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 tribute, etc., the recording of polls for taxes or military service, recording of land titles, of genealogies for inheritance, etc. It is therefore a matter of no surprise to find that there were at least 6,000 official "writers" (1 Ch. 23:4) or clerks in David's time—if not 30,000 or more. All these were writing documentary records and turning them in to their superiors to be destroyed or to be kept, presumably by the recorder or treasurer.

With every wish to avoid dogmatism it must be said therefore that from the time of David the first two elements of the record system are directly evidenced and quite beyond doubt so far as anything can be said scientifically to be beyond doubt, while permanent inscription is also evidenced, at least from the time of the Siloam inscription—if not from that of the inscribed boundary stone between Jacob and Laban, the account of which