New Evidence on When Bible Was Written: Ancient Shopping Lists

[Garrison Hilliard]

TEL AVIV — Eliashib, the quartermaster of the remote desert fortress,
received his instructions in writing — notes inscribed in ink on pottery
asking for provisions to be sent to forces in the ancient kingdom of
Judah.

The requests for wine, flour and oil read like mundane, if ancient,
shopping lists. But a new analysis of the handwriting suggests that
literacy may have been far more widespread than previously known in the
Holy Land around 600 B.C., toward the end of the First Temple period. The
findings, according to the researchers from Tel Aviv University, could
have some bearing on a century-old debate about when the main body of
biblical texts was composed.

“To Eliashib: And now, give the Kittiyim 3 baths of wine, and write the
name of the day,” read one of the texts, composed in ancient Hebrew using
the Aramaic alphabet, and apparently referring to a Greek mercenary unit
in the area.

Another said: “And a full homer of wine, bring tomorrow; don’t be late.
And if there is vinegar, give it to them.”

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The new study, published on Monday in the Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences, combined archaeology, Jewish history and applied
mathematics, and involved computerized image processing and the
development of an algorithm to distinguish between the various authors
issuing the commands.

Based on a statistical analysis of the results, and taking into account
the content of the texts that were chosen for the sample, the researchers
concluded that at least six different hands had written the 18 missives at
around the same time. Even soldiers in the lower ranks of the Judahite
army, it appears, could read and write.

“There is something psychological beyond the statistics,” said Prof.
Israel Finkelstein of the Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near
Eastern Civilizations at Tel Aviv University, one of the leaders of the
project. “There is an understanding of the power of literacy. And they
wrote well, with hardly any mistakes.”

The study was based on a trove of about 100 letters inscribed in ink on
pieces of pottery, known as ostracons, that were unearthed near the Dead
Sea in an excavation of the Arad fort decades ago and dated from about 600
B.C. That was shortly before Nebuchadnezzar’s destruction of Jerusalem and
the kingdom of Judah, and the exile of its elite to Babylon — and before
many scholars believe the major part of the biblical texts, including the
five books of Moses, also known as the Pentateuch, were written down in
any cohesive form.

The Arad citadel was small, far-flung and on an active front, close to the
border with the rival kingdom of Edom. The fort itself was only about half
an acre in size, and probably would have accommodated about 30 soldiers.
The wealth of texts found there, recording troop movements, provisions and
other daily activities, were created within a short time, making them a
valuable sample for looking at how many different hands wrote them.

“To Eliashib, and now: Issue from the wine 3 baths,” another ostracon
ordered, adding, “And Hananyahu has commanded you to Beersheba with 2
donkeys’ load and you shall wrap up the dough with them.”

One of the longstanding arguments for why the main body of biblical
literature was not written down in anything like its present form until
after the destruction and exile of 586 B.C. is that before then there was
not enough literacy or enough scribes to support such a massive
undertaking.

But if the literacy rates in the Arad fortress were repeated across the
kingdom of Judah, which had about 100,000 people, there would have been
hundreds of literate people, the Tel Aviv research team suggests.

That could have provided the infrastructure for the composition of
biblical works that constitute the basis of Judahite history and theology
including early versions of the books of Deuteronomy to II Kings,
according to the researchers.

Since the 19th century, scholars have been debating “when was it written?”
Professor Finkelstein said. “In real time or after,” he added, referring
to the destruction and exile.

In the centuries after the destruction and exile, up until 200 B.C.,
Professor Finkelstein said, there is almost no archaeological evidence of
inscriptions in Hebrew. He said he would have expected digs to reveal seal
impressions and everyday writings on pottery, even if more important
texts, like biblical ones, had been done on perishable materials such as
parchment or papyrus.

Biblical texts written in the centuries after 586 B.C., he suggested, were
likely to have been composed in Babylon.

Other scholars cautioned against drawing too many conclusions about when
the first major part of the Bible was written based on extrapolations
regarding ancient literacy rates.

“There is no such thing as consensus in biblical studies these days,” said
Prof. Edward Greenstein of Bar-Ilan University near Tel Aviv. “The process
of transmission was much more complicated than scholars used to think.”

The process of composing the Torah, according to Professor Greenstein,
appears to have involved layers of rewrites, supplements and revisions.
Pointing to recent scholarship on biblical literature, he said that
scribes may have recorded texts primarily as a memory aid in a world where
they were still being transmitted orally.

“Biblical texts did not have to have been written by many people, or read
by many people, to have been written down,” he said, adding that the texts
would not have been widely circulated.

To deduce literacy rates, the research team used a method that Barak
Sober, from the Department of Applied Mathematics at Tel Aviv University,
compared to forensic handwriting analysis adapted to ancient times.

The mathematicians took 16 of the ceramic shards from Arad that were
richer in content (two had inscriptions on both sides). Two of the texts
resembled a roll call, simply listing people present, and were clearly
written in the desert outpost; others may have been composed elsewhere.

Many of the Aramaic letters were unclear, so they could not just be typed
into a computer. Instead, the researchers devised a way to reconstruct
them. Then the letters from pairs of texts were jumbled up and the
algorithm separated them based on handwriting.

If the algorithm split the letters into two clear groups, the texts were
counted as having been written by two authors. When the algorithm did not
distinguish between the letters and left them together in one group, no
position was taken; they may have been written by the same hand, or
possibly by two people with similar styles.

A conservative calculation revealed at least four different authors, and
six when content was taken into account, such as who was writing to whom.

Another ostracon was addressed to a man called Nahum. He was instructed to
“Go to the house of Eliashib son of Eshiyahu,” to collect a jar of oil, to
send it to Ziph “quickly, and seal it with your seal.”

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