I've often wondered about this. Perhaps the blue stone of the tablets Moses brought down from Mt. Sinai offer a clue. Some of the oldest alphabetic writing is found in ancient turquoise mines in the Sinai. They were a joint Egyptian and Canaanite venture. The Egyptians provided the capital and access to a market. The Canaanites provided …
I've often wondered about this. Perhaps the blue stone of the tablets Moses brought down from Mt. Sinai offer a clue. Some of the oldest alphabetic writing is found in ancient turquoise mines in the Sinai. They were a joint Egyptian and Canaanite venture. The Egyptians provided the capital and access to a market. The Canaanites provided the labor. There are signs of ancient Egyptian and Canaanite worship on site with inscriptions, including the names of Canaanite gods written in an alphabetic script based roughly Egyptian hieroglyphs. (Yeah, this is controversial. Look up Orly Goldwasser. Brace for flames.)
Obviously, this is at best suggestive: the confluence of possibly the first alphabetic script, a blue stone in a Bible story, the meeting of Egyptians and Canaanites in the Sinai. Just about every literate society keeps some sort of journal whether it is carved in stone or preserved on palm leaves. Many of these cover centuries, but the Bible may claim the longest run, from the Late Bronze Age to the age of Alexander.
This may well be a result of the exiles. You can't take a stone wall or side of a mountain with you when you are ordered to pack up and move, but you can pack up your scrolls, then keep copying them and adding to them.
P.S. Does anyone know why they call Jews the people of the book? If you've been to a synagogue, the Bible there is written on a scroll. (This isn't a big secret like the whereabouts of the Ark.)
I've often wondered about this. Perhaps the blue stone of the tablets Moses brought down from Mt. Sinai offer a clue. Some of the oldest alphabetic writing is found in ancient turquoise mines in the Sinai. They were a joint Egyptian and Canaanite venture. The Egyptians provided the capital and access to a market. The Canaanites provided the labor. There are signs of ancient Egyptian and Canaanite worship on site with inscriptions, including the names of Canaanite gods written in an alphabetic script based roughly Egyptian hieroglyphs. (Yeah, this is controversial. Look up Orly Goldwasser. Brace for flames.)
Obviously, this is at best suggestive: the confluence of possibly the first alphabetic script, a blue stone in a Bible story, the meeting of Egyptians and Canaanites in the Sinai. Just about every literate society keeps some sort of journal whether it is carved in stone or preserved on palm leaves. Many of these cover centuries, but the Bible may claim the longest run, from the Late Bronze Age to the age of Alexander.
This may well be a result of the exiles. You can't take a stone wall or side of a mountain with you when you are ordered to pack up and move, but you can pack up your scrolls, then keep copying them and adding to them.
P.S. Does anyone know why they call Jews the people of the book? If you've been to a synagogue, the Bible there is written on a scroll. (This isn't a big secret like the whereabouts of the Ark.)