Scribes

1 definition found

From Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary [easton]:

  Scribes
     anciently held various important offices in the public affairs
     of the nation. The Hebrew word so rendered (sopher) is first
     used to designate the holder of some military office (Judg.
     5:14; A.V., "pen of the writer;" R.V., "the marshal's staff;"
     marg., "the staff of the scribe"). The scribes acted as


     secretaries of state, whose business it was to prepare and issue
     decrees in the name of the king (2 Sam. 8:17; 20:25; 1 Chr.
     18:16; 24:6; 1 Kings 4:3; 2 Kings 12:9-11; 18:18-37, etc.). They
     discharged various other important public duties as men of high
     authority and influence in the affairs of state.
     
       There was also a subordinate class of scribes, most of whom
     were Levites. They were engaged in various ways as writers.
     Such, for example, was Baruch, who "wrote from the mouth of
     Jeremiah all the words of the Lord" (Jer. 36:4, 32).
     
       In later times, after the Captivity, when the nation lost its
     independence, the scribes turned their attention to the law,
     gaining for themselves distinction by their intimate
     acquaintance with its contents. On them devolved the duty of
     multiplying copies of the law and of teaching it to others (Ezra
     7:6, 10-12; Neh. 8:1, 4, 9, 13). It is evident that in New
     Testament times the scribes belonged to the sect of the
     Pharisees, who supplemented the ancient written law by their
     traditions (Matt. 23), thereby obscuring it and rendering it of
     none effect. The titles "scribes" and "lawyers" (q.v.) are in
     the Gospels interchangeable (Matt. 22:35; Mark 12:28; Luke
     20:39, etc.). They were in the time of our Lord the public
     teachers of the people, and frequently came into collision with
     him. They afterwards showed themselves greatly hostile to the
     apostles (Acts 4:5; 6:12).
     
       Some of the scribes, however, were men of a different spirit,
     and showed themselves friendly to the gospel and its preachers.
     Thus Gamaliel advised the Sanhedrin, when the apostles were
     before them charged with "teaching in this name," to "refrain
     from these men and let them alone" (Acts 5:34-39; comp. 23:9).