"... the Bible’s own descriptions of text production feature a world where texts are generally written down from dictation for subsequent recitation and reference. (Fishbane notes possible echoes in Deuteronomy 4:2 and 13:1 (also compare Proverbs 30:6), of a Mesopotamian formula regarding exact copying—“not adding to or subtracting”—that is found in the Erra epic, a tradition that itself appears to have been transmitted through visual copying. Such claims of and exhortations to exact transmission, however, also have parallels in oral tradition) Oral vocalization aided the internalization of such texts by a literate elite, and this elite then could perform such texts (possibly still using a written copy) for a broader, illiterate populace. Thus, long-duration Israelite texts, like their counterparts in Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Greece, were transmitted dually—in written media and in the minds and hearts of those who had ingested them ..."

Carr, David McLain Writing on the Tablet of the Heart: Origins of Scripture and Literature (p. 160) Oxford University Press, 2005