1315487217 (electronic bk.)

9781315487212 (electronic bk.)

1844657310

9781844657315

"For many years it has been recognized that the key to explaining the production of the Bible lies in understanding the profession, the practice and the mentality of scribes in the ancient Near East, classical Greece and the Greco-Roman world. In many ways, however, the production of the Jewish literary canon constitutes an exception because the texts function as the written "word of God", leading in turn to the veneration of scrolls as sacred and even cultic objects in themselves.

"Writing the Bible presents a wide-ranging study of all major aspects of ancient writing and writers. The essays cover the dissemination of texts, book and canon formation, and the social and political effects of writing and of textual knowledge. Central issues discussed include the status of the scribe, the nature of "authorship", the relationship between copying and redacting, and the relative status of oral and written knowlege. The writers examined include Ilimilku of Ugarit, the scribes of ancient Greece, Ben Sira, Galen, Origen and the author of Pseudo-Clement.

BibleWorld

Ilimilku of Ugarit : copyist or creator? / Adrian Curtis

Memory, writing, authority : the place of the scribe in Greek polytheistic practice (sixth to fourth centuries BCE) / Dominique Jaillard

The dissemination of written texts / Philip R. Davies

Genesis : a composition for construing a homeland of the imagination for elite scribal circles or for educating the illiterate? / Diana V. Edelman

The Prophets as scriptural collection and scriptural prophecy during the Second Temple period / Christophe Nihan

From prophet to scribe : Jeremiah, Huldah and the invention of the book / Thomas Römer

Instituting through writing : the letters of Mordecai in Esther 9:20-28 / Jean-Daniel Macchi

The scribe and his class : Ben Sira on rich and poor / Walter J. Houston

Some scribal features of the thematic commentaries from Qumran / George J. Brooke

Efficacious writing : the inscription of the rosette on the High Priest's forehead and the Egyptian reception of Exodus 28 / Charlotte Touati

The prose writer ([syngrapheus]) and the cultures of author and scribes : the examples of Galen and the anonymous author of Luke-Acts / Claire Clivaz

Peter and his secretary in Pseudo-Clement / Frédéric Amsler

On the danger of writing according to Origen / Eric Junod.

Bible > Authorship.

Oral tradition > Mediterranean Region > History.

Written communication > Mediterranean Region > History.