Comments on: Job’s inscription

By: Ronan

Ronan — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 17:34:29 +0000

Kevin,

I’d like to see sipparu used in the context of writing. I think there’s an example from Esarhaddon, but I’d have to check.

I’m no comparative Semiticist, but I wonder whether the writer of Job would use spr (from sipparu) when it so obviously looks like sefer. I’m inclined to think sefer = sefer, but that it has a wider meaning than “scroll.” I’m also 60/40 on v.23 referring to v.24′s rock, but don’t ask me to defend it!

By: Kevin Barney

Kevin Barney — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 16:48:33 +0000

Note that my argument was not that sefer = sipparu, but that the latter possibly influenced the former word choice.

And yes, there is plenty of evidence of writing on metal, but none of writing whole books that I know of. Which would appear to make the brass plates sui generis, at least based on current knowledge.

By: Ronan

Ronan — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 16:41:31 +0000

So, I see you prefer a parallelism…

Maybe, but sefer = siparru will need a closer look. I’ll have a look at the Akkadian material.

Seems to me that what the Book of Mormon needs, though, is not evidence for people writing on plates, but for Jews writing whole books on plates. Right?

By: Ronan

Ronan — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 16:32:42 +0000

What was that about searching in the journals?!!!

By: Kevin Barney

Kevin Barney — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 16:23:04 +0000

Ronan, see my "A More Responsible Critique," FARMS Review 15/1 (2003): 97-146, here. The applicable section is from pp. 106-109; comments on some of the possible meanings of the lead are in note 27.

By: smb

smb — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 15:35:17 +0000

Ronan, is there a chance that this is echoing language in Jeremiah about a law being inscribed on a person’s inward parts? It seems that there are several places where the notion of writing is made emphatic and dare i say immortal in symbolic terms. One of my chapters includes discussion about the hagiology of writing per se, its capacity to provide a form of immortality. While my period is generally early national America, the reading I’ve done in other cultural epochs suggests an ongoing fascination with the immortalization associated with inscribing/writing.

By: Ronan

Ronan — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 15:31:48 +0000

Thanks, Jonathan. That is relevant actually. Some more digging has suggested that the root sfr itself may originally have meant “inscribe.” A possibility with the lead is it would give a rock inscription a certain “shine.”

(H. Gehman, “SÄ’FER, an inscription, in the book of Job,” JBL 63/3, 1944 – old!)

By: Jonathan Green

Jonathan Green — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 14:35:28 +0000

Ronan, I don’t know if this is relevant at all to Semitic, but verbs for engraving/inscribing/etching are the roots for verbs of writing in the older languages I work with, like English ‘write’ from a Pgmc. verb meaning ‘to scratch’. Latin scribeo appears to have both senses. Does this ever happen in Semitic? Can the sense of khaqaq have shifted from ‘engrave’ to ‘write’?

By: Sam MB

Sam MB — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 13:59:41 +0000

The lead was because Job was suffering from lead poisoning as we all know. The whole book is a made up attempt to put lead poisoning into the Bible world, just like the parting of the Red Sea was a combination of a sinkhole, a tornado, and a very large sponge.

By: Ronan

Ronan — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 11:06:28 +0000

For obvious reasons, there is a lot of Mormon work on writing on metal (note that writing on rock is the only clear interpretation of Job above). Googling “Curtis Wright” will pay dividends. Search at FARMS too (William Adams, William Hamblin, Curtis Wright, John Tvedtnes). BYU Studies 45/2 has an article about Roman plates.

But please, solve the sefer and lead problems. Kevin Barney, I’m looking at you.