the Week of Proper 28 / Ordinary 33
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Bible Dictionaries
Book
American Tract Society Bible Dictionary
or Several sorts of materials were anciently used in making books. Plates of lead or copper, the bark of trees, brick, stone, and wood, were originally employed to engrave such things and documents upon as men desired to transmit to posterity, Deuteronomy 27:2,3 Job 19:23,24 . God's laws were written on stone tablets. Inscriptions were also made on tiles and bricks, which were afterwards hardened by fire. Many of these are found in the ruins of Babylon. Tablets of wood, box, and ivory were common among the ancients: when they were of wood only, they were oftentimes coated over with wax, which received the writing inscribed on them with the point of a style, or iron pen, Jeremiah 17:13; and what was written might be effaced by the broad end of a style, Luke 1:63 . Afterwards, the leaves of the palm-tree were used instead of wooden tablets, and also the finest and thinnest bark of trees, such as the lime, the ash, the maple, the elm: hence the word liber, which denotes the inner bark of trees, signifies also a book. As these barks were rolled up, to be more readily carried about, the united rolls were called volumen, a volume; a name given likewise to rolls of paper or of parchment. The ancients wrote like-wise on linen. But the oldest material commonly employed for writing upon, appears to have been the papyrus, a reed very common in Egypt and other places, and still found in Sicily and Chaldea. From this comes our word paper. At a later period, parchment from skins was invented in Pergamos, and was there used for rolls or volumes. The pen for writing on these soft materials was a small brush, or a reed split at the end, Jeremiah 36:23 . The ink was prepared with lampblack coal of ivory, various gums, etc., and the writing was sometimes permanently fixed by fire. Scribes carried their inkhorns hanging to their girdles, Ezekiel 9:2 . The making of paper from linen in its modern form was first known in Europe about A. D. 1300. The art of printing was introduced about one hundred and fifty years later.
An ancient book therefore had the appearance of a thick roll of some paper-like substance, written usually in parallel columns on one side only, and read by gradually unrolling it by means of two small rollers, one at the beginning and the other at the end of the volume. A roll was sometimes sealed, being first tied or wrapped about with a cord, on which the wax was dropped, and stamped by a signet, Isaiah 29:11 Revelation 5:1-3 .
The writing was practiced very early, may be inferred from allusions to the art in Genesis 5:1 Exodus 17:14 Job 9:25 19:23 31:5 . The Egyptians were accustomed to it from the earliest ages.
Ancient writers, instead of writing their books, etc., with their own hand, often employed amanuenses. St. Paul notes it as a particular circumstance, in the epistle to the Galatians, that he had written it with his own hand, Galatians 6:11 . To other letters he only affixed his salutation with his own hand, 1 Corinthians 16:21 Colossians 4:18 2 Thessalonians 3:17 . The amanuensis who wrote the epistle to the Romans, has mentioned himself at the close, Romans 16:22 . See LETTER.
Book of the Generation, is used in Genesis 5:1 Matthew 1:1 , in the sense of a genealogical record. See GENERATION .
Book of the Wars of the Lord, Numbers 21:14 , was probably a sort of military journal, formed of detached odes.
The Book of the Chronicles of the kings of Judah and Israel were apparently public journals, 1 Kings 14:19,29 .
The Book of Jasher, 2 Samuel 1:18 , may perhaps have been a collection of national ballads, one of the forms most used for perpetuating the history of ancient times.
The Books of the Chronicles of the kings of Judah and Israel were apparently public journals, 1 Kings 14:19,29 .
Book of Life, or of the Living, Psalm 69:28 . It is probable that these descriptive phrases are taken from the custom observed in the courts of princes, of keeping a list of persons who are in their service, of the provinces which they govern, of the officers of their armies, of the number of their troops, and sometimes even of the names of their soldiers. In the figurative style of oriental poetry, God is represented as inscribing the names, acts, and destinies of men in volumes; and the volume in which are thus entered the names of those who are chosen to salvation, is "the book of life," Philippians 4:3 .
These files are public domain and are a derivative of the topics are from American Tract Society Bible Dictionary published in 1859.
Rand, W. W. Entry for 'Book'. American Tract Society Bible Dictionary. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/ats/b/book.html. 1859.
