SCRIBES, JEWISH
465
SCRIBES, JEWISH
the law, boasting of their wisdom (Jer, viii, 8). — Smith. See ScKiBics.
As ill ancient times comparatively few could write, this was, in fact, a learned profession. Such ])ersons, evidently official characters, are frequently depicted on the Egj'ptian monuments, as that nation was proverbial for recording everything relating both to public and private life. On tlie Assj-rian monuments they like- wise appear, but less prominently, and only in the later sculptures (Layard, Nineveh, ii, 14t)). In tlie East to-day professional letter-writers may be found in the streets plying their vocation in behalf of the uneducated. See Wkiting.
SCRIBES, Jkjvisii. These persons (called in Ileb. D^"!S"D, sopkerim; Gr. ypai.ifiaTei(;} were originally merely writers or copyists of the law, who followed this business as a mode of livelihood ; but eventually they rose to the rank of a learned profession — becoming the doctors of the law and interpreters of the Scriptures. As such they frequently appear in the New Test., and occasionally in the later booiis of the Old ; and their of- fice gradually became of still more importance after the dissolution of tlie Jewish commonwealth. (The follow- ing article is based upon that of Ginsburg in Kitto's Cyclopadia, with large additions from other sources.)
The prominent position occupied by tlie scribes in the Gospel history would of itself make a knowledge of their life and teaching essential to any clear conception of our Lord's work. It was by their influence that the later form of Judaism had been determined. Such as it was when the " new doctrine" was first proclaimed, it had become through them. Far more than priests or Le- vites, they represented the religious life of the people. On the one hand, we must know what they were in or- der to understand the innumerable points of contrast presented by our Lord's acts and words. On the other, we must not forget that there were also, inevitably, points of resemblance. Opposed as his teaching was, in its deepest princiiiles, to theirs, he was yet, in the eyes of men, as one of their order — a scribe among scribes, a rabbi among rabbins (John i, 49; iii, 2; vi, 25, etc. Comp. Schottgen, llur. Heb. ii, " Christus Rabbino- rum Sum m us").
The rise, progress, and influence of the Jewish doctors and interpreters of the law are properly divided into five distinct periods, which are indicated by the special ap- pellations under which they were designated in succes- sive times.
I. The SopiiERiir, 07' '■^ Scribes" properlij so called. — 1. The Name and its Signijicafion. — In the earlier rec- ords of the Old Test, the name Sopher ("Eb, participle of "ISO, (o lorite, to count') is given to officers of state whose functions were to write the king's letters, draw up his decrees (2 Kings xii, 10; 2 Chron. xxiv, 11), and to number and write down the military forces as well as the prisoners (Judg.v, 14; 2 Kings xxv, 19; Isa. xxxiii, 18 ; Jer. Hi, 25). As learning was intimately connected with the art of writing, and as these two accomplish- ments were always associated together in ancient days, these scribes occupied a distinguished position. Hence they are mentioneil side by side with the high-priest and the captain of the host (2 Kings xii, 10; 2 Chron. xxiv, 11) ; and hence, too, the term Sopher (~iSD) be- came in the post-exile period the honorable appellation of one who copied the law for himself or others, one skilled in the divine lair, an interpreter of the Script- ures (Jer. viii, 8; Ezra vii, 6, 12; Neh. viii, I,etc.). The authority of most Hebrew scholars is with this etymol- ogy of the word (Gesen. s. v.). Ewald, however '{Poet. Biich. i, 12G), takes "SO as equivalent to i;E'iJ, "a judge."
In their anxiety to preserve the text of Holy Writ
as well as to point out the import of its injunctions,
these scribes counted every letter and classitied every
precept of the law. To indicate this, the Talmud, in
IX.-G o
accordance with its general practice always to deduce from the name the various actions of the man, derives the appellation sopher from "iSD, to count, maintaining that this name was given to those who counted the letters of the law {Kiddush. 30 a), as well as from "lED, to num- ber, to arrange, to classify, submitting that the name was also given to them because they classified the precepts of Scripture (Jerus. Shekulim, v, 1). They had ascer- tained that the central letter of the whole law was the rav of "pns in Lev. xi, 42, and wrote it accordingly in a larger character (Lightfoot, On Lule x). They count- ed up, in like manner, the precepts of the law that an- swered to tlie number of Abraham's servants or Jacob's descendants.
The Greek equivalent answers to the derived, rather than the original, meaning of the word. The ypafifia- TEvg of a Greek state was not the mere writer, but the keeper and registrar, of public documents (Thucyd. iv, 118; vii, 10; so in Acts xix, 35). The scribes of Jerusa- lem were, in like manner, the custodians and interpreters of the yp«/(/inrrt upon which the p( lity of the nation rested. Other words applied to the same class are found in the New Test. Nojuikoi appears in Matt, xxii, 35; Luke vii, 30 ; x, 25 ; xiv, 3 ; voj-ioSiSuffKaXoi in Luke v, 17; Acts v, 34. Attempts have been made, but not very successfulh', to reduce the several terms to a clas- sification. All that can be said is that ■ypnfii.tartvc ap- pears the most generic term ; that in Luke xi, 45 it is contrasted with vo/iikuq ; that vofiocicdcjicaXoc, as in Acts V, 34, seems the highest of the three. Josephus (^Anf, xvii, 6, 2) paraphrases the technical word by t^i]- ■yi]Tai vofiiov. Lightfoot's arrangement, though con- jectural, is worth giving {[larm. § 77). The " scribes," as such, were those who occupied themselves with the Mikra. Next above them were the " lawyers," students of the Rlishna, acting as assessors, though not voting in the Sanhedrim. The "doctors of the law" were ex- pounders of the Gemara, and actual members of the Sanhedrim. (Comp. Carpzov, App. Crit. i, 7 ; Leusden, F'hil. Hebr. c. 23; Leyrer, in Herzog's Real-EnctjUop. s. V. " Schriftgelehrte.")