Who Really Wrote The [Hebrew] Bible: The Story of the Scribes, William M. Schniedewind, c. 2024. Princeton University Press.

Who Really Wrote The [Hebrew] Bible: The Story of the Scribes, William M. Schniedewind, c. 2024. Princeton University Press.

Concepts, phrases, geographical sites, etc:

• scribes = communities, something resemblig guilds but guilds (medieval) are not accurate models either
• perhaps more akin to investment clubs, book clubs, self-help groups
• Kuntillet 'Ajrud: some ten miles east of the northeastern corner of Gaza
• Hebrew title, "apprentice" (na ar) -- I think the author is starting to beat a dead horse
• 8th and early 7th centuries BCE; compare with Homer.
• probably a limited number of scribal families
• Hebrew scribal communities began under the shadow of the Egyptian empire 
• West Semitic = proto-Hebrew (p. 38); Aramaic language, side-by-side;
• proto Hebrew = early Canaanite (p. 47) -- wow, wow, wow -- pages 47 - 48.
  
• Old, Middle, and New Kingdom
• New Kingdom: 1550 - 1070 (16th to 11th century BCE (Troy: 1200, 13th century)
• Third Intermediate Period (chaotic): the 11th century BCE; followed the New Kingdom (epic)
• by this time, the eastern Mediterranean (Canaan) no longer "bothered" with Egypt
• we now had the fledgling Israelite, Judaean, and Phoenician kingdoms
• Tyre (coast, south of Beirut), Beirut, coast, north; and, Damascus, inland, form a triangle with one leg (base) the coast of the M. Sea.
• Iron Age: 12th century BCE, p. 48. Egyptian numerals, p. 48 (just as we use Roman numerals, etc)
  

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Notes

Professor of Biblical Studies at UCLA, where he was the inaugural holder of the Kershaw Chair of Ancient Eastern Mediterranean Studies. Has written at least two other books on the Bible. 

Kuntillet 'Ajrud inscriptions, link here.

Kuntillet ʿAjrud or Horvat Teman is a late 9th/early 8th centuries BCE site in the northeast part of the Sinai Peninsula.

It is frequently described as a shrine, though this is not certain.

The Kuntillet Ajrud inscriptions discovered in the excavations are significant in biblical archaeology. Kuntillet Ajrud is in the north Sinai; carbon-14 dating indicates occupation from 801–770 BCE, and the eponymous texts may have been written c. 800 BCE. [Interesting enough, this corresponds almost exactly to Homer's Iliad and Odyssey.]

As a perennial water source in this arid region, it constituted an important station on an ancient trade route connecting the Gulf of Aqaba (an inlet of the Red Sea) and the Mediterranean. It was located only 50 kilometers from the major oasis of Kadesh Barnea.

Additionally, despite its proximity to the Kingdom of Judah, it has an association with the northern Kingdom of Israel (Samaria): "elements of the material culture such as the pottery, the 'northern' orthography in certain inscriptions, and reference to YHWH of Samaria suggest that Kuntillet ʿAjrud was an Israelite outpost, or at the very least, had a strong Israelite presence".

Northeast Sinai! How close to Gaza?  One can locate is on google maps. Type in Kuntillet 'Ajrud and google will automatically change is to Khirbet el-Qom, about twenty miles due east of the northeast corner of the Gaza Strip. It is about five miles west of Hebron. Bethlehem is about five miles south of Jerusalem and another ten miles south takes one to Hebron.

Nice short preface.

Introduction.

Scribal communities, not individuals are important. 

It was a Hellenistic idea that "individuals" wrote the Bible.

The DocumentaryHypothesis. 

"A wisdom school." A genre of literature called "wisdom literature" which the author feels does not exist.

Author "defines" his view of Jerusalem, Judah, and Israel, p. 5.

The writing of the Bible? All roads lead to Jerusalem.

Beginning of the Iron Age -- 11th century BCE -- p. 7 - 8. That also aligns with the end of the Bronze Age, with the fall of Troy -- Bronze Age transitioning to the Iron Age -- said to have occurred about 1200 BC. Wiki: 

The Iron Age ( c. 1200 – c. 550 BC) is the final epoch of the three historical Metal Ages, after the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age.

The focus of this book: scribal communities. 

Introduction

Chapter 1: Scribes and Their Apprentices -- Communities At Work

Two communities of scribes working in Jerusalem:
the family of Shaphan: 2 Kgs 22:3.
family names several places in OT
second family in Jerusalem, more recently: Ophel area of Jerusalem
8th and early 7th centuries BCE; compare with Homer.

 Part One

Hebrew Scribal Communities

Chapter 2: The Beginning Under Egyptian Dominion

"... in the transition for scribal communities that worked for the Egyptians in Canaan during the New Kingdom (at the end of the second millennium BCE) because these Pharaohs ruled the southern Levant when the early alphabet was spreading and taking hold." -- p 35.

 

 

From wiki, Canaan:

Canaan was a Semitic-speaking civilization and region of the Southern Levant in the Ancient Near East during the late 2nd millennium BC. 

Canaan had significant geopolitical importance in the Late Bronze Age Amarna Period (14th century BC) as the area where the spheres of interest of the Egyptian, Hittite, Mitanni, and Assyrian Empires converged or overlapped. 

Much of present-day knowledge about Canaan stems from archaeological excavation in this area at sites such as Tel Hazor, Tel Megiddo, En Esur, and Gezer. 

The name "Canaan" appears throughout the Bible as a geography associated with the "Promised Land". 

The demonym "Canaanites" serves as an ethnic catch-all term covering various indigenous populations—both settled and nomadic-pastoral groups—throughout the regions of the southern Levant.

It is by far the most frequently used ethnic term in the Bible.

Biblical scholar Mark Smith, citing archaeological findings, suggests "that the Israelite culture largely overlapped with and derived from Canaanite culture ... In short, Israelite culture was largely Canaanite in nature."

Akkadian:

Spaceholder.