Significantly, such a political and financial state of affairs would have been more difficult in Persian period Yehud.95 If Amos was relatively well-to-do, involved in commercial activity, and literate to some degree, might he be one of those who could read and write at that time or have the wherewithal to employ a scribe? Perhaps he was a member of a social stratum that scholars, irrespective of their conclusions about the breadth and degree of literacy in ancient Israel, admit might be literate