I should have been a bit more clear. When I was speaking of people having access to the bible, and there being one or at least some of it in each household, I was thinking more of the Jews.
Of course the early gentile Christians probably didn’t have one. But I still believe there was a lot more written copies of scripture then we give credit for. JMO tho, I have no proof, other then how much people were admonished to study scripture, which would have been the OT. Why would the bible tell them too, if they couldn’t??? Doesn’t make sense. And then think of Paul praising Timothy’s mother and grandmother for teaching him scripture....
Becky
The early Christians would have “read” Scripture the way the Jews did, which was to have it read to them. In those times, in any case, people seldom read silently to themselves. Outside of assembles or in schools, there were few books available even to the literate, but as you say, in Roman times books were more readily available than we might think. Someone like Cicero could make a nice living from his writings.
Each Jewish Temple had Scripture - labouriously handwritten and preserved. The Torah couldn’t even be touched directly without a gloved hand - maybe somebody could confirm it, but that was partly so that they would not be worn out as quickly.
The Christians may have had some copies of the Torah, but to think that the NT writings would have been widely distributed even after they were first written down doesn’t really seem likely.
Oh yes, studying.
Look at how the Jews study Scripture. In the temple with a reader. I would take this as instructing Christians to act more like the Jews in their study of the OT (and then as the NT was put together in the 4th century, the NT as well).