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Bible Dictionaries
Book
People's Dictionary of the Bible
or Book. 1 Chronicles 29:29; Revelation 10:2. Books in the form we have them were unknown to the ancients. The materials employed by them to write upon, and sometimes now called books, were of various kinds. Plates of lead or copper or of wood, coated with wax, were in common use, the inscriptions being made with a stylus. Tablets of this latter kind were in use in England as late as 1300. Leaves and the bark of trees were also used, such as the Egyptian papyrus, from which our word paper is derived. The skins of animals were also in use, the books being prepared in the form of long rolls, twelve or fourteen inches wide, and fastened at each end to sticks, not unlike the rollers to which maps are attached. A very good idea may be formed of an ancient roll by supposing a common newspaper to have rods or rollers at the right and left sides. The reader takes hold of the rods, and unrolls the sheet until he comes to the desired column. Thus, in Luke 4:17, the phrase "opened the book," should probably read "unrolled the scroll." and in verse 20, for "closed the book," read "rolled up the volume," or "scroll." This shows the force of the figure, Isaiah 34:4, where the heavens are represented as rolled together as suddenly as the opposite ends of an unrolled scroll fly to meet each other when the hand of the reader is withdrawn from it. Thus a book means one complete "roll;" so we read of the "book of the law;" the "book of life," Revelation 21:27; see Psalms 69:28; "books of judgment," Daniel 7:10; "book of Jasher" (or righteous), Joshua 10:13; "book of the Chronicles of," etc., R. V., "the kings of Judah," 1 Kings 14:19; 1 Kings 14:29; "book of the generation," or the genealogical records, Genesis 5:1; Matthew 1:1. A kind of paper was made from the stalk of an Egyptian vegetable called papyrus, or paper reed, which is still found in various parts of India. The stalk was slit with a needle into plates or layers as broad and thin as possible. Some of them were ten or fifteen inches broad. These strips were laid side by side upon a flat horizontal surface, and then immersed in the water of the Nile, which not only served "as a kind of sizing, but also caused the edges of the strips to adhere together as if glued. The sheets thus formed were dried in the sun, and then covered with a fine wash, which made them smooth and flexible. They were finally beaten with hammers, and polished. Twenty or more of these sheets were sometimes connected in one roll. In ancient times, writings that were to be sealed were first wrapped round with thread or flax, to which the wax and seal were applied. These seals must be broken before the book could be read. In Assyria, the ancient writings were upon tablets, and cylinders made of clay. Large libraries of this character have been round in the ruins of Nineveh, Babylon, and adjacent cities. The pen was either a stylus made of some hard substance, Jeremiah 17:1, or a reed pen similar to that now in use in the East. See Jeremiah 36:23. The ink was carried in a hollow horn fastened to the girdle. Ezekiel 9:2. See Bulrush.
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Rice, Edwin Wilbur, DD. Entry for 'Book'. People's Dictionary of the Bible. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/rpd/b/book.html. 1893.
