On Dave the Potter, a Literate Slave in Edgefield SC, and Anti-Literacy Laws (3/25/26)

Persons interested in the history of Greenwood SC probably already know that “Greenwood County was formed in 1897 from portions of Abbeville and Edgefield counties,” Wikipedia, here. This segues into today’s post on Dave the Potter inspired by Their Ancestor Was an Enslaved Potter. They Are Battling to Recover His Legacy (New York Times 3/25/26), here gift article. The featured artist in the article is Dave the Potter who was a slave in Edgefield County SC and a respected potter whose works are now in the 21^st Century gathering more attention. See e.g., this YouTube video titled Hear Us Now: Poets Respond to Hear Me Now: The Black Potters of Old Edgefield, South Carolina, here. Dave the Potter was inducted in the South Carolina Hall of Fame. See e.g., YouTube video titled Dave the Potter | South Carolina Hall of Fame, here.

As an aside, Gemini (Google’s AI Tool) says that Dave the Potter did not live and create his pottery in the portion of Edgefield SC split off into Greenwood SC.

One interesting fact is that Dave the Potter could read and write at a time when it was a crime to teach slaves to read and write. I asked Gemini (Google’s AI Tool) “Why did some southern states prohibit teaching slaves to read and write?” The response Gemini offered was:

Thoughts on Bart Ehman's Book Love Thy Neighbor (3/22/26)

Since Friday, Irene and I have attended sessions at the Virginia Festival of the Book here in Charlottesville. Yesterday, we went to a Bart Ehrman event. Bart Ehrman, Wikipedia here, is a prominent biblical scholar. Wikipedia opens with: “Bart Denton Ehrman (born October 5, 1955) is an American New Testament scholar whose research focuses on the textual criticism of the New Testament, the historical Jesus, and the origins and development of early Christianity.” I have been a fan of Ehrman’s for many years and have read many of his books.

Yesterday’s event was titled “Love Thy Neighbor.” As often with such events, the speaker was promoting a book: Love Thy Stranger: How the Teachings of Jesus Transformed the Moral Conscience of the West, here. The central claim of this book, as Professor Ehrman presented it, is that Jesus’ message was a radical departure from the Hebrew religion in the Second Temple period in which Jesus preached/taught. That central claim does not sound right to me. My background is that I have spent inordinate amounts of time on the Hebrew Bible, principally the Torah, through over 20 years of attending weekly Torah Study. At the end of the event, I told Professor Ehrman that I think he overstates his claim; in effect that he gave Jesus too much credit, that Jesus was a Jew, and that Jesus just spun the Torah as Jesus understood it. I think what Jesus did do through a process of spinning by his followers over the years to make the Hebrew Bible message palatable to non-Jews. But in terms of core moral imperatives, there is and has been more likeness than difference between Jews and Christians. In that sense, the radical message was in the Hebrew Bible.

This morning, I submitted the issue to Microsoft CoPilot AI tool. CoPilot answers in the first person ("I"). (I leave the font and presentation as presented in CoPilot; also, the only source I cited was Erhman's book; the CoPilot results are consistent with the scholarship of which I am aware):

Here is a clear, scholarly critique of Bart Ehrman’s claim in Love Thy Stranger that Jesus “expanded” the Hebrew Bible’s ethic by universalizing love of the stranger. I’ll ground the critique in mainstream biblical scholarship and in the Hebrew Bible’s own legal and ethical traditions, and I’ll use the sources you provided.

⭐ Summary Critique

Ehrman is right that Jesus radicalized the practice of enemy‑love and unconditional altruism, but he overstates the discontinuity with the Hebrew Bible. The Torah already commands love for the gēr (resident alien) without ethnic or religious qualification, and Second Temple Judaism already contained universalist strands. Jesus intensifies, dramatizes, and prioritizes these themes—but he does not invent them.

1. What Ehrman Claims

From the publisher’s summary and his public comments, Ehrman argues:

• The Hebrew Bible’s “love your neighbor” ethic was inward‑facing, focused on one’s own community.
• Jesus introduced a new, revolutionary obligation to love strangers and enemies unconditionally.
• This ethic transformed Western moral consciousness.

This is the thesis critics on his blog are responding to.

GHS 60 Alumni Reunion on June 8, 2026 (3/16/26)

To the Greenwood High School Class of 1960 Alumni:

After last year’s successful reunion, a decision was made to have another reunion this year. The reunion will be on June 8, 2026, at Port Grill on Lake Greenwood, here (formerly the Dock) starting at 4:30 pm. There will be a $15 per person charge that covers food. Drinks will be separately charged and paid.

For planning purposes, it will be helpful for those intending to advise  in advance if you plan to attend. You can do that by emailing me at jack@tjtaxlaw.com and I will forward it to the Pat Henderson Brooks who is the principal mover on this reunion.

Typewriting (aka Typing) War Stories (1/30/26)

I just communicated with a GHS60 Alumnus about my typewriting journey, started in HS at the insistence of my mother who was a secretary. Here is the communication, somewhat pared down:

I took typing in HS, I believe it was called personal typing. I got reasonably proficient. 

After HS, I went in the Army and had one other opportunity to develop my typing skills. I joined the Army Reserve with 12 classmates from GHS. We were offered the opportunity to stay together for the six months of active duty for training (Basic and some advanced) if we agreed to go into Advanced Infantry Training (AIT). So, my mother responded to a Colonel who wrote a serial form-type letter to all parents about what training we were getting. She responded on Office of the President stationery because she was the secretary for the President of Abney Mills. (Not only did the stationery say that, but in fact my mother shared the same physical office as the President and did that for the 20+ years she was there.) In any event, the Colonel must have thought I was important, because he came out into the field to meet me during Basic Training. I had no idea why he did that, but he did ask whether I might prefer going into some other Army specialty such as clerk typist rather than AIT. I declined, saying that I wanted to stay with my buddies in AIT. If I had accepted that offer, I would have honed my typing skills beyond the high school experience.

I also took typing in college in the business school at USC (after going on active duty in the Army in 1960). Just one semester. As I recall, I was the only male in the class, so that was a positive. I may have marginally increased my typing skills in that class.

So, I came out of college as a reasonable typist. 

While in college, I did Army Reserve duty in Columbia with a JAG unit. About the only typing I did was to type up the paperwork for my promotions for the Colonel to sign. 

I also received court reporter training at the Naval Justice School in Rhode Island. Although we used "monkey masks" to repeat into a recorder everything that went on in the mock courtroom, we then had to type up the recording in standard transcript format. Given the rigor of that training, good typing skills were required.

One college anecdote. At USC, I was a history major requiring a senior thesis. In the history department, the senior thesis was a big deal. I consulted with my favorite history teacher about the topic; that teacher then reviewed the thesis, including three or maybe four rounds of drafts. (He was a very exacting professor who worked hard and expected his students to work hard as well.) I turned in my first draft in handwriting. I went to his office for the review. I knocked on the door. He asked me to come in, close the door, and sit down. As I was closing the door and sitting down, he asked me “Mr. Townsend, do you know what I think of when I see sloppy handwriting?” I responded “No, sir.” He said “A sloppy mind.” I got the point.  (Actually given the tone of his question, I could have made a good guess; but as a side note, he had already graded me A on two examinations I took in handwriting, so he must have gotten over my horrible handwriting.) My later drafts were typewritten. My thesis won the outstanding senior thesis award for that year. That award was based on the content, rather than the typewritten presentation, but the typewritten presentation may have helped at the margins.