>>21480132>Until very recent centuries, most men have been illiterate; most are barely literate.Yes, and most religions don’t worship a book that most people couldn’t read. Most people worshipped the sun and sky and shit because they could see it and it actually affected their life. That was what Yahweh was originally, the god of weather or whatever.
>Non sequitur.Cope. Much of the priesthood could barely comprehend the Canaanite fairytales they were reading. It would be hard enough in their native tongue, let alone using a dead language to read translations of translations. The Old Testament is already rather incomprehensible at points. Add in all the subtext that’s lost when not reading in Hebrew/Koine/Aramic plus all the cultural anecdotes at the time. The Bible often makes tongue-in-cheek comments that would make perfect sense for someone in the first century Middle East, but leaves modern readers befuddled without outside context. One such is the Pharisees looking to stone the adulterous woman, a crime that requires two outside witnesses. The Pharisees were either lying, watched this woman get her cheeks clapped, or were fucking her themselves. That’s a lot of context that isn’t immediately caught to someone who doesn’t understand the Hebrew legal system.
