Because you really have to invent a "Hellenistic" period in the Middle East long tiime before it was there. In the Hellenistic and later Hellenistic-Roman period, you had everything going, with Alexandria and its "university" as the centre. I am speaking about the Museion, and the library that was part of that institution.
And if you want to know a little more about this literature was circulated to ordinary people, read the three articles by Lisa Marie Haasbroek in SJOT 2022, and 2024 (just out). And think for a moment what you find in practical all vcities of this time: The theatre (personally I have visited at least fifty to sixty of these). The great advantage was that these stories became known to everybody and was not limited to the literate part of the population.
You simply have no Sitz im Leben for the kind of literature you find in the Bible before the Greeks arrived.
Because you really have to invent a "Hellenistic" period in the Middle East long tiime before it was there. In the Hellenistic and later Hellenistic-Roman period, you had everything going, with Alexandria and its "university" as the centre. I am speaking about the Museion, and the library that was part of that institution.
And if you want to know a little more about this literature was circulated to ordinary people, read the three articles by Lisa Marie Haasbroek in SJOT 2022, and 2024 (just out). And think for a moment what you find in practical all vcities of this time: The theatre (personally I have visited at least fifty to sixty of these). The great advantage was that these stories became known to everybody and was not limited to the literate part of the population.
You simply have no Sitz im Leben for the kind of literature you find in the Bible before the Greeks arrived.