they were treasured, hand written works of art...you couldn't get them on amazon, and if they existed at all, it was within a very limited source....the average "man on the street" had no access to them at all......and by the way, he didn't know of them nor did he care.
“they were treasured, hand written works of art...you couldn’t get them on amazon, and if they existed at all, it was within a very limited source....the average “man on the street” had no access to them at all......and by the way, he didn’t know of them nor did he care. “
I can only assume you make this stuff up, since you can’t prove or support any of it. Even worse, you don’t even try.
I’m especially eager to see proof of your mind-reading of the “average man on the street”! Bring it on!
Now you're telling us what the average man on the street was thinking?
For real? And you know THAT how? Did you travel back in time and ask them? Were you there?
Or did some ghost from the past visit you and enlighten you?
Could you please provide the source for your information?
I think you are flying by the seat of your pants here. Haven't you ever heard of LIBRARIES? The Library of Alexandria is a good example:
Plutarch (AD 46–120) wrote that during his visit to Alexandria in 48 BC Julius Caesar accidentally burned the library down when he set fire to his own ships to frustrate Achillas' attempt to limit his ability to communicate by sea.[3] After its destruction, scholars used a "daughter library" in a temple known as the Serapeum, located in another part of the city.
The Library at Alexandria was charged with collecting all the world's knowledge, and most of the staff was occupied with the task of translating works onto papyrus paper. It did so through an aggressive and well-funded royal mandate involving trips to the book fairs of Rhodes and Athens According to Galen, books were taken off of every ship that came into port, and were listed as "books of the ships". Official scribes then swiftly copied these writings, some copies proving so precise that the originals were put into the library, and the copies delivered to the unsuspecting owners. This process also helped to create a reservoir of books in the relatively new city. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_Alexandria
As long as there has BEEN a written language, there have been writings of all types. Those writings by ancients such as Aristotle, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Homer and Aristotle were housed in the Library of Alexandria. There were also many other great libraries of the ancient world which served as archives for empires, sanctuaries for sacred writings, and depositories of literature and chronicles. They included Syria, Iraq, Iran, Indian subcontinent, Africa, Greece and Rome. This so-called "man on the street" certainly had the availability of literature if he resided in these ancient cities. I think you're assuming the people of those times had no need for writing and reading, but you have no real evidence to prove it. Even lowly fishermen needed at least minimal abilities to record things and to be able to add and subtract.
I think you are selling ancient mankind short by insisting they were mostly illiterate. If you need to do this in order to prop up the Catholic Church as the best thing since sliced bread for the educated masses, you will have to ignore quite a bit of objective history.