BIBLICAL LIBRARIES
"House of the book," and higher schools of Midrash and Talmud were held in the synagogue, although there were also separate schoolhouses and school was also perhaps held at the house of the teacher (House of the scribe). It was decreed that in case a synagogue was turned into a higher school it must still belong to the community. These non-synagogue schoolhouses must also some say, but others doubt, have contained Greek as well as Hebrew books (Krauss p. 203). The instruction of the synagogue was chiefly in the Law and Jewish History.
The libraries of the Essenes offer still another type. Like the libraries of the Begging Friars of the thirteenth century, these were community libraries, in that the members of the sect lived in community houses and had their books, like everything else, in common, just as among the Dominicans and Franciscans an individual was not allowed to own his
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