Friday, August 27, 2021

Writing and scribes in ancient Israel

THE ANCIENT NEAR EAST TODAY: From Texts to Scribes: Evidence for Writing in Ancient Israel (Philip Zhakevich).
But what about the act of writing and the scribal culture that produced written documents? Here we must glance at the occurrences of two words in the biblical text, the verb ‘write’ (katav) and the noun ‘scribe’ (sofer). How much information about writing from the biblical text can we extract while focusing on two words central to the act of writing?
PaleoJudaica has published many posts relevant to this essay.

For the Lachish inscribed ostraca, see here and here and links. For the inscribed Arad ostraca, see here and links. For the inscribed Samaria ostraca, see here.

For the Gezer Calendar, see here and links. For the Siloam Tunnel inscription, see here and links (cf. here). For the Aramaic Tel Dan inscription, see here and links.

For the Balaam inscription from Tel Deir 'Alla (Deir Alla), see here and links. For the Hebrew inscriptions found at Kuntillet Ajrud, see here and here and links.

For the LMLK stamps, see here and links.

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