The art of writing was practiced in the ancient world as early as 4000 B.C. This art developed through a number of stages before the use of a written alphabet emerged. Early writing was done in "Hieroglyphics" or the use of symbols and pictures to represent words. Archaeological discoveries of the last century or so have revolutionized our knowledge of ancient writing methods and the materials that were used.

Early inscriptions, although fragmentary and damaged, were discovered in temple ruins at Serabit in the Sinaitic Peninsula. These were dated at about 1500 B.C. The text was the work of laborers who had been employed to work an Egyptian turquoise mine. Many of the signs used in this writing shows a distinct resemblance to Egyptian picture writing. The sign are too few in number to serve as an alphabet.

Later excavations at 'Gezer' and 'Shechem' yielded "Potsherds" belonging to the same period or slightly earlier. Digging at Lachish produced inscriptions on a dagger blade. The writing had many of the same letters that were discovered at Serabit in the Sinai Peninsula. Four pieces of pottery found at Lachish, dated at about 1250 B.C. bore the same kind of writing. From Byblos ( Gebal ) on the coast north of Beirut came a number of inscriptions about kings who lived there from the thirteenth to the ninth centuries B.C.

All this evidence indicates that alphabetic writing with a recognizable continuous script, was in use in and near Palestine at about the same time that Egyptian hieroglyphics and Babylonian cuneiform were also being used.

A calender from the archaeological dig at Gezer is the oldest important Israelite document as well as the earliest completely intelligible text found on Palestinian soil. It presents a "farmer's almanac" of agricultural operations by months. This calender has been dated as early as the tenth century B.C. Another celebrated discovery was the 'Moabite Stone.' When it was found (1868) it was earliest known example of the Phoenicians alphabetic script. This small column of black basalt records the story of Mesha's war against the kings of Israel and Judah. It is the only surviving record of the ancient Moabites and their kingdoms.

The Siloam Inscription, carved on the tunnel connecting the Virgin's Spring with the Pool of Siloam in Jerusalem, comes from the reign of king Hezekiah of Judah ( about 700 B.C. Discovered in 1880, it describes the successful junction made when opposite ends of the work were joined.

Finally, there are the Lachish Letters discovered in 1935 and 1938. These were potsherds containing part of the military correspondence between the governor of Lachish and an officer of a Hebrew outpost when Babylon's army was overrunning the ancient world in 587-586 B.C.

The Canaanite or Old Semitic ( Phoenician ) alphabet was widely used among the countries between the Nile and the Euphrates Rivers. The model on which it was built probably came from Egypt. The Phoenicians exploited and perfected this alphabet, then carried it to Greece in their shipping and trading activities.

Several significant archaeological finds have yielded valuable information about ancient writing and how it developed.

Ras Shamra is a site on the coast of northwest Syria opposite Cyprus. The site was identified as the ancient city of Ugarit, a Phoenician city which served as a gateway of commerce between Asia and the Mediterranean lands as early as about 2000 B.C. Among its buildings was an extensive library of clay tablets of cuneiform writing. The building also included a writing school for scribes. The language of most of the texts found was similar to the Phoenician language.

Several items found at this site were dictionaries and lexicons, including some written in Sumerian-Babylon ( Akkadian ) and Hurrian ( Horite ) vocabularies. In that day Sumerian was used only by scholars; Babylonian was the diplomatic and commercial language. Inscriptions in Egyptian hieroglyphics, Hittite and Cypriot were also discovered. Commercial, medical, legal, diplomatic, and private documents were discovered, although the greatest part of the find consisted of religious writings.

The religious tablets were written in an alphabetic script of 29 or 30 letters. The words are written from left to right. This evidence shows the Ugaritic alphabet was invented by people who were aware of the Phoenician or a similar alphabetic system. They adapted this system into an alphabet of their own.

The Dead Sea Scrolls are the greatest archaeological discovery about the text of the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible ever made. They have been dated at about two centuries before Christ. The find included two scrolls of prophet Isaiah, the Manual of Discipline of the Essene community, the prophet Habakkuk Commentary, The War Scroll, Thanksgiving Psalms, and two manuscripts of prophet Daniel. Nearby finds yielded a palimpsest written in Phoenician script, fragments of the Minor Prophets, phylacteries, and parts of two letters from the Jewish revolutionary Simon Bar Kochba. In addition a copper scroll and thousands of manuscript fragments were found. Their important includes a firsthand view of what a Hebrew scroll looked like at the beginning of the Christian era.

An entire library of papyrus Nag Hammadi Documents was accidentally discovered by peasants north of Luxor, Egypt, in 1946. These manuscripts were written in the Sahidic dialect of the Coptic language. The leather covers in which they were wrapped probably account for their excellent preservation. The find included 13 copies with nearly 1,00 pages. They have been dated in the third and fourth centuries A.D.

Originally produced by a sect known as the 'Gnostic' these manuscripts represent a wide variety of literature, including a number of otherwise unrecorded sayings of Jesus Christ. Many quotations are genuinely biblical. These writings shows familiarity with the New Testament, but they contain little of abiding spiritual or moral value. Their understanding of the person and work of Jesus Christ is not in agreement with the teaching of the New Testament.

A group of tablets discovered in 1974-1977 represents the royal archives in a civilization that flourised in northwestern Syria around 2500 B.C. Seventy-five percent of their contents deal with economic and administrative matters. This culture rivaled those of Egypt and Summer during the same period. The language was an early form of Canaanite belonging to the same linguistic branch as Hebrew. They used the characters of Sumerian but wrote in an old Phoenician language. This discovery has helped Old Testament scholars determine the meaning of certain words in the Hebrew texts of the Old Testament.

These tablets also show that the world of the 14th century B.C. was not primitive but highly urbanized, cosmopolitan, and literate. They also throw a great deal of light on the languages of both the Old Testament and New Testament. The language is closer to Hebrew than Phoenician or Ugaritic.

Study of all these ancient writings reinforces our confidence in the history and culture of the Old Testament. For example, the Eblaite tablets support the list of the five cities of the plain in Genesis 14 which had previously been questioned by some scholars.

Writing materials refers to an ancient surfaces, such as animal skins and stone, on which information was recorded in ancient times. The earliest writing materials were clay tablets or stone. - Ex. 32:16; Job 19:23-24 - An engraving tool or a chisel was used to write on stone, bricks, and tablets. - Is. 8:1 - A reed pen - 3John 13 - a metal pen or a brush-like tool was used to writ on softer materials. - Job 19:24; Jer. 17:1 -

The ink used was black, sometimes of metallic content. Usually it was made of soot, mixed with oil and gum of balsam. This permitted erasure by a water bearing sponge. Ink-horn were carried by scribes. Ink-well discovered at Qumran were of brass and earthenware.

Many materials were used through-out the ancient world to receive writing - stone, ivory, leaves, bark, wood, metals, baked clay, wax, and potsherds. But the three main materials on which the text of the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible was written were skins, papyrus, and vellum. Prepared skins were used to record state documents as early as 3000 B.C. The ancient Persians used leather as a writing material; so did the Assyrians in the eighth century B.C. Prophet Jeremiah's scroll, cut up by king Jehoiakim, was leather. - Jer. 36:23 -

Papyrus met the needs of the Greco-Roman world for nearly a thousand years. The Phoenicians used Egyptian papyrus in the tenth century B.C. It was easily obtained, relatively inexpensive, and durable. Unfortunately, it becomes brittle with age. The first papyrus document, an employee list, was not found until 1778. The bulk of papyrus discoveries took place near the turn of this century. Some papyrus finds in 'Codex' form are as much as 59 sheets before being folded.

Vellum ( parchment ) is a material prepared from the skin of cattle, sheep, goats, and sometimes deer. However, papyrus was the preferred material for books until vellum replaced it in the fourth century A.D. - 2Tim. 4:13 -

Christians Scriptures in Greek were written in capital letters, separately formed often without spaces between words. These were called uncial letters. The word uncial probably means "inch high" In the ninth century A.D. a new style known as miniscule or cursive, came into general use. The letters were smaller and often more quickly formed than the uncial characters. The Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible continued to be reproduced in this smaller script until the invention of printing.

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Sunday, May 24, 2009

I have through years of reading, pondering, reflecting and contemplating, the 3 things that last; FAITH . HOPE . LOVE and I would like to made available my sharing from the many thinkers, authors, scholars and theologians whose ideas and thoughts I have borrowed. God be with them always. Amen!

I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.

HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-15 -