Related Papers
Archaeology and History of Eighth Century Judah [Oded Borowski Festschrift] (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2018)
Scripture and Inscriptions: Eighth-Century Israel and Judah in Writing
2018 •
Christopher Rollston
The eighth century was a time of political and religious tumult and it was also a literary floruit. Some of the most important Old Hebrew inscriptions hail from the eighth century, including the Kuntillet Ajrud inscriptions mentioning "Yahweh and his Asherah," the economic dockets from the Israelite capital of Samaria, the burial Inscriptions from Khirbet el-Qom, the Siloam Tunnel Inscription dating to the time of Sennacherib's siege, and the Royal Steward Inscription from Jerusalem. The script and orthography of these texts are very impressive, and some of these texts even employ complicated (Egyptian) Hieratic numerals. Moreover, we also have Mesopotamian cuneiform texts that detail Mesopotamian interactions with the Levant, including with King Joash of Israel, King Pekah of Israel, King Ahaz of Judah, and King Hezekiah of Judah. Of particular import in this regard is the fact that some of these events documented in Mesopotamian texts are also known from the Hebrew Bible, including even the name of Sennacherib's assassin(s). In short, there were some capable and gifted scribes in Israel and Judah during the eighth century. And these scribes produced some very fine written materials in Old Hebrew, and they were also responsible for writing archival materials that formed the basis of certain segments of the books of Kings.
"Elusive Scrolls: Could Any Hebrew Literature Have Been Written Prior to the Eighth Century B.C.E.?", Vetus Testamentum 66 (2016): 556-594
Matthieu Richelle
Two reasons lead many scholars today to think that the Israelites were not able to produce long, literary works during the 10th and 9th centuries BCE. First, there is a dearth of Hebrew inscriptions from that time; second, the Israelites did not have the necessary socio-economic resources until the 8th century BCE. This article critically assesses these two lines of reasoning in light of current research in the epigraphy and archaeology of the Southern Levant. In addition, it provides several elements which indicate that the necessary conditions for the production of long texts were present in Judah/Israel in the early royal period.
Bibliotheca Orientalis 76
Writing and Literacy in the World of Ancient Israel: Recent Developments and Future Directions
2019 •
Andrew Burlingame
This review article takes up a number of themes addressed in C. A. Rollston's 2010 monograph Writing and Literacy in the World of Ancient Israel: Epigraphic Evidence from the Iron Age and considers how the discussions devoted to these topics have evolved since 2010. This survey of recent developments is accompanied by several suggestions for future investigations pertaining both to the domain of inquiry and to the methods employed in Northwest Semitic epigraphic research.
Formation, Organization and Development of Iron Age Societies: AComparative View. Proceedings from ICAANE, Vienna, Austria April 25-29, 2016
“Rethinking the Study of Iron Age Inscriptions: New Ways of Thinking about Old Problems.”
2020 •
Alice Mandell
The study of southern Levantine Iron Age inscriptions is predominantly tied to questions about the rise and evolution of West Semitic speaking states, in particular, the genesis of the monarchies of Israel and Judah. Scholarly debates about how to define literacy and describe the process of script evolution and standardisation inform the analysis of the inscriptional record and understanding about these ancient societies. More recent work in the study of literacy shies away from rigid definitions of literacy (e.g., literate or non-literate) and the tendency to limit the audience of texts to a reading audience. Rather, the production and meaning of texts are understood to be bound to the broader communities in which texts operate as well as their social practices. Such approaches have the advantage of highlighting the diverse functions of Iron Age inscriptions and their inherent multimodality. The following paper offers a summary of the extant scholarship on the development of the West Semitic linear script (also known as the Canaanite alphabet), and how it informs the study of southern Levantine Iron Age inscriptions. I then argue for the value of increased engagement with social-semiotic approaches to the study of writing. Such scholarship offers insights into old ‘problems’, such as the complex history of linear alphabetic writing and the gaps in the epigraphic record; such approaches also resolve some of the methodological challenges inherent in using inscriptions to study ancient literacy practices or to gauge socio-political complexity.The study of inscriptions in the Iron Age Levant is tied to questions about the evolution of the early Iron Age states. Scholarly ideologies about literacy and the process of script evolution and standardization inform the analysis of the inscriptional record and understandings about ancient societies. Recent work in the study of literacy shies away from the binary models (e.g., literate or non-literate) or assumptions about the correlation between the role of writing and a given group’s social complexity. Yet, these views are still pervasive in the study of the ancient Levant. The following offers a summary of the extant scholarship and the methodologies underlying them, and proposes engagement with new methodologies that will pave a way forward in the study of Iron Age inscriptions.
The Scribe in the Biblical World
Out of Egypt: Lexicographic Evidence for Egyptian Influence on West Semitic and Israelite Administrative and Scribal Practice
26.5.2020
Curriculum Vitae and Publications
2020 •
Nadav Na'aman
Updated - May 2020
The Scribe of David: A Portrait of a Life. Maarav 20.2 (2013 [appeared in 2016]): 163-88.
Dan Pioske
The first references to a scribe in the Hebrew Bible occur within two lists of officials connected to the reign of David in the Book of Samuel (2 Sam 8:16–18; 2 Sam 20:23–26). If little can be known directly about the individual referred to within these administrative lists, the possibility these texts raise about a scribal office developing in early tenth century BCE Jerusalem nevertheless invites the historian to explore a broader set of questions about the historical circ*mstances in which such a figure would have been involved. This approach toward the history of David’s scribe would consequently forego the attempt to recover the actual life of the individual attested to in the brief, cryptic references available to us in the Hebrew Bible. Instead, this study adopts a more oblique historical stance, being solicitous of a wider assemblage of evidence that pertains to Iron I/IIA scribalism in the Levant in an effort to retrace how the life of David’s scribe would have transpired if such an individual existed at that time. Provided that a scribe was active in early tenth century BCE Jerusalem, in other words, how would we envision the setting in which this official practiced his craft? How would this scribe have come to Jerusalem, where did he reside, and what texts would he have produced? What possible roles would such an individual have performed at this moment in Jerusalem’s early Iron Age past? Through such questions and considerations a meaningful portrait of an ancient life is able to unfold, I argue in the following, by way of a method and discourse that situates itself in the conditional.
PARKER_LEVANT_COMES_OF_AGE_PARTI_05312018.docx
Heather Dana Davis Parker
The alphabetic scripts present within the Northwest Semitic inscriptions of the first half of the first millennium BCE belong to three main script traditions — Phoenician, Hebrew, and Aramaic. This book is a comprehensive and systematic palaeographic study of the early development of these scripts during this chronological horizon. In what follows, I will view all three writing traditions from a comparative perspective in an attempt to identify the time of origin of each as a distinct tradition in relation to the others. This investigation will show that by the late eleventh-early tenth century BCE, Phoenician already had developed as a distinct script; and over the course of the early Iron II period, at least two additional scripts emerged from Phoenician: Hebrew, in the ninth century, and Aramaic, in the eighth. Markedly, this change in the character of alphabetic writing in this period corresponds to contemporary socio-political developments and suggests that the development of these individualized scripts arose under the patronage of specific polities. The Phoenician script arose in the commercial power centers of the Phoenician city-states on the Levantine coast. The advent of the Hebrew script corresponds to Israel’s rise to predominance in southern Canaan. Finally, the genesis of the Aramaic script parallels the rise of the Assyrian Empire in Syria and this empire’s appropriation of Aramaic as an administrative tool and mode of communication throughout its realm.
_New Studies in the Archaeology of Jerusalem and its Region_ Collected Papers Volume XI, eds. Gadot, Zelinger, Cytryn-Silverman, Uziel
"Epigraphic Evidence from Jerusalem and its Environs at the Dawn of Biblical History: Methodologies and a Long Duree Perspective"
2017 •
Christopher Rollston
This article contends that when one looks at the totality of the inscriptional evidence from the Late Bronze Age, Iron I, and Iron IIA....that is, especially in light of some of the epigraphic finds during recent years (including, for example, two Akkadian tablets and an Early Alphabetic inscription), it becomes very difficult to contend that there was not writing in and around Jerusalem during the Late Bronze Age, Iron I, and Iron IIA. Note that this article is intended to function in tandem with a previous article of mine, namely, the article entitled: "The Dating of the Early Royal Byblian Inscriptions: A Response to Benjamin Sass" (Maarav 15:1, 2008, pages 57-93).
Archaeology and History of 8th Century Judah: An Introduction. Edited by Jacob Wright and Zev Farber. Society of Biblical Literature.
"Enculturating Children in 8th century Judah" .
2018 •
Kristine Garroway
This case study examines how childist theory can be applied to a well-known topic. While the subject matter is arguably all about bearing children, until now no one has thought about JPFs from the perspective of the child. The analysis above argues that children become encultured through exposure to repeated performances of culture, in this case the use of JPFs. It also draws an analogy between a child’s membership in the household and the degree to which she is enculturated. Whether children were making or possessing JPFs of their own or simply observing how Judean adults interacted with JPFs, a childist interpretation demonstrates that children were active participants in their enculturation, internalizing and reproducing Judean culture for the next generation.
