Scribal Culture and the Making of the Hebrew BibleHarvard University Press, 15 àÁ.Â. 2009 - 401 ˹éÒ We think of the Hebrew Bible as the Book--and yet it was produced by a largely nonliterate culture in which writing, editing, copying, interpretation, and public reading were the work of a professional elite. The scribes of ancient Israel are indeed the main figures behind the Hebrew Bible, and in this book Karel van der Toorn tells their story for the first time. His book considers the Bible in very specific historical terms, as the output of the scribal workshop of the Second Temple active in the period 500-200 BCE. Drawing comparisons with the scribal practices of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, van der Toorn clearly details the methods, the assumptions, and the material means of production that gave rise to biblical texts; then he brings his observations to bear on two important texts, Deuteronomy and Jeremiah. |
à¹×éÍËÒ
introduction | 1 |
Writing in the World of the Bible | 9 |
Practice and Perception | 27 |
Comparative Evidence | 51 |
The Biblical Evidence | 75 |
Scribal Modes of Text Production | 109 |
Scribal Culture in the Mirror of Deuteronomy | 143 |
The Book of Jeremiah as Scribal Artifact | 173 |
The Scribal Construct of Holy Writ | 205 |
The Closure of the Hebrew Bible | 233 |
Notes | 267 |
367 | |
393 | |