Free Republic

On the Roman Empire’s cold and rainy northern frontier, in what is now Britian, sat the fort of Vindolanda. Beginning in 1973, excavators there began to find waterlogged tablets and fragments of tablets covered with Roman cursive writing. Once conserved and deciphered, the tablets provided rare details of the daily life and workings of the fort -- lists of necessary supplies, including bacon, oysters, and honey; a letter to a soldier from home saying that more socks, sandals, and underwear have been sent; and descriptions of the native Britons the Romans came into contact with. Among the tablets -- the...

Literacy in the Time of Jesus Could His Words Have Been Recorded in His Lifetime? Sidebar: Writing Tablets Sidebar: Priceless Garbage How likely is it that someone would have written down and collected Jesus’ sayings into a book in Jesus’ lifetime? Several lines of evidence converge to suggest it is quite probable. The first factor to consider is how prevalent literacy was in Jesus’ time. Full literacy means being able to read and write proficiently, but degrees of literacy vary; people who can read, for example, may not be able to write. A common view is that of W.H....