PERIOD OF THE JUDGES
of the libraries containing "temple chronicles and temple archives" which Sellin supposes to have existed at Ophra, Dan, Shiloh, Shechem, Gibeon, and other religious centers, and even something more than strictly archival material.
(6) To this may also be added, with all reservations, the mysterious metal ephod which appears only in this period. The ephod seems to have been either (a) a case (BDB p. 66), or (b) an instrument for consulting an oracle (BDB p. 65). The linen ephod had a pouch for the Urim and Thummim. The metal ephod seems to be distinguished from the image and may have contained the written oracular instructions (torah?) as well as the oracular instruments. It is tempting to find in these the counterpart of (the Egyptian images of a god on a box containing his writings "under his feet", but this is of course only conjecture.
(7) On the public archive side the
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