Technical Texts in the Bible: the World of Lost Objects

Abstract

Summary: The Biblical text corpus includes technical descriptions of various objects such as the Temple of Solomon, the Tabernacle, the High Priest's garment, the Temple utensils etc. Some of these objects are described in full details, while descriptions of other just as important ones (as the Temple of Zerubbabel or music instruments) are missing at all. The proposed article attempts to explain this situation, analyzing the relationship between the technical texts in the books of Exodus, Kings and Chronicles, as well as their chronological sequence. Analysis of the material leads to the conclusion that biblical technical descriptions refer to objects non existent at the time the texts dedicated and describing them were created, whereas in the Bible there are no descriptions of objects that existed at the time the biblical texts were written, and these objects are known only by their names.