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.

"Writing:" An Outline

Varied Authors. Encyclopedia Britannica (15^th Ed.). “Writing.” Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985.

Writing is defined as a “system of human intercommunication by conventional visible symbols.  Two stages: (1) simple combination of pictures without a correspondence to linguistic elements (= semasiography) and (2) signs of writing, pictorial or linear, as substitutes for oral language (words, syllables, distinct sounds, etc.)

Still stunned (though it's unjustified given my wider experiences, "really knowing better" than to be surprised, but still--oddly and recently--stunned) by a recent TEC cleric who never studied a lick of Hebrew, Greek or Latin. A graduate of Sewannee too. What do they teach down there?  Or, at Virginia Seminary? I ought not be stunned, but am. Actually, am somewhat troubled by Mr. (Rev. Dr. Prof.) Horton's systematic in terms of exegesis as well; I hope I’m wrong on the latter. We're mindful of Mr. (Rev. Dr. Prof.) Wilhelm Hengstenberg'sl point:  "If you want to be a theologian, you need to be a theologian of the Old Testament first."  How does one do that without studying Hebrew?

The nature and origin of writing

1.      Communication as systems of signs

2.      Writing as a system of signs

3.      Evolution of writing

A.    Pictures

B.    Forerunners of writing

C.    Logosyllabic writing

D.   Syllabic writings

E.    Alphabetic writing

4.      Typology of writing

A.    Semasiography

B.    Phonography

C.    Metagraphy

5.      Writing systems

A.    General characteristics

B.    One origin or many

C.    Modern writings among “primitive societies”

D.   Specialized forms

Systems of writing

1.      Alphabetic writing

A.    Theories of the origins of the alphabet

B.    Development and diffusion of alphabets

C.    Major alphabets of the world

D.   Attempts to make an ideal alphabet

2.      Hieroglyphic writing

A.    Development of Egyptian hieroglyphic writing

B.    Characteristics of hieroglyphic writing

C.    Hieratic script

D.   Demotic script

E.    Decipherment of hieroglyphic writing

3.      Cuneiform

A.    Origin and development of cuneiform

B.    Spread and development of cuneiform

C.    Decipherment of cuneiform

D.   Influence of cuneiform

4.      Chinese and Japanese logosyllabic writing

Adjuncts to writing

1.      Punctuation

A.    Punctuation in Greek and Latin

B.    Punctuation in English since 1600

C.    Punctuation in French, Spanish, German and Russian

D.   Punctuation in Oriental and African languages

2.      Shorthand

A.    History and development of shorthand

B.    Modern symbol systems

C.    Modern abbreviated longhand systems

D.   Machine shorthand

E.    Alternatives to shorthand

The act of handwriting: calligraphy

1.      Greek handwriting

A.    Origins to the 8^th century A.D.

B.    8^th to 16^th centuries

2.      Latin handwriting

A.    Ancient Roman styles

B.    The Anglo-Celtic and other “national” styles (5^th to 13^th centuries)

C.    Carolingian reforms in the scriptorium (8^th and 9^th centuries)

D.   The black-letter, or Gothic, style (9^th to 15^th centuries)

E.    The scribes of Humanism (14^th to 16^th centuries)

F.     Writing manuals and copybooks (16^th to 18^th centuries)

G.   Revival of calligraphy (19^th and 20^th centuries)

3.      Early Semitic writing

A.    Old Hebrew

B.    Spread of Aramaic to the Middle East and Asia

4.      Arabic calligraphy

5.      Indic [sic] calligraphy

6.      East Asian calligraphy

A.    Chinese calligraphy

B.    Korean calligraphy

C.    Japanese calligraphy 

 

Wonders of Ancient Mesopotamia: Exhibtion in Toronto

The Wonders of Ancient Mesopotamia, will explore an era of extraordinary invention and innovation, the impact of which is still shaping our lives thousands of years later.This exhibition focuses on three of the great centres of ancient civilisation -- Sumer, Assyria and Babylon. Melbourne Museum.Australia. 3rd of May 2012. Pictures by JOE ARMAO edited by Tim Young.for The Age newspaper , The Age ipad and The Age online

http://historyoftheancientworld.com/2012/10/massive-mesopotamia-exhibition-coming-to-toronto/

Massive Mesopotamia exhibition coming to Toronto

By

History of the Ancient World

– October 17, 2012

By Owen Jarus

A major international exhibit on ancient Mesopotamia will be coming to Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum next year. The exhibit, called “The Wonders of Ancient Mesopotamia” will feature artifacts now in the British Museum and will run from June 22, 2013 – January 5, 2014.


Centred in modern day Iraq and spreading into Syria, Turkey and Iran, Mesopotamian civilization saw the rise of the world’s earliest cities and the development of a system of cuneiform writing more than 5,000 years ago.

“More than 3000 years of ancient Mesopotamian history and achievements can be illustrated chronologically through a wide range of spectacular artefacts from the collections of the Middle East Department of the British Museum. The innovations, beliefs, artistic craftsmanship, power and legacy of Mesopotamia can be explored through these objects many of which result from famous excavations of legendary ancient cities such as Ur, Nineveh and Babylon,” the British Museum said in a statement on their website.

Among the pieces that will be brought to Toronto is a statue of Ashurnasirpal II, an Assyrian king who expanded his resurgent empire northward to the Mediterranean coast more than 2,800 years ago. A number of treasures from his capital Nimrud (Kalhu) will be shown and can now be seen on the British Museum’s website.

Click here to visit Owen Jarus’ website