Writing in the Bible: Part 2 Ancient History of Writing
It is thought that the first writing was associated with recording and tallying goods. Each symbol was associated a good, like a cow or a fish. At first, the symbols clearly resembled a physical object, like in Egyptian heiroglyphs. But in some cultures, like Sumer, the symbols became more abstract. And new symbols were added to bring clarity and depth to the language.
Oral Culture
Before the use of writing, all cultures were oral. This means that all knowledge was kept alive through the remembering and retelling of stories. Knowledge was stored within a community, not on slabs of clay or stone.
I recently read an account of a king in ancient Sumer wanting to send a message. Normally, he would have relied on a messenger to memorise the message. But on this occasion, he didn’t trust him to remember and recall it correctly. So he wrote the message down, and gave it to the messenger to hand to the recipient. I understand this is the first recorded story about someone sending a written message to someone else.
As we know, writing was established and quickly became the primary method of recording information.
Oldest Part of the Bible
Some think the oldest text in the Bible is the first chapter of Genesis, the creation story. This is unlikely to be correct, and academics tend to think it is the Song of the Sea
Exodus 15 v 1-21
Then Moses and the Israelites sang this song to the LORD: “I will sing to the LORD, for he is highly exalted. Both horse and driver he has hurled into the sea…
The Hebrew language in this text is archaic compared to the rest of Exodus and the Bible. It was likely written down in the 13th Century. There are older stories in the Old Testament, but these were told orally and then were written down at a later date.
Symbolism of Writing
In contrast to an oral culture, writing was more permanent. When someone retold a story, they could subtly change parts of it. If a scribe changed the text of a document, everyone else could see what he had done. So writing brings permanence.
Writing also means that the story cannot be forgotten, because everyone knows they can go back and read it when they want. It's a technology which frees up the mind to think about other things. Whereas, in an oral culture, once a story is forgotten, it is lost forever.
The stories in the Bible were all spoken before they were written down (excluding the epistles in the New Testament). So every story from Adam and Eve to the Gospel of Jesus were stories which were spoken first and then the text was written.
The rest of this series will look at instances where writing occurs in the Bible.