BIBLICAL LIBRARIES
only be inferred, but what was so generally the case with their Assyrian neighbors could hardly fail to be the case here. There were at least many religious texts for, as Diodorus says, it took 1200 "hides" to contain them. Whether this means 1200 rolls or 1200 single skins, it doubtless means skins sewed together into rolls.
It is worth noting that "House" of treasures and "House" of books are here used in parallel fashion as the receptacle of or place for treasures or books. The "Beth" or house like the "theka" of bibliotheca is simply something which contains something—as in Hebrew the house of ink is an inkstand.
Owing to the fact that the Biblical accounts of the archives of Ecbatana and Susa are given not only in Hebrew or Aramaic but occur also in Josephus, in the Septuagint and in the Vulgate, the search for the decree being given also in I Esdras in quite different language, these
[144]
