Prof. F.F. Bruce's "Book and Parchments:" (1-2) Books & Alphabets

Bruce, F.F. The Book and the Parchments. Old Tappan, NJ: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1963.

When catechetized, e.g. the Westminster Confession of Faith, learning is a corollary concern in life; it’s natural.

 

Available at: http://www.amazon.com/The-Books-Parchments-F-Bruce/dp/B001G5KDS2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1389071453&sr=8-1&keywords=f.f.+bruce+books+and+parchments

 

CONTENTS

PREFACE

1. THE BOOK AND THE PARCHMENTS
2. THE BIBLE AND THE ALPHABET
3. THE HEBREW LANGUAGE
4. THE ARAMAIC LANGUAGE
5. THE GREEK LANGUAGE
6. THE TWO TESTAMENTS
7. THE FORM OF THE BIBLE
8. THE CANON OF SCRIPTURE
9. THE TEXT OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
10.  THE SAMARITAN PENTATUCH
11.  THE TARGUMS
12.  THE OLD TESTAMENT IN GREEK
13.  THE APOCRYPHAL BOOKS
14.  THE TEXT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT
15.  THE SYRIAC BIBLE
16.  THE LATIN BIBLE
17.  OTHER EARLY VERSIONS
18.  THE ENGLISH BIBLE
19.  THE NEW ENGLISH BIBLE

APPENDICES:

1. LOST BOOKS
2. THE NEW TESTAMENT APOCRYPHA AND OTHER EARLY CHRISTIAN BOOKS
3. SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY

INDEX OF NAMES AND SUBJECTS

INDEX OF SCRIPTURE REFERENCES

THE BOOK AND THE PARCHMENTS.  Bring the cloak and parchments said Bishop Paul to a fellow Bishop and protégé, Timothy.  Were these blank parchments for writings?  OT manuscripts? Books? 

Scrolls were less convenient than a Codex.  The Codex could hold more. Ink was used on both scroll-papyri and leather-vellum-parchments.  There are vast quantities of clay tablets from the Tigris-Euphrates valley, Persia, Syria, Asia Minor and Egypt, but these are not portable and not convenient.

THE BIBLE AND THE ALPHABET

Prof. Bruce believes Moses wrote alphabetic rather than pictographic or ideographic script.  He was directed to write: (1) a memorial of Amole (Ez. 17.14), (2) the Book of the Covenant (Ex. 24.4), (3) the 10 commandments (Ex. 20; Dt. 5), (4) Israelite itinerary (Num. 33.2), (5) the Deuteronomic law code (Dt. 31.7, 24) and (6) the Song of Deuteronomy 32.  We would add that we’ve long believed that Moses was involved with reading, writing and the Egyptian scriptoria—he was literate in probably more than one dialect, but we digress.

An interesting aside is the potential connection between Phoenician and Greek languages.  The Greek was split into the West Greek (e.g. Marseilles, France) and Ionic (Asia Minor).  We would add to this mix the dominance of a polyglot and wealthy quasi-Semitic culture in Asia Minor, the Hittites. Ergo, the language mix was: Western Greek (Phoenician) v. Ionic v. Etruscan Italy v. early Roman alphabet v. Hittite v. Egyptian. 

The time has come to break out a Professor (names eludes me now) from the Teaching Company, a 24-hour set of lectures, involving the Hittites and their intersection with Egyptian culture.