This dissertation aims to show how literacy has impacted religion, in particular by examining the invention of the concept of prophecy by Judean scribes around the 6th century B.C.E. Belief in prophecy, which is a form of communication with superhuman agency, has been one of the most persistent in Western religions. I am concerned with the origins of this idea, which for the most part has been understood as an adaptation of the phenomenon of divination, a more general form of communication with superhuman agents that many have argued is a universal human practice. I will focus particularly on the epistemic and ontological conditions set up by literacy within the context of the newly emerging, mobile, scribal class in the ancient Levant. My argument concerns a series of five or six interrelated foci concerning the Hebrew Bible, approached with a methodology that I label cognitive criticism. These concern (1) the hypostasization of the word, (2) the polemic against divination, (3) the polemic against graven images, (4) the transition from dāraš to Midrash, and (5) the end of prophecy.