RS/not checked/01/06/2025
A review of: The Scribe in the Biblical World: A Bridge Between Scripts, Languages and Cultures. Ed. Esther Eshel and Michael Langlois; 388 pp. BZAW 547; Berlin: De Gruyter, 2023.
Before and After Babel: Writing as Resistance in Ancient Near Eastern Empires by Marc Van De Mieroop, 358 pp. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022.
Along with much of ancient studies, Biblical studies have experienced a "scribal turn" in recent decades (Smith 2022: 355–356 with n. 24). Milestones along the way have included Schniedewind (2004), Carr (2005), Van der Toorn (2007), Rollston (2010), Sanders (2017), and Schniedewind (2019). This is a salutary development. Intellectual history is not the same as literary history. Ideas can pass through the world without leaving any trace. The texts that we study are the product of scribes. So, what can we learn by focusing on the scribes behind the text?