Book (continued) – Boss

Book (continued)

The enemies to which books are exposed are various: wind, fire, moisture, mold, human negligence and vandalism, and human use. Some materials are naturally more durable than others. Stone and metal inscriptions survive better than wood or clay, vellum than papyrus or paper.

On the other hand, however, if isolated or protected from hostile environment, very fragile material may outlast more substantial. Papyrus has survived in the mounds of Egypt, and unbaked clay tablets in the mounds of Babylonia, while millions of stone and metal inscriptions written thousands of years later have already perished. Here the factor of isolation comes in. Fire and pillage, moth and rust and the bookworm destroy for the most part without respect of persons. It is only those books which are out of the way of destructive agencies which survive. An unbaked tablet which has survived 5,000 years under rubbish may crumble to dust in 5 years after it has been dug up and exposed to the air. This isolation may be accidental or "natural," as when tablets and papyri are preserved under ruins, but it may also be artificial and the result of human care. A third factor of survival is therefore the ability of a work to procure for itself human protection, or artificial isolation. In brief this ability is the "value" of a book to its owner. This value may lie in the material, artistic excellence, association or rarity. Any variation in the direction of value which may be expressed financially tends to preserve. In fire or shipwreck, these are the ones saved, in pillage the ones spared. They are the ones for whom fireproof buildings and special guardians are provided. An exception to this rule is when the material is more valuable for other than book purposes. In times of war the book engraved on gold or lead or paper may be melted down for coin or bullets or torn up for cartridges, while stone and vellum books are spared. The general law is, however, that value tends to preserve, and it has been remarked that all the oldest codices which have survived in free environment are sumptuous copies.

Literary value on the other hand is, on the whole, a factor of destruction for the individual rather than of survival. The better a book is the more it is read, and the more it is read, the faster it wears out. The worthless book on the top shelf outlasts all the rest. In cases of fire or shipwreck an owner will save books which cannot be replaced and the books most easily replaced are those with literary value. A man will sometimes save his favorite books, and does treat them often with a certain reverent care, which tends to preservation but, on the whole, literary value tends to destruction.

When it comes to the survival of the work or race survival, matters are reversed. Literary value is the prime factor. It is the ability of a book to get itself multiplied or re-copied which counts--the quality, whatever it may be, which tends to make a man wish to replace his copy when it is worn out, and to make many men wish to read the work.

This literary interest operates first to produce a large number of copies in order to meet the demand, each of which copies has its chance of survival. It operates also by inducing men to use the very best material, paper, ink, binding, etc., which results in giving each individual book a longer time to produce a new copy.

The modern newspaper published in a million copies is ephemeral, in the first place, because it is printed upon paper which cannot last, save in very favorable conditions of isolation, for more than forty or fifty years. In the second place, it is very rarely reprinted save for an occasional memorial copy. Books like the Bible or Virgil, Dante or Shakespeare, on the other hand, are reprinted in multitudes of editions and in many instances in the most permanent material that art can devise.

It often happens that a book is popular for a short time, but will not survive a changed environment. The newspaper is popular for a few hours, but the time environment changes and interest is gone. It sometimes happens that a book is very popular in one country and wholly fails to interest in another. Millions of copies of Uncle Tom's Cabin and Ben Hur were required to fill the demand of one generation where a few hundreds may suffice for the next.

All the time popular taste, which is only another name for average human experience, is judging a book. A book survives because it is popular--not necessarily because it is popular with the uneducated majority, but because it appeals continually to the average human experience of some considerable class, good or bad. Survival is, therefore, natural. Skilled critics help popular judgment, and select lists aid, but in the long run the test is simply of its correspondence with human experience; in short, it is because men "like" it that a book survives.

There is thus going on all the time a process of struggle and "natural selection" which in the end is a survival of the fittest in the true evolutionary sense, i.e. books survive because fitted to their environment of human experience or taste. There grows up, therefore, continually in every country a certain class of books which are counted classics. These are those which have survived their tests, and are being still further tested. Some have been tested from remote antiquity, and it is the books which survive the test of many periods of time, many kinds of geographical environment, and many varieties of intellectual environment, i.e. which appeal to many classes of readers, which are the true classics and which, on the other hand, show that they do correspond with the fundamental facts of human experience, simply because they have survived. In general it is the religious books which have survived in all nations, and the only books which have been tested in all lands and ages and appeal to Oriental and Western, ancient and modern alike, are those of the Christian Bible.

13. Book Collections:

It has been noticed above that the process of forming a new work is the bringing together of all works on the same subject in order to unite all their variations in the new work. It is for this purpose that every student brings together the working library on his specialty; it is what the librarian does when he brings together all the books on a subject for the use of students. Every man who reads up on a subject is performing the same task for himself, and likewise every man who does general reading.

There are few libraries, however, which attempt to get together all the books on a subject. Most libraries are select libraries containing the best books on the subject: by this is meant all books which have anything new or in short have a useful variation. This is an artificial process of the critical human mind, but in humanity in general it is going on all the time as a natural process. Men are perpetually at work choosing their "five-foot shelves," the collections of the very "best of best books." The reason for this lies in the fact that the average human mind can read and hold only a limited number of books; an unconscious process is all the time going on tending to pick out the small number of books which on the whole contain the greatest amount of human experience to the average page. The mass of world's books, however enormous, is thus boiled down by a natural selection to a few books, which contain the essence of all the rest. The process tends to go on in every country and every language. The most universal example is the Bible, which represents a long process of natural selection through many periods of time and considerable variety of geographical influence. It unites the quintessence of Semitic ideas with the corresponding quintessence of Indo-European ideas, each embodied in a correspondingly perfect language--for language itself is in the last analysis the quintessence of the experience of any people in its likeness and unlikeness to other peoples. It is therefore by the mere fact o f "survival" and "natural selection" proved to be the "fittest" to survive, i.e. that which corresponds most nearly to universal human experience. Councils do not form the canon of Scripture: they simply set a seal upon a natural process. The Bible is thus the climax of evolution among books as man is among animals. It is as unique among books as man is unique among all living things.

See LIBRARIES.

14. Early History of Books in Bible Lands:

The history of books begins at least with the history of writing. Some of the pictures on the cave walls of the neolithic age (Dechelette, Man: Archaeol., Prehist. (1908), 201-37) seem to have the essential characteristics of books and certainly the earliest clay tablets and inscriptions do. These seem to carry back with certainty to at least 4,200 years BC. By a thousand years later, tablet books and inscriptions were common and papyrus books seem to have been well begun. Another thousand years, or some time before Hammurabi, books of many sorts were numerous. At the time of Abraham, books were common all over Egypt, Babylonia, Palestine, and the eastern Mediterranean as far at least as Crete and Asia Minor. In the time of Moses, whenever that may have been, the alphabet had perhaps been invented, books were common among all priestly and official classes, not only in Babylonia, Assyria and Egypt, but at least in two or three scores of places in Palestine, north Syria and Cyprus. In the time of D avid not only was historical, official and religious literature common in Egypt and Assyria, but poetry and fiction had been a good deal developed in the countries round about Palestine; and very soon after, if not long before, as the Moabitic, Siloam, Zkr, Zenjirli, Baal-Lebanon, Gezer and Samaritan inscriptions show, Semitic writing was common all over Palestine and its neighborhood.

LITERATURE.

Articles by Dziatzko on "Buch" and "Bibliotheken," in Pauly-Wissowa, Real-encyclopedia d. class. Altertumsw., V, 5, and his Antikes Buchwesen, Leipzig, 1900, are mines of material, and the bibliographical reference thorough. The rapid developments in the history of most ancient books may be followed in Hortzschansky's admirable annual volume, Bibliographie des Bibliotheks und Buchwesens, Leipzig, 1904 ff. For a first orientation the little book of O, Wiese, Schrift und Buchwesen in alter u. neuer Zeit (3rd edition, Leipzig, 1910), or in English, the respective articles in the Encyclopedia Britannica, are perhaps best. On the scientific side the best introductions are Vol I of Iwan Muller's Handb. d. klass. Altertumsw. and T. Birt's D. antike Buchwesen (Berlin, 1882). For Biblical aspects of the Book, the best of all, and very adequate indeed, is the long article of E. von Dobschutz on the "Bible in the Church" in the Hastings' Encyclopedia of Religion, II, 579-615, and especially on ac count of the bibliographical apparatus at the end of each section. These little bibliographies give a complete apparatus on many of the above subjects. Paragraphs with bibliographies on others of above topics will be found in the W. Sanday article on "Bible," just preceding.

E. C. Richardson

Book Of Abraham

See APOCALYPTIC LITERATURE.

Book Of Enoch

See ENOCH, BOOK OF.

Book Of Jubilees

See APOCALYPTIC LITERATURE; APOCRYPHA.

Book Of Life

(cepher chayyim; he biblos tes zoes, "book of life"): The phrase is derived from the custom of the ancients of keeping genealogical records (Nehemiah 7:5,Nehemiah 7:64; Nehemiah 12:22,Nehemiah 12:23) and of enrolling citizens for various purposes (Jeremiah 22:30; Ezekiel 13:9). So, God is represented as having a record of all who are under His special care and guardianship. To be blotted out of the Book of Life is to be cut off from God's favor, to suffer an untimely death, as when Moses pleads that he be blotted out of God's book--that he might die, rather than that Israel should be destroyed (Exodus 32:32; Psalms 69:28). In the New Testament it is the record of the righteous who are to inherit eternal life (Philippians 4:3; Revelation 3:5; Revelation 13:8; Revelation 17:8; Revelation 21:27). In the apocalyptic writings there is the conception of a book or of books, that are in God's keeping, and upon which the final judgment is to be based (Daniel 7:10; Daniel 12:1; Revelation 20:12,Revelation 20:15; compare Book Jubilees 39:6; 19:9).

See APOCALYPSE; BLOT; BOOK OF REMEMBRANCE; JUDGMENT, LAST.

L. Kaiser

Book Of Noah

See APOCALYPTIC LITERATURE.

Book Of Remembrance

re-mem'-brans (cepher zikkdron, "book of record"): Is related in meaning to the "Book of Life." It refers to a list of the righteous, recorded in a book that lies before God (Malachi 3:16; compare Daniel 7:10).

See BOOK OF LIFE.

Books Of Adam

See APOCALYPTIC LITERATURE; ADAM, BOOKS OF.

Boot

boot (ce'on; the King James Version battle; the American Standard Revised Version "armor"; the American Revised Version, margin "boot"): The word ce'on, found only in Isaiah 9:5 (Hebrew 9:4), is probably a loanword from the Assyrian senu, meaning "shoe," "sandal." The root has the same meaning in Aramaic and Ethiopic. The passage should be translated "every boot of the booted warrior."

Booth

booth, booth: The Hebrew word cukkah (rendered in the King James Version "booth" or "booths," eleven times; "tabernacle" or "tabernacles," ten times; "pavilion" or "pavilions," five times; "cottage" once) means a hut made of wattled twigs or branches (Leviticus 23:42; Nehemiah 8:15). In countries where trees are abundant such wattled structures are common as temporary buildings as they can be constructed in a very short time. Cattle were probably housed in them (Genesis 33:17). Such hurriedly-made huts were use d by soldiers (2 Samuel 11:11; 1 Kings 20:12) and by harvesters--hence, the name feast of "booths" or "tabernacles" (see TABERNACLES, FEAST OF). Job 27:18 uses booth (parallel moth's house) as a symbol of impermanence. Similar huts were erected in vineyards, etc., to protect them from robbers and beasts of prey. The isolated condition of Jerusalem in the time of the prophet Isaiah is compared to a "booth in a vineyard" (Isaiah 18:1–7).

T. Lewis

Booths, Feast Of

See FEASTS AND FASTS, I, 2.

Booty

boot'-i (baz and baz): "Booty" is the translation of baz or baz, usually rendered "prey" and "spoil" (Jeremiah 49:32); of malqoach, "prey," "booty" (Numbers 31:32, "the booty--the rest of the prey," the Revised Version (British and American) "the prey, over and above the booty," baz); of meshiccah, "spoil" (Habakkuk 2:7; Zechariah 1:13; the Revised Version (British and American) "spoil"); of opheleia, "gain" (2 Macc 8:20). "Booty respects what is of personal service to the captor; spoils whatever serves to designate his triumph; prey includes whatever gratifies the appetite and is to be consumed" (Crabb, English Synonymes). Persons (for slaves, etc.) might be part of the booty. See also SPOIL.

W. L. Walker

Booz

bo'-oz (TR, Booz; Westcott and Hort, The New Testament in Greek, Boes): the King James Version, Greek form of Boaz (thus, the Revised Version (British and American)) (Matthew 1:5; Luke 3:32).

Bor-Ashan

bor-ash'-an: A correction of the Massoretic Text in the American Standard Revised Version in 1 Samuel 30:30 for the King James Version "Chor-ashan" and the English Revised Version "Cor-ashan." Probably the same as ASHAN (Joshua 15:42; 1 Chronicles 4:32; 1 Chronicles 6:59), which see.

Border; Borders

bor'-der: Indicating in both singular and plural the outlines or territory of a country. In the sense of "limits," "boundaries" or "territory," it occurs as a translation of gebhul (and its feminine gebhulah, in Psalms 74:17) in numerous passages in Old Testament, especially in Josh. yerekhdh = "the flank," "the side," "the coast," hence, "the border" occurs in Genesis 49:13; qatseh = "an extremity" "brim," "brink," "edge" (Exodus 16:35; Exodus 19:12; Joshua 4:19); micgereth = something enclosing, i.e. "a margin" (Exodus 37:12,Exodus 37:14; 1 Kings 7:28,1 Kings 7:31,1 Kings 7:35 the King James Version; 2 Kings 16:17 the King James Version); saphah or sepheth = "the lip" (as a natural boundary) hence, "a margin" "brim," "brink," "edge" (Exodus 28:26; Exodus 39:19 the King James Version); qets = "an extremity" "end" (2 Kings 19:23 the King James Version); totsa'ah = "exit," hence, "boundary" (1 Chronicles 5:16); tor = "a succession" "a string" "row," hence, "border" (Song of Songs 1:11 the King James Version); yadh = "hand," used in a great variety of applications, both literally and figuratively, proximate and remote; but how it should be translated with "border" in 1 Chronicles 7:29 is not clear; better would be: "in the hands of the children of Manasseh." Three Greek words occur for the idea: kraspedon = "a margin," "fringe" (Matthew 23:5; Mark 6:56; Luke 8:44); horion = "a limit," "a boundary line" (Matthew 4:13); methorios = "contiguous" (neuter plural as noun, "frontier," "border" in Mark 7:24).

Frank E. Hirsch

Borderer

bor'-der-er (parakeimenous): One who dwells on the borders or confines of a country. Only in 2 Macc 9:25, "The princes that are borderers and neighbors unto my kingdom."

Bore

bor: According to the Book of the Covenant (Exodus 20:20–23:33) a slave whom his master had purchased was to be released after six years. Should he choose to remain in his master's service a religious ceremony was necessary to ratify his decision. "Then his master shall bring him unto God" (better than "unto the judges" of the King James Version), "and shall bring him to the door, or unto the doorpost; and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl" (Exodus 21:6). It is highly improbable that "unto God" means "to a sanctuary"; for there was no special reason for performing this ceremony near the door of a sanctuary. On the other hand the entrance to a private house was a sacred spot. According to primitive thinking near the door dwelt the household gods whose function it was to guard the house and its occupants, e.g. against the entry of disease. It was natural that the ceremony of attaching the slave permanently to the master's household should be performed in the presence of the household gods. "The boring of the ear of slaves was a common practice in antiquity, possibly to symbolize the duty of obedience, as the ear was the organ of hearing" (Bennett). The Deuteronomist (Deuteronomy 15:17) rejects the religious aspect of the ceremony--probably as a relic of Canaanite religion--and looks upon it as a secular and symbolical operation. According to his view, the awl was thrust through the ear of the slave to the door. The slave in question was permanently attached to the household.

T. Lewis

Borith

bo'-rith: Mentioned in the genealogical table which traces the descent of Esdras (Ezra) from Aaron (2 Esdras 1:2). In 1 Esdras 8:2, his name appears as BOCCAS (which see), and in 1 Chronicles 6:5,1 Chronicles 6:51; Ezra 7:4, BUKKI (which see).

Born

See BORN.

Born Again

See REGENERATION.

Borne

See BORN.

Borrowing

bor'-o-ing:

(1) In the Old Testament period loans were not of a commercial nature, i.e. they were not granted to enable a man to start or run a business. They were really a form of charity, and were made by the lender only to meet the pressure of poverty. To the borrower they were esteemed a form of misfortune (Deuteronomy 28:12 f), and by the lender a form of beneficence. Hence, the tone of the Mosaic legislation on the subject.

(2) Laying interest upon the poor of Israel was forbidden in all the codes (see Exodus 22:25 (JE); Deuteronomy 23:19; Leviticus 25:36 H), because it was looked upon as making unwarranted profit out of a brother's distress: "If thou lend money to any of my people with thee that is poor, thou shalt not be to him as a creditor; neither shall ye lay upon him interest .... and it shall come to pass, when he crieth unto me, that I will hear; for I am gracious."

(3) The Law, however, allowed interest to be taken of a foreigner, or non-Jew (Deuteronomy 23:20: "Unto a foreigner thou mayest lend upon interest"; compare Deuteronomy 15:3); and even among Jews pledges were allowed under limitations, or taken against the law (Deuteronomy 24:10; compare Job 24:2,Job 24:3 "There are that remove the landmarks .... they take the widow's ox for a pledge"). In Deuteronomy 15:1 ff there is a remarkable law providing a "release" by the creditor every "seven years," a "letting drop of loans" (see Driver in the place cited.). In Exodus 3:22, the King James Version "shall borrow" is rendered "shall ask" in the Revised Version (British and American).

George B. Eager

Boscath

bos'-kath.

See BOZKATH.

Bosom

booz'-um: In the ordinary signification of the anterior upper portion of the trunk of the body, choq or cheq, "inlet", "lap" (Exodus 4:6,Exodus 4:7; Numbers 11:12; Deuteronomy 13:6; Deuteronomy 28:54,Deuteronomy 28:56; Ruth 4:16; Psalms 74:11; Isaiah 65:6,Isaiah 65:7; Lamentations 2:12). "A present in the bosom" (Proverbs 21:14): bribes carried ready for use in the fold of the robe. chetsen = "bosom" (with special reference to that portion of the body which is between the arms), occurs in Psalms 129:7; chobh = "a cherisher," hence, "the bosom" (Job 31:33); tsallachath = something advanced or deep, "a bowl"; figurative "the bosom" (Proverbs 19:24 the King James Version; Proverbs 26:15 the King James Version). The Greek employs kolpos (Luke 6:38; John 13:23). For Abraham's bosom, see separate article.

Figurative: In a figurative sense it denotes intimacy and unrestrained intercourse (Genesis 16:5; 2 Samuel 12:8); tender care and watchfulness (Isaiah 40:11); closest intimacy and most perfect knowledge (John 1:18); "into their bosom" (Psalms 79:12) indicates the bosom as the seat of thought and reflection.

F. E. Hirsch

Bosom, Abraham's

See ABRAHAM'S BOSOM.

Bosor

bo'-sor (Bosor):

(1) A city named among those taken by Judas Maccabeus "in the land of Gilead" (1 Macc 5:26,36). From the towns named it is evident that this phrase is elastic, covering territory beyond what is usually called the land of Gilead. Possibly therefore Bosor may be identical with Bucr el-Chariri, in the Luchf, Southeast of el-Leja'.

(2) In 2 Peter 2:15 the King James Version, the Greek form of BEOR (which see).

Bosora

bos'-o-ra (Bosora): One of the strong cities of Gilead taken by Judas Maccabeus (1 Macc 5:26,28). It is identical with the Roman Bostra, the city whose extensive ruins lie on the Southeast border of the Hauran, on the old Roman road that runs between Der`ah and Calkhad. The modern name is Bosra eski-Sham. It cannot be identified with BOZRAH either (1) or (2), as it lies much too far north. It appears for the first time in history in the passage noted above. The ruins show it to have been a pla ce of great strength and importance. In the time of Herod the Great it was in the hands of the Nabateans. When Aulus Cornelius Palma conquered these regions, Bostra was made capital of the province under the name of Nova Trajana Bostra, in honor of the emperor Trajan. This was in 105 AD, from which year the Bostrian era was reckoned. It was taken by the Moslems under Khalid--"the sword of God." It resisted the attack of Baldwin III. Later it fell on evil days. Now, if it be true, as the proverb says, that "the prosperity of Bocra is the prosperity of the Chauran," the case of the latter is sad indeed.

W. Ewing

Boss

bos: Occurs only in the plural as a translation of gabh = "arch," or "protuberance," referring to the curved ornaments of a shield (Job 15:26), the central knob of the buckler.