Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

BOOK

The earliest form of the book in biblical times was the scroll (Heb. mĕgillâ), a document made either from papyrus or leather. The use of papyrus scrolls can be traced to ca. 3200 b.c. in Egypt, and the Israelites likely imported such scrolls for their own writing. After the Exile and by the time of the Dead Sea Scrolls, leather was the favored material for scrolls.

Recent evidence offers glimpses into the production of leather scrolls in the Qumran community. The scribes in the community used scrolls of skin and specially made inks to produce their texts. For these scribes, the materials themselves, the inks and the leather of the scrolls, contained so much power that they ensured the sanctity of the texts themselves. Scribes were required by community rules to use leather for biblical scrolls, but nonbiblical writings have been found on papyrus scrolls. In addition, papyrus scrolls of biblical writings were forbidden by the rabbis: “If it was written with caustic, red dye, or copperas, or on paper (papyrus), of diftera, he had not fulfilled his obligation, but only if it was written in Assyrian writing, on parchment, and with ink.”

One of the great advances of Christianity is the production of the codex book. By the 2nd century a.d., parchment leaves were folded and sewn together, and often bound within a cover, to give the appearance of today’s book. While the earliest codices may have been produced by using single-leaf papyrus sheets, later codices were actually multi-layered sheets of parchment sewn to one another. The earliest known single-leaf papyrus codices were produced in Egypt but were not discovered until the 20th century at Nag Hammadi. The earliest known multi-layered parchment codices — Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Alexandrinus, and Codex Vaticanus — provide the major textual foundations for the NT writings. By the time of Constantine, the book was the standard form of writing.

In the OT and NT the term “book” (Heb. sēper; Gk. biblíon) sometimes refers to a genealogy (Gen. 5:1; Matt. 1:1), royal chronicles (Esth. 6:1), or a law book (Deut. 28:61; Josh. 1:8). Throughout the OT, various “books” are reported to provide the basis of certain biblical accounts. These include the Book of the War of the Lord (Num. 21:14), the Book of Jashar (Josh. 10:13; 2 Sam. 1:18), the Book of the Acts of Solomon (1 Kgs. 11:41), the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel (14:19; 15:31; 2 Kgs. 10:34), the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah (1 Kgs. 14:29; 15:7; 2 Kgs. 8:23), the Book of the Kings of Israel (1 Chr. 9:1; 2 Chr. 20:34), the Book of the Kings of Israel and Judah (27:7; 35:27), the Book of the Kings of Judah and Israel (16:11; 25:26), and the Book of Chronicles (Neh. 12:23). The Bible also mentions various divinely authored books: the book of remembrance (Mal. 3:16), the book of truth (Dan. 10:21), and the book of life (Phil. 4:3; Rev. 3:5; 13:8; 20:12, 15). In the NT the phrase “the books” (Gk. tá biblía) refers not to the entire Bible but to the books of the OT.

Bibliography. H. Y. Gamble, Books and Readers in the Early Church (New Haven, 1995); J. L. Sharpe III and K. Van Kampen, eds., The Bible as Book: The Manuscript Tradition (London, 1998).

Henry L. Carrigan, Jr.

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

BOOK

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)