Read Aloud the Text Content

This audio was created by Woord's Text to Speech service by content creators from all around the world.

Text Content or SSML code:

Baruch, Jeremiah’s secretary, refers to the process: “He dictated all these words to me, and I wrote them with ink on the scroll [Greek en bibliō]” (v. 18). Even though the angry king burned the document “until the entire scroll was consumed in the fire” (v. 23), Jeremiah dictated another with “all the words of the scroll that King Jehoiakim of Judah had burned in the fire, and many similar words were added to them” (v. 32). From this biblical passage, it is relatively easy to understand the transition from writing on papyrus (Greek biblos) to naming the finished product, a scroll or a book (Greek biblion). Ordinarily, only one side of a papyrus scroll contained writing. (The heavenly visions in Ezekiel and Revelation specifically mention writing on both sides of the papyrus as a sign of an extraordinary, supernatural message: Ezek. 2:10; Rev. 5:1.) Scrolls were the ordinary instrument for preserving and reading the sacred texts in synagogues; locating a particular passage required some dexterity with large scrolls. The Gospel of Luke describes the scene in the Nazareth synagogue when “the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to [Jesus]. He unrolled the scroll and found the passage where it was written: ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me . . .’” (4:16–17). Papyrus was not the only material on which ancient writers inscribed texts. After animal skins were thoroughly cleaned, stretched, dried, and stitched together, they served the same purpose as the more costly papyrus, which grew only in certain lowland regions (e.g., Egypt, Galilee) and thus often had to be imported. The abundance of sheep and goats in Palestine provided a steady source of durable scrolls called parchment (Greek membrana). Scribes who produced the collection of Jewish manuscripts (from around the time of Jesus) that scholars today call the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS) used these animal skins, which were durable enough to survive after more than 1,900 years in clay jars. In Roman times, writing tablets with wax surfaces were framed and hinged together along one edge. Since the frames were made of wood (Latin caudex), the set of writing tablets was called a codex. This arrangement allowed for writing on both sides. Soon sheets of papyrus or parchment were sewn together at the spine. The result was the precursor of the modern book. By the second century CE,2 the emerging books of the Christian canon (a collection of authoritative sacred texts) were inscribed in this kind of codex, while the Jewish community generally retained the scroll format. The practicality and economy of a portable document with writing on both sides were eminently suited to the rugged missionary lifestyle of Christian evangelists, and the codex helped Christians to think of their various sacred texts as constituting one book.