What would the role of the written word be as Judaism and Christianity emerged in the first centuries? As a way of concluding, I would like to reflect on the relationship between oral tradition and written text in the formation of Judaism and Christianity. Although the heart of this book has been its look at the early development of writing and texts in ancient Israel and at the relationship of writing and these texts to the formation of the Hebrew Bible, it seems worthwhile to suggest how this textualization played out in the formative period for Judaism and Christianity.

Textualization is among the great cultural developments of the first millennium of the Common Era. For instance, textualization certainly is one of the more fascinating aspects in the rise of Islam. In fact, the expression “people of the book” came out of Islam to refer to itself, Judaism, and Christianity. Moreover, in Veda and Torah: Transcending the Textuality of Scripture (1996), Barbara Holdrege has reflected on textuality in the Hindu and Jewish traditions during the first millennium c.e. The Vedas were transmitted orally for many centuries. They were transmitted orally not because writing was unknown among the Hindus, but because of the primacy of orality.

Indeed, the concept of the sacred and authoritative written word is already attested in the last books of the Hebrew Bible written in the Persian period.