The “ Seated Scribe ” E 3023
Sully 1st floor room 22 showcase 10
The Bible, an authentic text?
This famous polychrome sculpture
is the symbol of a society
where reading and writing
were considered the foundation
of wisdom and the art of governing.
The scribe is writing here
under dictation on a roll of papyrus,
his concentrated face lit up by crystal eyes inlaid in copper rings. AE40
Particular attention has been paid to the bone structure of his face and the corpulence of his stomach ;
this feature signifying the high-ranking administrative position of this figure.
Seated Scribe
The history of Egypt was written by scribes.
But they did not hesitate to distort the truth.
Conversely, the sincerity and honesty
For Jesus Christ, “your word is truth.”
The Hebrew word for book, sepher,
Only the pupils of the temples learnt
Others learnt only the everyday hieratic writing.
Seated Scribe in Dress A 42
In contrast to the biblical writers
of King Amenhotep III A 18-19
Sully room 12
Re-inscribed by Amenhotep III, what we have here is a striking example of the lack of probity of the pharaohs. The base features a list of defeated people on the necks of whom the pharaoh is trampling.
See Psalm 18:40.
The profession of scribe did
not only exist in Mesopotamia.
A Babylonian scribe from the mid second millennium would have felt at home in any copyist’s workshop, whether in Syria, Canaan or even in Egypt.
Joshua mentions a Canaanite city, Kirjath Sepher, whose name signified “City of the Scribe”.
– Joshua 15:15,16
The term Bible is derived from the Greek biblia or ‘small books’,
which itself comes from biblos, referring to the inner bark of
the papyrus plant.
The term Bible reffers to the word papyrus
None of the original writings exist today. However, the comparative study of some 6,000 manuscripts of the Hebrew Scriptures reveal that the text has been faithfully transcribed.
In order to encourage the dissemination of the Scriptures and to make consulting them easier, the first Christians broke new ground in the use and the publishing of codex by replacing parchment rolls with paged books. The oldest Christian codices currently known, and which have been preserved in the dry climate of Egypt, are papyrus. AE43, AE44
"The interval separating the date the original manuscripts were written, and that of the oldest documents, is so slim that is in fact negligible.
The authenticity and the general integrity of the books of the New Testament may be regarded as finally established.”
Sir Frederic Kenyon AE45
“The first and most important conclusion derived from the examination of them [the papyri] is the satisfactory one that they confirm the essential soundness of the existing texts. The variations concern only minor matters.” AE43
Sir F. Kenyon
The admirable care given to the preservation of the holy text and its transmission confirm
that “The green grass has dried up, the blossom has withered; but as for the word of our God, it will last to time indefinite.” - Isaiah 40:8; 1 Peter 1:24