586 TRANSLATION, NOTES, AND COMMENTS
from Josiah's days to the present-with Thiel, as a "post-Deuteronomic inser-
tion." McKane (pp. 4-5), one should remember, favors the low chronology of
Horst (1923), which puts the beginning of Jeremiah's public career at 609 B.C.,
or shortly thereafter, so we are talking about a master-disciple relationship of
four years at most. McKane's contradiction is contrived, and the Horst chronol-
ogy, as I have argued elsewhere (Lundbom 1993 ), is unacceptable. One must
therefore go with a plain reading of the verse, viz., that this scroll contained
revelations received over a long period-23 years according to 25: 3-that Jere-
miah is 11ow dictating to Baruch. For a discussion on the progression from oral
proclamation to written message in the prophetic tradition, see Zimmerli
1995: 422-31.
Take for yourself Hebrew qa~-leka. On the imperatives qa~ and qe~u
("take!") occurring in divine commands to the prophet, see Note for 43:9.
a writing-scroll. Hebrew megillat-seper. Aside from the references here and
in v 4, this two-word expression appears elsewhere only in Ps 40:8[Eng 40:7]
and Ezek 2:9. A "writing-scroll" was pasted papyrus or sewn skins made into a
roll for purposes of writing (cf. Isa 34:4). Although papyrus and tanned skins
(leather) were both well known in ancient Israel, there are no references in
the Hebrew OT to the use of either material for scrolls. However, the present
verse in LXX 43:2 reads chartion bibliou, "a papyrus scroll," and again in v 23,
ho chartes, "the papyrus." The first mention of prophecy written on papyrus is
otherwise 2 Esd 15:2. In the ANE generally, papyrus and animal skins were
both used for writing and had been so for centuries - in Egypt since the early
thirrl milleni11m R.C. (G. R. Driver 1976: 81-82). The replacement of tanned
skins with improved parchment (sheepskin or goatskin with the hair removed,
smoothed with lime), and later vellum (high-grade calfskin), began ca. 200 B.C.
(Hyatt 1943: 75; Lemaire in ABD 6: 1003). True paper (invented in China)
began to replace papyrus in ca. the seventh or eighth century A.O. (R. J. Wil-
liams in IDB R-Z, 918).
Some think the present scroll would have been made of skins (Joseph Kara;a
Kimi.ii; Streane; Hicks 1983: 57-61), but most think it was made from papyrus
(Duhm; Hyatt 1943: 72-73; Weiser; D. W. Thomas 1950: 5; Haran 1980-81;
1982; Holladay; and others), which Egypt had been exporting to countries in
the north beginning at least in 1100 B.C. The Tale of Wen-Amon (ii 40) men-
tions "500 [rolls of] finished papyrus" enroute to Gebal (Gk: Byblos ="pith of
papyrus"; later "book" and "Bible") in Phoenicia (ANET^3 28; cf. Haran 1982:
164; CS I 92 translates "five hundred smooth linen mats," which may neverthe-
less be finished papyrus readied for writing). That papyrus was being used as
writing material in Judah in the eighth to sixth centuries B.C. is attested by the
seventh-century Wadi Murabbacat papyrus, also by fiber impressions on clay
bullae found at Jerusalem, Lachish, and elsewhere (A. Lemaire in ABD 6:
1003 ). One of these bullae with the inscription "belonging to Berechiah, son of
"Joseph Kara (b. ca. 1060-70), a medieval Jewish Bible commentator from northern France,
was a student and colleague of Rashi (EncJud 10: 759-60).