Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter_Kirk AT SIL.ORG]

The only info I have on this is from "The New Bible Dictionary", IVP 
Leicester 1962. I quoted this rather tentatively as I was half 
expecting to get a response saying that this dating had long been 
disproved, but nothing has come so far! Here is the full extract from 
the article "Papyri and Ostraca", by KA Kitchen, DF Payne and BF 
Harris:

"By far the oldest Hebrew papyrus known is the palimpsest found at the 
Wadi Murabba'at by the Dead Sea. It contains a list of personal names, 
written in the palaeo-Hebrew ('Phoenician') script, and dates from the 
7th, or even 8th, century BC."

From another part of the same article:

"Before the end of the second millennium BC, papyrus was being 
exported extensively to Syria-Palestine and doubtless beyond. About 
1090 BC Zakarbaal, the prince of Phoenician Byblos, quoted 
timber-prices to the Egyptian envoy Wenamun from the rolls of accounts 
kept by this predecessors, and in Wenamun's part-payment for timber 
were included '500 (rolls of) finished papyrus' (ANET, pp.27a, 28a)."

Also from the article "Writing" by DJ Wiseman in the same dictionary:

"The papyrus is not directly mentioned in the Old Testament as a 
writing-material... It was, however, obtainable from Phoenicia, Lake 
Huleh, and the Jordan (see PAPYRI) in the 11th century and onwards, 
and its use is attested by the marks on the backs of seal impressions 
originally attached to this perishable substance (e.g. the reverse of 
the seal of GEDALIAH, q.v.). Papyrus... was also known to the 
Assyrians and the Babylonians in the 7th century (R.P. Dougherty, 
'Writing on Parchment and Papyrus among the Babylonians and the 
Assyrians', JAOS, XLVIII, 1928, pp.109-135)."

Peter Kirk

______________________________ Reply Separator 
_________________________________
Subject: pre-exilic Hebrew papyrus
Author:  a.c.smith AT juno.com at internet
Date:    11/01/1999 05:32


>>a surviving
>>pre-exilic Hebrew papyrus as well as impressions of papyrus on the 
>>backs of pre-exilic seals.

Do you have more info on this?

a.c.smith AT juno.com
http://www.lcms.org
http://www.lcms.com
http://www.geocities.com/athens/acropolis/5680

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