48 Chris Keith and writing, specifically in conceptions of pedagogical method. For example, Marrou claims, “Writing was taught in the same way as reading” (46). Not all scholars agree, however, on the essential unity of reading and writing acquisition, and alongside some older studies, more recent ones have begun to stress that one cannot equate proficiency in one with proficiency in the other (47). Harris observes, “In some cultures non-writing readers, those possessed of one skill but not the other, have made up a broad spectrum” (48). Cribiore’s work on the school papyri of Greco-Roman Egypt has perhaps dealt the “death blow” to the view that reading and writing were similarly taught and learned (49). Though her studies deserve more detailed attention than the present essay can offer, I would here like to invoke her conclusions (46) H.I. MARROU, A History of Education in Antiquity (London 1956) 155. (47) See A. EDERSHEIM, Sketches of Jewish Social Life. Updated Edition (Peabody, MA 1994), 111-112, 122; R.L. FOX, “Literacy and Power in Early Christianity”, Literacy and Power in the Ancient World (eds. A.K. BOWMAN – G. WOOLF) (Cambridge 1994) 128-129; M.D. GOODMAN, “Texts, Scribes, and Power in Roman Judea”, in Literacy and Power, 99-100; HEZSER, Jewish Literacy, 474- 495; M.C.A. MACDONALD, “Literacy in an Oral Environment”, Writing and Ancient Near Eastern Society. Papers in Honour of Alan R. Millard (eds. P. BIENKOWSKI – C. MEE – E. SLATER) (JSOTSup 426; London 2005) 52-56, 65; A. MILLARD, Reading and Writing in the Time of Jesus (Biblical Seminar 69; London 2001) 154. Morgan (Literate Education, 92-93) moves from this observation to argue that, since reading was taught before writing, the educational environment was inherently hierarchical, since a student would always “be able to understand more than he could articulate for himself” (93). (48) HARRIS, Ancient Literacy, 5. In the same paragraph, Harris offers this caveat: “We shall certainly have to be on guard for the possibility that the difference between reading and writing levels was actually very great among the Greeks and Romans. There is, however, no especial reason to think that those who could truly read and truly not write were numerous” (emphasis original). However, he alludes to the difference between the two again when he claims that the fact that there was much reading material in the ancient world “must not lead us to the assumption that the majority of city-dwellers were able to read for themselves . . . still less to the assumption that they could write” (14; emphasis added; for similar statements see 176, 275, 276, 302). MEIER (A Marginal Jew I, 255) reads Harris along these lines, and a number of other scholars implicitly reference the difference between reading and writing in the ancient world with similar statements. For example, GAMBLE, “Literacy and Book Culture”, 645; LEMAIRE, “Writing”, 6.1005; T. THATCHER, Why John Wrote a Gospel. Jesus – Memory – History (Louisville, KY 2006) xv. (49) R. CRIBIORE, Gymnastics of the Mind. Greek Education in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt (Princeton 2001). This text is a revision of her earlier Writing, Teachers, and Students in Graeco-Roman Egypt (ASP 36; Atlanta, GA 1996).