SAUL TO THE CAPTIVITY
The reference to "the books" in Daniel (9:2) is commonly and rightfully regarded as a library reference and seems to point to the books that made up the Old Testament rather than to archives.
It may be noted here that among the few written remains of Palestine are the tablets from Gezer which are of the time of Manasseh and Ashurbanapal. These are contracts and remind one of the contracts in the clay jar to which Jeremiah refers.
From the time of Tilgath Pileser III say 740 B.C., the history of Israelite libraries is one with the history of Babylonian libraries, and from 712, in large measure, Jewish library history as well and it becomes exclusively so in 607 with the beginning of the seventy years captivity. The earlier part of this period is that of the famous libraries of the second Sargon and of Ashurbanapal, the latter includes the time of Nabonidus.
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