When the Bible was chanted by the heralds of God

Who thinks, as he thumbs the closely printed pages, of the time when these words and sentences were not fixed in cold print but chanted or intoned to audiences by the voices of the heralds of God? ...

To understand properly how the bible arose, we must forget the habits we have acquired as modern men and members of a paper civilization. Reading and writing have become such automatic operations that it is difficult for us to realize that some societies have been able to manage almost entirely without them. Our memory has become bloodless and barren, and our faculties of improvisation have more to do with mere words and rhetoric than with poetry and prophecy. In ancient Israel, right up to the time of Christ, it was very different. The ability to speak with fluency, art, and a gift for aphorism was the mark of those who today would be "writers." The trained memory was a superb tool. "A good disciple," said the Jewish scribes, "is like a well-made cistern; he does not let a single drop of his master's teaching escape."

Henri Daniel-Rops, What is the Bible?