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Author Schniedewind, William M., author

Title The finger of the scribe : how scribes learned to write the Bible / William M. Schniedewind
Published New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2019]

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Description 1 online resource
Contents The emergence of scribal education in ancient Israel -- Scribal curriculum at Kuntillet 'Ajrud -- Alphabets and acrostics -- From lists to literature -- Letters, paragraphs, and prophets -- Proverbial sayings -- Advanced education -- Epilogue -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index of citations of primary texts -- Index term list
Summary One of the enduring problems in biblical studies is how the Bible came to be written. Clearly, scribes were involved. But our knowledge of scribal training in ancient Israel is limited. William Schniedewind explores the unexpected cache of inscriptions discovered at a remote, Iron Age military post called Kuntillet 'Ajrud to assess the question of how scribes might have been taught to write. Here, far from such urban centers as Jerusalem or Samaria, plaster walls and storage pithoi were littered with inscriptions. Apart from the sensational nature of some of the contents-perhaps suggesting Yahweh had a consort-these inscriptions also reflect actual writing practices among soldiers stationed near the frontier. What emerges is a very different picture of how writing might have been taught, as opposed to the standard view of scribal schools in the main population centers
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes Online resource; title from HTML homepage (Oxford, viewed November 16, 2020)
Subject Scribes, Jewish -- Education -- History
Genre/Form History.
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9780190052492
019005249X
9780190052485
0190052481