INTRODUCTION
library to these organized collections of written documents, arranged for public use, is the fear that it will mislead the layman into thinking that these libraries were important collections of systematic treatises like the great modern public libraries but the fact is and the event proves that the shoe is quite on the other foot. In reality the average Bible student will no more be misled by calling a Sumerian collection of tablets a library, than by calling a Biblical ship ship, shovel shovel, or plow plow. No one will mistake Palestinian plows or shovels or ships or books for steam plows, steam shovels, trans-Atlantic steamships or paper-printed books. As a matter of fact, the Bible student is more apt to look for unlikeness than likeness and it is the differences between the customs, costumes, agricultural implements, houses, etc., of those days and those of our days on which popular commentary loves to dwell and in which
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