THE NEW SCHALF-HERZOG
oe —_
yielded such fruits as the oriental series of the Paleeographical Society, drawn up under his editorship, and contributions to the lexical works of Payne Smith in Syriac, of Dozy in Arabic, and of Neubauer in Hebrew. He was an eminent teacher. He edited the book of Jonah in four Semitic versions (1857); Fragments of the Curetonian Gospels (1872); Fragments of the Homilies of Cyril of Alexandria on the Gospel of S. Luke (1874); translated and edited Caspari’s Grammar of the Arabic Language (2 vols., London, 1859-62); collected and edited Opuscula
Arabica (Leyden, 1859); and with English translation and notes Contributions to the Apocryphal Literature of the New Testament (London, 1865); edited and translated A pocryphal Acts of the Apostles (2 vols., 1871); edited with English translation and notes The Chronicle of Joshua the Stylite (1882); and wrote Lectures on thé Comparative Grammar of the Semitic Languages (Cambridge, 1890); and A Short History of Syriac Literature (London, 1894).
Brsuiocrapuy: R. WK. Bensly, in Journal of the Royal Astatic Society, 1889, pp. 708 saqq.; DNB, Ixiii, 138-139.
WRITING AND THE ART OF WRITING, HEBREW.
I. The Biblical Statements. Statements Implying Early Use of Writing (§ 1). The Materials Employed (§ 2). II. Information from Other Sources. III. The North Semitic and Early Hebrew Script.
I. The Biblical Statements: For an acquaintance of the Hebrews with the art of writing in the period before Moses there are no direct testimonies. Though on the signet of Judah (Gen. xxxviii. 18)
was engraved probably some pictorial
1. State- representation, the account in Gen.
ments Im- xxiii. of the transaction before witplying Early nesses between Abraham and Ephron Use of can only by employing the argument Writing. from silence be used against the idea of the possession by the Hebrews of the
knowledge of writing. The old name of the city of Debir was Kirjath-sepher (Josh. xv. 15-16; Judges i. 11-12; Septuagint, Kariassophar, Egyptian Bait tupar [the rendering of this is disputed: it has been interpreted ‘“‘Book-town,” and the claim founded thereupon that writing was widely diffused in Palestine and that books were numerous; the Septuagint suggests rather the rendering ‘town of the scribe,”’ and this conveys a directly opposite meaning]). The “officers’’ of the Hebrews in Egypt (Ex. v. 6) are called in Hebrew shotarim; in Assyrian and Arabic the root of this word has the meaning “to write,” and the corresponding noun in Aramaic carries the meaning “document.” But does this involve anything regarding the employment of this art among the Hebrews of that period? At any rate, if writing was diffused as an art among the Hebrews of the time of Moses, it can not be reckoned a new invention. Moses wrote matter that was legal (Ex. xxiv. 4, 7 [in the E record], xxxiv. 27; Deut. xxxi. 9, 24), and historical (Ex. xvii. 24 [E]; Numbers xxxiii. 2 [P]); the Song of Moses (Deut. xxxi. 22; cf. also Num. xvii. 2). The priests wrote (Num. v. 23 [P]) the imprecation in the water of Ordeal (q.v., § 7); and according to Deuteronomy (vi. 9, xi. 20, xxiv. 1, 3) others wrote. The engraving of names and other words on stone and metal is mentioned (Ex. xxviii. 9, 36 [P]). Joshua is recorded as having written the law of Moses (Josh. viii. 32), as having the land of Canaan described in a book for purposes of allotment (xvii. 6, 8, 9), and himself ag writing certain matters in the book of the law of God at the assembly of the people at Shechem (xxiv. 26). In the period of the Judges the ability to use writing must have been common, for a youth caught by chance was able to give in writing to
_ North Semitic Script (§ 1). Development of the Alphabet (§ 2). IV. Aramaic Varieties of Writing and the Hebrew Square Character The Older Forms (§ 1).
Development of the Square Char-
acters (§ 2).
Sacredness of the Square Char-
acter (§ 3).
Documentary Testimony to He-
brew Script (§ 4).
Printed Documents (§ 5).
Gideon the names of seventy-seven of the princes and elders of the city (Judges viii. 14, margin). According to I Sam. x. 25 Samuel wrote down the “law of the kingdom.” Poems like those in Num. xxi. and Judges v. were certainly set down in writing at an early period; in Num. xxi. 14 are some lines of a poem cited from ‘‘the book of the wars of the Lord”; citations are made from ‘the book of Jasher”’ in Josh. x. 13; I] Sam. i. 18, 19; and I Kings viii. 538 (according to the Septuagint—cf. J. C. Matthes in ZATW, 1903, p. 121, who would read in all three passages ‘‘book of the ode” instead of “book of Jasher,”’ the difference being in the transposition of two letters). Consequently the assertion of T. T. Hartmann, W. Vatke, and P. von Bohlen is not defensible that not until shortly before Solomon, or even later, was the art of writing an accomplishment of the Hebrews. From the regal period there are numerous testimonies to the application of writing both in public and in private life; such are the letter concerning Uriah (II Sam. x1. 14), the letters of Jezebel concerning Naboth (I Kings xxi. 8, 11); the letters of commendation for Naaman to the king of Israel (II Kings v. 5 sqq.); the roll of Isaiah in Isa. vill. 1 sqq.; the letter from the Assyrian to Hezekiah (Isa. xxxvii. 14), and of Merodach-baladan to the same (Isa. xxxix. 1); that from Huram of Tyre to Solomon (II Chron. ii. 11); witness of the purchase of a piece of land (Jer. xxxii. 10); and the recording of accusations (Job xiii. 26, xxxi. 35). Not altogether clear is the activity of the royal officers called scribes, as under David (II Sam. viii. 17), Solomon (I Kings iv. 3), Hezekiah (II Kings xviii. 18, 37, xix. 2), and Josiah (II Kings xxii. 3); apparently their duty was to keep the archives and prepare the correspondence of the king; while according to II Kings xii. 11 the scribe had the oversight of the money applied to the restoration of the temple. From Isa. x. 19 it appears that in the time of that prophet a child could write.
The material upon which men generally wrote was probably papyrus (II John 12). To be sure, this is not affirmed in the Old Testament; but just as little testimony exists to the employment (assumed by many) of dressed skins. Certainly the Septuagint is right in so translating chartion and chartés in Jer. xxxvi. (Septuagint xliii.), for it has been