Letters inscribed on pottery, known as ostracons, which were unearthed in an excavation of a fort in Arad, Israel, and dated to about 600 B.C., shortly before Nebuchadnezzar's destruction of Jerusalem. Credit Michael Cordonsky/Israel Antiquities Authority
The New testament was written 50 to 110 years after the Resurrection.
..., the researchers concluded that at least six different hands had written the 18 missives at around the same time.
The fort itself was only about half an acre in size, and probably would have accommodated about 30 soldiers.
But if the literacy rates in the Arad fortress were repeated across the kingdom of Judah, which had about 100,000 people, there would have been hundreds of literate people...
Wouldn’t that at least be ‘thousands’ even if only one of the writers was assumed to be local? Tens of thousands, if 6 of 30.
