BIBLICAL LIBRARIES
enumerates eight separate documents relating to this or a like prosecution of tomb robbers, kept together in one jar.
(4) And once again it appears that the archives of Zakar-Baal contained a book (roll) "journal" or register of preceding reigns and that the inscribed stele was used for noteworthy matters. This tends to show that already in the time of Samuel the record-book system of Egypt had superseded or was superseding the docketed tablet as far north in Syria as Byblos.
In brief thus these four (or five) cases all point to a system of (1) archival collections, (2) contemporary book registers, (3) contemporary publication by inscription, and in the light of these, the Old Testament method, from the time of David at least, becomes clear, certainly as to archival collections and registers, and hardly less so as to the setting up of inscriptions in permanent material. Even if "D" is not earlier than 621 B.C. it
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