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Re: Ezra-Neh
> contribution to the composition of the Hebrew Bible. There are examples
> in the ANE of female scribes and authors- note Enheduanna daughter of
> Sargon of Akkade who composed some beautiful hymns, as well as Nissaba
As far as I'm aware Enheduana is actually the first known author in
history.
> There are women's names on seals. Does this constitute evidence of
> literacy or does it indicate just the opposite?
Perhaps it just indicates that they had enough status to have a seal.
Babatha had plenty of status but couldn't read. In W Semitic sources
there's not much clear evidence for literate women in the first mil. BC.
But that hardly closes the discussion.
For a new, probably authentic, economic document concerning a widow's
property, written in a ductus perhaps slightly later than that of the Arad
osctraca, see the second Deutsch-Heltzer volume of W. Semitic epigraphs.
If it's forged, it's done by a VERY clever and strange forger...
Seth L. Sanders
Dept. of Near Eastern Studies
The Johns Hopkins University