Biblical Hebrew Forum

[a.c.smith AT juno.com (Andrew C Smith)]

>"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."

In a context having nothing to do with Hebrew, I've worked quite a bit
with palimpsests. Those are re-written documents, where somebody erased
the first document, and then wrote over it a second document. This was
done in times and places where writing materials were expensive or in
short supply. All the palimpsests I've worked with previously were
written on animal skins (Medieval). I've never heard of a papyrus
palimpsest before. I think it should be very difficult to erase an entire
document on papyrus without destroying the papyrus. How does this work?

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






___________________________________________________________________
You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail.
Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com/getjuno.html
or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866]