When was the Bible written? Why was it written? These questions strike at the heart of the meaning of the Bible as literature. They also hint at a profound transition in human culture. The Bible is a book. That seems like an obvious statement, but it is also a profound development in religion. We may take books for granted, but the ancients did not. The fact that a sacred, written text emerged from a pastoral, agricultural, and oral society is a watershed of Western civilization. In the pages that follow we will explore the movement from orality to textuality, from a pre-literate toward a literate society. Along the way we will need to trace the social history of ancient Israel and early Judaism as well as the formation of the Bible as written literature. The Bible itself will be an eyewitness to this epic shift in human consciousness, the shift from an oral world toward a textual world. Central to this shift will be the encroachment of the text upon the authority of the teacher.

How did the Bible become a book? This book – the book that you hold in your hands – gives a historical account of writing in ancient Israel and of writing's role in the formation of the Bible as a book.