Though the same in meaning as • Hcribble* (from Lat. teribere to write), it has no conne.xion with that word etjTnologically. Skeat considers it to be a dialectic form of *sorappIe' (a fre- quentative of 'scrape'), of which 'scramble' is a nasalized form. Bunyan uses ' scrabble' in the sense of ' scramble ' (/*/* p. 116, see Venables' note on p. 467), ' Now, after a while, Little- faith came to himself, and getting up, made shift to scrabble on his way.' The modern word 'scrawl,' says Skeat, 'appears to be nothing but a careless form of "scrabble."'
J. HAS'nNGS. SCREECH OWL.— See Owl.
SCRIBES.— 1. Origin and CHARACTERis-ncs.— In the time of our Saviour Jewish piety was largely legalistic and formal. The whole life of a pious Jew was strictly regulated by the Law. The Law was God's greatest gift to Israel ; it was the com- plete revelation of His will and the basis of the covenant into which He had entered with them at Sinai ; in it God had made kno\vn the perfect way of life, binding Himself by its terms to reward both in time and eternity the pious Jew in propor- tion to his observance of its precepts. The Law was therefore the binding norm both of the religious and the moral life. Religion was not a communion of man with God, but a legally correct walk before God. Love of the Law was the essence of piety ; conformity to the Law was the standard and source of all righteousness. The aim and motive of this piety was the hope of reward in the present age and in the age to come (cf. Weber, Jiid. Theol. Iff.).
This legalistic tendency, which dates at least as fsi back as Ezra and Nehemiah, called into exist- ence a class of men who specially devoted them- selves to the study and exposition of the Law. These were the sOphSrim or scribes. The earlier scribes, however, must not be identified in all respects with those of NT times. The latter were mainly jurists ; the former were men of (sacred) letters : copyists, editors, students, and interpreters of Scripture, and more especially of the Law. Ezra, ' the scribe ' par excellence according to Jewish tra- dition, is the great typical form of these earlier scribes or exegetes of the Law (Ezr !'■ "• ", Neh
• We shotild probably emend to Ifi.'^t ' *°*^ he drummed on (the doors).' So Driver, Budde, Ldhr, tt al., (oUowing the LXX in^urtitiZu and Yulg. impingebcU,
gi... 9. 18 i22»->8).» He is described as 'a ready scribe in the law of Moses' (Ezr 7'), i.e. as a man of letters skilful in the Law, and as having ' set hi> heart to seek the law of the Lord, and to do it, and to teach in Israel statutes and judgments' (v.'"). This description of their activity doubtless aijplies in the main to Ezra's immediate successors. They occupied themselves in gathering together and elaborating Israel's sacred literature, in inter- preting it to the common people, who were largely Ignorant of Hebrew, and in making the Law the rule of faith and life.t But down to the Macca- baean period their obedience to the Law was not synonymous with the narrowness of later Judaism (see Wildeboer, Die Spriiche, xvi). They were the ' wise,' the ' men of understanding,' the ' just men' of Proverbs and Ecclesiasticus (cf. Sir 6^*' 91411. i4a)ff. 382J-391IS, Dn ll**-" 12^). It would seem from 1 Ch 2" that they tended to form themselves into guilds and families.
Like Ezra himself (Ezr 7" etc.), the scribes were originally found among the priests and Levites (cf. Neh 8'- ", 2 Ch 34"). But pious ' laymen ' also naturally devoted themselves to the professional study of the Law, so that there was gradually formed, alongside of the priests, who were the official interpreters of the Law, a relatively independent class of scribes. During the Greek period this independence developed into opposition, not indeed to the priesthood generally, but to the priestly aristocracy, several of whom fell away to Hellenism and neglected the laws and customs of the fathers. The attempt of Antiochus Epiphanes to suppress the Jewish religion brought matters to a crisis. It increased the scribes' devotion to the Law, and made them more narrow and exclusive. It also greatly increased their reputation among the people as being the leaders of those who were zealous tor the Law (cf. 1 Mac 7'^' for their connexion with the Hasidaeans), and as men who were ready to sutler martyrdom for their faith, ' welcoming death with renown rather than life with pollution ' (2 Mac 6"*"^'). The issue of the Maccabee rising in the Hasmonoean State intensified their narrow- ness and exclusiveness ; they became Pharisees. Under John HjTcanus (Kuenen), or more probably under Alexandra Salome (Wellhausen), their leaders received a seat in the Sanhedrin, as a separate class, alongside of the chief priests and elders. They thus gained a kind of official position, and assumed a new character. From being men of sacred letters, they became mainly jurists. Amid aU the changes that followed the downfall of the Hasmonaean dynasty down to the destruction of Jerusalem, although they were never in possession of political power, they were the real leaders of the people, sucn as we find them in the time of our Saviour.