WuMo by Wulff & Morgenthaler for March 14, 2019

You’ll be told what it says and ask no questions!

Let the Smiteing commence!

What makes this funny is that those nomads really could not read.

And thus is why he smashed the tablets.

If you can’t read how do you know they’re awesome?

enter the priestly caste…

And it all comes full circle.

Good point! Which provides evidence that the biblical account of the story originated in literary traditions many centuries after the age it describes.

No problem. I also have the audio tapes version.

Who someone who can’t read say “FYI”?

Ooooh, this one is the funniest gag today!

“None” of them? Surely not. Moses was well educated at least, and I doubt he was alone. These were not “nomads”—not yet, anyway. They had lived in Egypt, and while many or most were forced labor, some were overseers who had to keep records. I suspect that the underclass was illiterate, while the much smaller elite (males only, sorry) would have had a better chance at literacy. Say perhaps 10% overall.

The problem is that attempts to figure literacy rates in such a case are sheer guesswork. I think my guess is better educated than yours, but it’s guess against guess.

But just for laughs, let’s assume 1% literacy—Moses, the priests, and the main leaders. It still wouldn’t disprove the biblical text. This was an oral cultural, and they are supremely good at accurately transmitting large blocks of information over long periods. Orality could have kept things going until literacy could back it up.

Maybe that’s the reason some folks are saying that Moses actually wrote the first books of the Bible which had been passed down verbally only up until God gave him the gift of the written word on those tablets.