The Knowledge of Writing in Iron Age Palestine

Abstract

The Bible presents writing as a normal activity of daily life, but no Hebrew books survive from Iron Age Palestine to attest that. The written documents found there are few and brief in comparison with those from Egypt and Mesopotamia, yet they attest a varied use of writing which, this paper argues, reached beyond the scribal circles of palace and temple. Considered in the light of inscriptions from neighbouring lands, Hebrew epigraphy presents a richer source, lacking only royal monuments. On the basis of that evidence and analogies from other parts of the ancient Near East, a case is made for the possibility of written literature existing in the land from at least the tenth century B.C. onwards.