Teaching Series 1 - About the Bible
Part 3: Stationery Then and Now
 he Bible did not spring forth in
its present written form. Several things had to happen in
cultural development, not to mention God's plan. First, humans
had to agree to keep records of important happenings. The
oral tradition was most likely the first system; indeed, we experience
this tradition today. Think about the successful TV ads; the ones
you wish you could forget.
But the written tradition is the one
with which we will concern ourselves. The oldest evidence of
written record-keeping is the cave wall drawing. The drawings that have
been found range from stick figures to full illustrations. Some
researchers have even been able to read stories from beginning to end
in these drawings. This pictograph kind of drawing became both
more abstract and more standardized when employed by the
Egyptians. The Egyptians used their system to remember everything
from the lives and deaths of their rulers to how much date-beer each
pyramid worker was allowed each day. The sophistication of
hieroglyphs advanced the symbols to standardized meanings that we can
think of as words today.
While the Egyptians of the Nile were
developing hieroglyphics, the Sumerians of the Tigris and Euphrates
were developing a very abstract system that we call cuneiform
writing. Cuneiform is a series of short straight lines in
standardized patterns pressed into wet clay and then left to dry.
Both the Egyptians and the Sumerians figured out that carrying large
stones and large mud bricks around was not efficient, and the Egyptians
developed a method of fashioning flat reeds of papyrus into sheets and
then scrolls.
Following the idea of scrolls, either
the Canaanites or the Phoenicians invented the alphabet as a merchant
code. It was not very good as a secret code: turn the
"A" upside down and it is a pictograph of an ox. The code became a
standard of writing that allowed more complicated ideas and stories to
be kept in writing. All of the earliest writings of the Law, the
Torah, were on scrolls of papyrus or on scrolls of cleaned animal skins
sown together. Scrolls are used today in synagogues. Later,
Europeans who wanted something like papyrus but had no reeds developed
a method of making "paper" out of cloth rags pressed and dried into
sheets.
The first time we find anything that
resembles the book is when the Romans developed the codex. A
codex is some form of tablet or tablets sown together with leather
thongs. When paper was introduced in sheets and sewn together,
the results were known as codices. Until the discovery of the Dead Sea
Scrolls, European codices were the oldest forms of the Bible. The
monks who created each codex by hand used their abilities to glorify
God by adding beautifully illustrated scenes and intricate hand
printing to show God's plan in the most pleasing form imaginable.
All things written were written by
hand and were very expensive. The expense meant that only the
rich and those sponsored by the rich had access to writings. Then
Gutenburg exploited the idea of movable type (the Chinese invented it)
and began printing books so that I could use this computer to write
this for you.
Next time: About the Bible - Context and Prooftext
To God be the glory,
Jude Moore,
judemoore7@aol.com
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