient Literacies: The Culture of Reading in Greece and Rome (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 186-229.

[13] See Hezser, Jewish Literacy, 190-209.

[14] Martin Jaffee “A Rabbinic Ontology of the Written and Spoken Word: On Discipleship, Transformative Knowledge, and the Living Texts of the Oral Torah” JAAR 65 (1997), 525-549 quoted in Hezser, Jewish Literacy, 203.

[15] See Gamble, Books and Readers.

[16] See Mark A. Chancey, Greco-Roman Culture and the Galilee of Jesus (Cambridge: CUP, 2005).

[17] Johnson, Readers and Reading Culture.

[18] Starr, “Circulation of Literary Texts,” 213-216.