On Thursday, June 12, 2003, at 11:17 AM, Bill Bartlett wrote:
> At 11:10 AM -0500 12/6/03, Jeffrey Fisher wrote:
>
>>> bible (the Phoenician city byblos)
>>
>> that's a new one, to me. to biblion is simply greek for "the book",
>> and that comes from the word for the inner bark of the papyrus
>> (according to my handy-dandy little liddell and scott). i haven't
>> checked the OED on this, but i'll bet that's where they trace the
>> derivation.
>
> http://www.lau.edu.lb/general-info/city-byb1.html
>
> Byblos City
>
> Byblos (Jbail), one of the oldest towns in the world, goes back at
> least 9,000 years. The rise and fall of nearly two dozen successive
> levels of human culture on this site makes it one of the richest
> archeological areas in the Middle East.
>
> Byblos is the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world. Even
> the ancient Phoenicians considered it to be a city of great
> antiquity. Millenia ago Byblos was the commercial and religious
> capital of the Phoenician coast. Byblos also gave its name to the
> Bible and it was there that the first linear alphabet, ancestor of
> contemporary alphabets, was invented.
>
> The Phoenician alphabet traveled to Greece about 800 B.C. The Greek
> word for papyrus (bublos) and the Greek name for the Phoenician city
> are the same, indicating that papyrus came to Greece not directly
> from Egypt but through Phoenician intermediaries at Byblos. Since
> papyrus was used as a writing material in the ancient world, several
> sheets put together were called biblion, or "book." The book
> tradition is carried forward by LAU.
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>