“Ancient Words, Ever True” – 3

 

 

                                                         THE WRITTEN WORD

 

1.                  What are the implications of 2 Thessalonians 2:15?

 

2.                  God ________________ his word at the time he inspired it.

 

a.                   This was the purpose of signs and wonders (Acts 14:3; Heb. 2:3-4).

 

b.                  Anything which did not correspond to what was thus revealed was to be rejected (Deut. 18:21-22; 13:1-4).

 

c.                   The task from then on was to pay closer attention to what had already been heard (Heb. 2:1-2).

 

3.                  God therefore revealed his way in settings when _____________ ___ _________ would be both possible and obviously important.

 

a.                   When ___________ was leading Israel from Sinai through the wilderness (Ex. 24:4; 34:27-28; Deut. 31:9, 24-26).

 

b.                  When _______________ was dealing with kings who wanted to ignore him (Jer. 30:2; 36:2, 23, 28, 32).

 

c.                   When _________ would write letters to congregations he could not visit.  (1 Thes. 5:17; Col. 4:16; Eph. 3:3-5).

 

4.                  _____________ ______________ were certainly available long before these events.  In fact, when we speak of the Bible, we use a word which originally referred to a particular kind of writing material.

 

a.                   2 Timothy 4:13 mentions two of these.

 

i.                    The ____________ (biblion) were rolls of papyrus or byblus, a reed-like plant which grew along the Nile and was used for writing purposes in Egypt before 3000 B.C.

 

ii.                  The ______________ (membrana) were made from skins of sheep, goats or antelope.  The name came from Pergamum.  When made from calf-skin it was called vellum.  It was used for documents of greater value.

 

iii.                A reed pen and ink was used with either of these material (3 Jn. 13).

 

b.                  Other writing materials were also commonly used from ancient days.

 

i.                    Notes could be made with a metal stylus on a tablet made of a flat piece of wood covered with wax.

 

ii.                  Common people often used pieces of unglazed pottery (called ostraca) because they were plentiful, would last, and took ink readily.

 

iii.                A durable form of writing used regularly in O. T. days was with a sharp instrument on tablets of soft clay, which were then baked hard.

 

iv.                The most permanent was the engraving of rock inscriptions with an iron pen (Job 19:24; cf. Ex. 31:18).

 

5.                  The ___________________ ________________ required to communicate specific ideas was also being used before the Scriptures mention writing.  In fact, when we speak of the Scriptures, we use a word which originally denoted the writing.

 

a.                   We inherited our alphabet from the _____________ who had 23 letters (our I and J are variant forms of one Roman letter, as are our U and V, while our W is just what we call it).

 

b.                  The Romans based theirs on what the ___________ in southern Italy had used as far back as the eighth century B.C.  The Greek alphabet had 24 letters, and the earliest inscriptions of it go back to Athens in the ninth century B.C.

 

c.                   The Greeks derived their alphabet from the _________________, whose Semitic language was formed from 22 letters which all represented consonants.  It can be traced back to at least the eighteenth century B.C.

 

d.                  The cuneiform script of the Sumerians, an early population of Mesopotamia, goes back to at least 3000 B.C.

 

e.                   Egyptian scribes began to develop a sort of alphabet of 24 signs, representing all the consonants in their language, as early as 3000 B.C.

 

6.                  If there were writing materials and an alphabet, anyone who knew the _______________ could learn to read and write (cf. Judges 8:14).  In fact, the books of the Bible are written in three languages.

 

a.                   The language of most of the Old Testament is _______________.

 

b.                  Some sections of the books connected with the Exile are written in ________________.

 

c.                   The New Testament contains a few Aramaic terms, but it is all written in common _______________.

 

7.                  We may well regard it as by the _______________ of God that, as he was ready to make his ways known, his purposes were furthered by:

 

a.                   Writing materials and languages which were readily available for that use.

 

b.                  Understanding which was not restricted to specially trained readers only.

 

c.                   Political conditions which guaranteed that what was written would be spread.

 

d.                  Climates in which those materials would survive and could be studied.

 

e.                   Places which would be investigated, excavated and examined by every generation following.