3R. O. Faulkner, "The Installation of the Vizier,"
JEA 41 (1955):18, 22-23; and Janet H. Johnson, "Avoid Hard
Work, Taxes, and Bosses: Be a Scribe!" (Unpublished paper,
Oriental Institute, University of Chicago, n.d.).
Jerusalem addresses his requests directly to the scribe of
Pharaoh and requests that the scribe communicate a message
to the pharaoh apart from the content of the document
itself.1 This may explain not only Baruch's copying of
the words of Jeremiah, but also his presenting of them to
Jehoiakim (Jer 36:16-26).2
The scribes frequently functioned in diverse
governmental structures as commissioned by the king or
vizier.3 Not only did the scribes fulfill the writing
mania by which the Pharaoh's were made immortal, but they
also oversaw legal proceedings as judges, prosecutors and
cross-examiners.4 They maintained economic order in the
country as well, overseeing the care of dykes,
agricultural matters, import and export transactions, the
collection of taxes, and the distribution of monies to
governmental employees. They were experts in political
propaganda, so it is little wonder that the art of proper
____________________
1A. Leo Oppenheim, "A Note on the Scribes in
Mesopotamia," in Studies in Honor of Benno Landsberger on
His Seventy-fifth Birthday, April 21, 1965, Assyriological
Studies 17 (1965), p. 253. He also notes a similar
phenomenon at Mari.
2James Muilenburg, "Baruch the Scribe," in
Proclamation and Presence: Old Testament Essays in Honour
of Gwynne Henton Davies, ed. J. J. Durham and J. R. Porter
(London: SCM, 1970), p. 227.
3Johnson, "Be a Scribe," pp. 4, 5.
4Halvorsen, "Scribes and Scribal Schools," p. 111.
speech is stressed in instruction texts.1 In order to
pursue a professional career, scribal training was a
prerequisite.2 Rainey points out that there were even
scribal soldiers.3 Scribes may also have had temple
reponsibilities.4
Of the four major types of wisdom literature which
have come from ancient Egypt (instruction texts [sebayit],
the onomastica, speculative reflections, and texts on the
scribal profession), a whole genre is given to the
praising of the scribal art and the satirizing of the
other trades. These texts are particularly informative as
to the role of the scribe in Egyptian culture. "In Praise
of Learned Scribes" and "The Satire on the Trades" commend
the immortal status of those who write over those who
build perishable tombs, condemn the baseness of the other
trades (the cobbler as a leather biter, for example),
and recommend the benefits of the life of a scribe as
follows:
____________________
1E. W. Heaton, Solomon's New Men, p. 20.
2Humphrey, "The Motif of the Wise Courtier in the
Old Testament," pp. 22-23; and Cyril Alfred, The Egyptians
(New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1961), pp. 175-76.
3A. F. Rainey, "The Soldier-Scribe in Papyrus
Anastasi I," JNES 26 (1967):58-60.
4Johnson, "Be a Scribe," p. 2.
Behold, there is no profession free of a boss--except
for the scribe: he is the boss. . . . Behold, I have
set thee on the way of god. . . . Behold, there is no
scribe who lacks food, from the property of the House
of the King--life, prosperity, health!1
The scribal connection with the temple is
important for wisdom-cult studies. In Egypt, Ugarit, and
Mesopotamia there is a strong link between the wise men
and the temple.2
Lastly, Khanjian is right when he highlights the
role of the scribes in international affairs. This aided
in the transmission of wisdom traditions between cultures.
Scribes were needed to provide written documents in the
proper languages and proper forms so that they would be
acceptable at foreign courts.3
Thus, one should not view the scribe as a mere
____________________
1Pritchard, ANET, "The Satire on the Trades," p.
434. Cf. Crenshaw, Old Testament Wisdom, p. 223; Williams,
"Scribal Training in Ancient Egypt," p. 218 (where he
labels them as the "white kilt class"); Heaton, Solomon's
New Men, p. 105; and Fontaine, "The Use of the Traditional
Saying in the Old Testament," p. 281. Especially
interesting is the "Papyrus Lansing: A Schoolbook,"
translated by Miriam Lichtheim, in Ancient Egyptian
Literature, 2:168-77; and Khanjian, "Wisdom in Ugarit," p.
100.
2Muilenburg, "Baruch the Scribe," p. 228; Erman,
The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians, p. 185. Cf.
Lambert, BWL, p. 8; Perdue, Wisdom and Cult, p. 93; and
Rainey, "The Scribe at Ugarit," p. 127. Very helpful is
Rylaarsdam, Revelation in Jewish Wisdom Literature, pp.
12-13.
3Khanjian, "Wisdom in Ugarit," p. 267. Heaton
notes in the Wenamun journey the king of Byblos had "a
letter scribe" to which the El Amarna tablets bear ample
witness (Solomon's New Men, p. 169).
copyist, although he was that, or as a simple creator of
documents (both royal and poetic), although he often did
such, for the scribes were also intertwined in the warp
and woof of the political structure and provided the
necessary skills for the maintenance and sustenance of
civilization itself. The term "secretary" provides a nice
translation in English, since "secretary" may mean a mere
copyist or, as in the case of the Secretary of State, may
indicate high governmental status and a relationship to
the president.
Scribes in Mesopotamia
The scribe in Mesopotamia functioned in a manner
similar to that of his Egyptian counterpart, although
differences in writing materials and governmental
structure would superficially alter his job description.
As in Egypt, he was a master of languages, often of both
the international Akkadian and the archaic Sumerian, in
addition to Hittite or regional vernacular languages and
dialects.1 Reading and writing were not commonly
possessed skills. So, the three factors which were
responsible for producing the rise of a scribal class in
____________________
1Oppenheim, "A Note on the Scribes in Mesopotamia,"
p. 256. Kramer translates a text, "A scribe who knows not
Sumerian, what kind of a scribe is he?" in The Sumerians:
Their History, Culture, and Character (Chicago: University
of Chicago, 1963), p. 226. Rainey, "The Scribe at Ugarit,"
p. 129; and Khanjian, "Wisdom in Ugarit," p. 125.
Egypt were also at work in Mesopotamia: (1) the
difficulty of the writing script; (2) the governmental
needs; and (3) the temple economy.1 The ability to write
was lauded in "In Praise of the Scribal Art," where the
scribe was commissioned "To write a stele, to draw a
field, to settle accounts . . . ."2 Even in Sumer, some
of the proverb collections mention the advantage of the
scribal profession over the other trades, although
Oppenheim has noted that scribal snobbishness over the
other trades is not as prevalent in Akkadian texts as it
is in the Egyptian literature.3 Often families who had
mastered the tradition dwelt in segregated parts of the
city, in a guild-like setting.4
____________________
1Speiser singles out the temple as a motivating
factor (E. A. Speiser, "Some Sources of Intellectual and
Social Progress in the Ancient Near East," in Studies in
the History of Culture: The Disciplines of the Humanities,
ed. P. W. Long [Freeport, NY: Books for Library Press,
1942], p. 58). Kramer, "Schooldays: A Sumerian
Composition Relating to the Education of a Scribe," JAOS 69
(1949):199. Oppenheim portrays him as one working for the
"Great Organizations" of the ancient world ("The Position
of the Intellectual in Mesopotamian Society," p. 39).
2Ake W. Sjoberg, "In Praise of the Scribal Art,"
JCS 14.2 (1972):127.
3Bendt Alster, Studies in Sumerian Proverbs, p. 13;
cf. also Gordon, Sumerian Proverbs, p. 154. A. Leo
Oppenheim, Ancient Mesopotamia: Portrait of a Dead
Civilization (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press,
1977), p. 242.
4Khanjian, "Wisdom in Ugarit," p. 66; and
B. Cutler and J. MacDonald, "The Unique Ugaritic Text UT
113 and the Question of 'Guilds,'" UF 9 (1977):30.
Those who became scribes generally were from the
wealthier families and often scaled the political ladder
to high governmental posts. Olivier counts as many as
five hundred eighteen scribes in four cities.1
Landsberger estimates that seventy percent of the scribes
had administrational positions, with the remainder being
employed by private individuals (the street scribes)
perhaps for taking letter dication. He suggests that ten
percent were involved in magical arts.2 Landsberger lists
nineteen different scribal titles, thereby demonstrating
the diversity of scribal vocations, sometimes by comic
caricature: scribe for labor groups, deaf writer, wise
scribe, royal scribe, bungler, field scribe, mathematician
and adviser.3
____________________
1Aage Westenholz, "Old Akkadian School Texts:
Some Goals of Sargonic Scribal Education," Archiv fur
Orienforschungen 25 (1974-77):95. J. P. J. Olivier,
"Schools and Wisdom Literature," Journal of Northwest
Semitic Languages 4 (1975):50.
2Benno Landsberger, "Scribal Concepts of
Education," in City Invincible, pp. 99, 119. Cf. Khanjian,
"Wisdom in Ugarit," p. 130 and Halvorsen, "Scribes and
Scribal Schools," p. 61.
3Benno Landsberger, "Babylonian Scribal Craft and
its Terminology," in Proceedings of the Twenty-Third
International Congress of Orientalists (London: The Royal
Asiatic Society, 1954), pp. 125-26. Humphreys ("The Motif
of the Wise Courtier in the Old Testament," p. 63) provides
a similar title list. Cf. Oppenheim, "The Position of the
Intellectual in Mesopotamian Society," p. 50 and Olivier,
"Schools and Wisdom Literature," pp. 50-51 for a listing of
scribal duties.
In Mesopotamia, the relationship between the
scribes and the king is more difficult to ascertain
because the kings do not present themselves as surrounded
by counselors, although foreign kings are often thus
described.1 Ahiqar was a counselor to the king and, as
manifest in the title ummanu, was considered a scholar.
He was also the famous author of a well-known, extant,
wisdom text from Mesopotamia.2
The connection between the gods and the scribes
comes not only from the requisite presence of the scribes
in the regulation of the temple economy, but also,
especially in Mesopotamia, from the fact that magical
powers were often part of the scribe's repertoire,
although Gordon renders a Sumerian proverb: "A disgraced
scribe becomes a man of spells."3 Perdue notes, in
"Counsels of Wisdom," that the scribal responsibility to
the cult and to the personal deity is rewarded with
____________________
1Oppenheim, "The Position of the Intellectual in
Mesopotamian Society," p. 40.
2Jonas C. Greenfield, "The Background and Parallel
to a Proverb of Ahiqar," in Hommages A. Andre Dupont-Sommer
(Paris: Librairie D'Amerique et D'Orient Adrien-
Maisonneuve, 1971), p. 49.
3Gordon, Sumerian Proverbs, p. 211; cf. Khanjian,
"Wisdom in Ugarit," pp. 50, 133; Crenshaw, Old Testament
Wisdom, p. 28 (who notes the function of scribes in
interpreting omen texts); and Westenholz, "Old Akkadian
School Texts," p. 107.
longevity and favor.1 Adapa, another famous Mesopotamian
scribe, was so renowned for his wisdom that he became the
assistant to Ea who was said to have called the world
order into being.
Scribes in Israel
So far a survey has been made of the prominence of
scribes in the ancient Near East and their particular
connection with writing, often of wisdom texts, and their
relationship to the king and his court. The foreign wise
man is frequently referred to in Scripture as a type of
magician. In Genesis 41:8 the two terms appear in a
hendiadys construction.2 Even within Israel, the case has
been made that Shisha (1 Kgs 4:3), the secretary, was a
foreigner, based on the difficulty of the writing script
and the fact that he is the only one of David's main
officials whose father is not listed.3
It will be shown that the scribe in Israel
functioned in much the same way as his counterpart in
Egypt and Mesopotamia. The same factors which provided
____________________
1Perdue, Wisdom and Cult, p. 100.
2Whybray, The Intellectual Tradition, p. 15; cf.
also 2 Kgs 25:19; Jer 52:25; and Exod 7:11.
3McKane, Prophets and Wise Men, pp. 27-28. Cf.
also Allan A. MacRae, "Akkadian and Sumerian Elements," in
Nuzi Personal Names, ed. I. Gelb, P. M. Purves and A.
MacRae (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1963),
p. 282.
the raison d'etre for the scribe elsewhere were also at
work in Israel. The demands of a growing bureaucratic
government, with more and more crucial international,
commercial and political contacts, required the expertise
of a scribe.1 The need for utilizing Akkadian, the lingua
franca of the day, and the recording of documents in their
proper form required the professional scribal skills, as
the El Amarna letters suggest.2 The temple structure lent
itself to scribal activity, not only because of the
massive economic details which were associated with the
construction and centralization of the temple, but also
because of the Hebraic emphasis on the canon and on the
proper teaching of torah.
One boon of an alphabetic script was the
democratization of learning which is manifested in Israel.
The necessity of canonical transcription and teaching,
however, would nonetheless favor a substantial scribal
presence even in a literate society. The literacy rate
among Israelites and Canaanites was apparently quite high,
as all were commanded to write the law on their door posts
(Deut 6:9) and monuments were erected for all to read
(Deut 27:2-8, the writer is aware of Hammurabi's boastful
____________________
1John Paterson, The Wisdom of Israel, p. 55.
2Rainey, "The Scribe at Ugarit," p. 126; and
Oppenheim, "A Note on the Scribes in Mesopotamia," p. 254.
epilogue). Joshua's choosing of three men, who are to
write a description of the land (Josh 18:4, 8-9), and
Gideon's catching of a random young man outside of
Succoth, who wrote the names of the elders, demonstrate a
widespread ability to write (Judg 8:14).1
With the development of the monarchy under David
and Solomon, there is a proliferation of governmental
offices. One of these, which is explicitly mentioned, was
the role of the scribe (2 Sam 8:17; 20:25; 2 Kgs 12:10;
18:18 [which also mentions a recorder]; Jer 36:12; 37:15;
Isa 37:2; et al.).2 Second Chronicles 25:16 contrasts
the roles of the prophet and the adviser. The adviser's
counsel was favored more than the acrimonious prophetic
announcements, although some prophets also were involved
in recording the royal happenings (2 Chr 12:15). The
counselor and scribe, though not strictly synonymous,3
seem to have played similar roles at times in Israel.4
____________________
1Kaster, "Education, Old Testament," p. 34.
2R. T. Anderson, "Was Isaiah a Scribe?" JBL 79
(1960):57. For a simple overview, vid. Bullock, An
Introduction to the Old Testament Poetic Books, pp. 23-24
and Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel, vol. 1 (New York:
McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1965), pp. 127-32. One should
not forget the command that the king himself copy the law
(Deut 17:18-20).
3Thompson (The Form and Function, p. 36) sees no
distinction between the scribe and wise man.
4For a scrutiny of the role of counselor, vid., P.
A. H. De Boer, "The Counsellor," VTSup 3 (1969):42-71.
This superb article notes the role of the counsellor
De Boer even maintains that Proverbs 8 is not a hypostasis
of wisdom but a description of Yahweh's counselor.1
After the exile, the role of the scribe was
further developed by the coalescing of his function as
copyist and transmitter of the tradition with the
responsibility of interpreting the law (Ezra 7:6). An
examination of Ben Sirach demonstrates the movement of
later scribes towards torah (Sir 8:8-9).2 Scott is
correct in pointing out that the title "secretary of the
law of the God of heaven" in the post-exilic period (Ezra
7:11; Neh 8:1-8) was indicative of the scribe's role in
the post-exilic religious community.3
Perhaps the clearest canonical picture of the
scribes or wise men as a group is found in Jeremiah. Not
only does the relationship between Jeremiah and Baruch
(Jer 36) highlight prophetic-scribal associations, but
Baruch's position with Jehudi and the "room of Elishama
the secretary" also shows scribal access to the royal
____________________
(Hushai, Ahithophel; Isa 3:1-3; Ezek 11:1-2) and notes the
divine aspect of this position (Isa 9:6). Perdue, Wisdom
and Cult, p. 141. Kovacs describes the counselor as the
ultimate scribe ("Sociological-Structural Constraints," p.
184).
1Ibid., p. 71.
2Roth, "On the Gnomic-Discursive Wisdom of Jesus
Ben Sirach," Semeia 17-19 (1980):59.
3Scott, The Way of Wisdom, p. 17. Cf. Halvorsen,
"Scribes and Scribal Schools," p. 125.
archives.1 Interestingly enough, Avigad reports on a
bullae which reads, "Belonging to Berechiah son of Neriah
the scribe" (cf. Jer 36:4).2 The term hakam can be used
adjectivally to describe a wise person without positional
ramifications, but in Jeremiah 8:8, 9 and 18:18 it
strongly suggests that the "wise man" was a vocational
post.3
McKane argues that the class or profession of
"wise man" goes back to Solomonic times.4 Whybray has
vociferously objected to the proposal of there having been
a "wise man" position or class in Israel. Rather, he
portrays a few scribal families as taking care of the
needs of the small administrational needs in Israel.5 He
distinguishes sharply between the scribe and the hakam,
which, he suggests, never referred to a position.6
Whybray rejects Proverbs 22:17 as evidence to the contrary
____________________
1Muilenburg, "Baruch the Scribe," pp. 215-38.
2Nahman Avigad, "Baruch the Scribe and Jerahmeel
the King's Son," IEJ 28 (1978):53.
3Crenshaw, Old Testament Wisdom, p. 28; von Rad,
Wisdom in Israel, pp. 20-21; De Boer, "The Counsellor," p.
61; Bryce, A Legacy of Wisdom, p. 239; and Kovacs,
"Sociological-Structural Constraints," p. 243.
4McKane, Prophets and Wise Men, p. 41; contra
Scott, who sees it as developing after the time of
Hezekiah.
5Whybray, The Intellectual Tradition, p. 38.
6Ibid., p. 17.
because it is "prose" and does not have the article;
therefore, it is indefinite. Jeremiah 18:18, because of
its relationship with Ezekiel 7:26, is rejected as titular
too. His case is argued in much detail, yet commits the
semantic blunder of word-concept equation in his faulty
analysis of the word hakam.1 His rejection of the
scribal-wise man connection and the role of "wise men" in
Israel has not been accepted by most scholars. Morgan
correctly critiques Whybray's position for begging as many
questions as it answers. Verses such as 1 Chronicles
27:32 point to the fallaciousness of Whybray's discussion
of scribes in Israel.2 The exact function of the scribe
in the Solomonic government is elucidated in detail by
Mettinger and need not be repeated here.3
It is not the purpose of this section to
scribalize the wisdom material. Rather, it is to provide a
____________________
1Ibid., pp. 15-32.
2Glendon E. Bryce, review of The Intellectual
Tradition in the Old Testament, by R. N. Whybray, in JBL 94
(1975):596-98; Morgan, "Wisdom and the Prophets," p. 219;
and Perdue, Wisdom and Cult, p. 228. One wonders about the
consistency of Whybray himself and his comments on
Ecclesiastes 12:9 in "Qoheleth the Immoralist?" (Qoh
7:16-17)," in Israelite Wisdom: Theological and Literary
Essays in Honor of Samuel Terrien, ed. J. G. Gammie, et al.
(New York: Union Theological Seminary, 1978), p. 195.
3Tryggve N. D. Mettinger, Solomonic State
Officials: A Study of the Civil Government Officials of
the Israelite Monarchy, Coniectanea Biblica Old Testament
Series 5 (Lund: CWK Gleerup, 1971), pp. 25-51; also see
his work on the scribal school, pp. 140-57.
scenario in which one may properly appreciate the people
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