Scribal Culture and the Making of the Hebrew BibleWe 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. Traditionally seen as the copycats of antiquity, the scribes emerge here as the literate elite who held the key to the production as well as the transmission of texts. Van der Toorn's account of scribal culture opens a new perspective on the origins of the Hebrew Bible, revealing how the individual books of the Bible and the authors associated with them were products of the social and intellectual world of the scribes. By taking us inside that world, this book yields a new and arresting appreciation of the Hebrew Scriptures. |
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LibraryThing Review
º·ÇÔ¨Òóì¨Ò¡¼Ùéãªé - jsburbidge - LibraryThingI would like to say at the outset that this is, overall, a valuable and readable book. Its general overview of scribal culture in a broadly pre-literate society is an effective summary (confined to ... ÍèÒ¹¤ÇÒÁ¤Ô´àË繩ºÑºàµçÁ
LibraryThing Review
º·ÇÔ¨Òóì¨Ò¡¼Ùéãªé - dchaikin - LibraryThing4. Scribal Culture and the Making of the Hebrew Bible by Karel van der Toorn (2007, 366 pages, read Dec 25 – Jan 28) The biblical world was an illiterate one. The original written biblical stories ... ÍèÒ¹¤ÇÒÁ¤Ô´àË繩ºÑºàµçÁ
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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 | |