Book

BOOK . What we call books were unknown to the ancient Jews, at least in their present convenient form. Letters were engraved on stone, brick, metal (as lead and copper), or wood, and written on cloth and skins, and at a later period on parchment. Ex 17:14; 2 Tim 4:13. Tablets of lead and brass or copper of great antiquity have been discovered in modern times. The earliest mode of preserving inscriptions was by engraving on a rock. Comp. Job 19:24. The Sinaitic peninsula, especially the Wady Mukattab (the "Sculptured Valley"), and the neighborhood of Mount Serbal and Mount Sinai, are full of rock-inscriptions (called the Sinaitic Inscriptions). The writing-table mentioned Luke 1:63 was probably a tablet covered with wax or otherwise prepared to be written upon. Deut 27:2-3. Such tablets were used in England as late as the year 1300. Leaves and the bark of trees were also used, and were often prepared with much skill. The people of Ceylon write with a bodkin on broad and thick leaves cut into narrow slips; and these leaves, being fastened together, make books which they call alias. The missionaries often prepared tracts in this form before paper and printing were introduced upon the island. In Sumatra and among the Indians of North America bark is still used for making letters and pictures. Leather and linen or cotton cloth were also used. These were prepared in the form of long rolls, 12 or 14 inches wide, and fastened at each end to sticks (like the rollers to which maps are attached), and which were rolled together till they met midway. Sometimes these leaves were connected in the form of modern books, and opened in the same way. In this case the sheets were fastened to rods, and these rods passed through rings, and thus formed the back of the book. The writing was generally in capital letters and without punctuation or division of words; and when used, the reader unrolled the manuscript as far as the place which he wished to find, and kept before him just so much as he would read. The pages resembled the following in their general appearance, though they were of course wider and longer than these, and were read from right to left: John 1:1-5.