Often there is the presumption that Science and Christianity are at loggerheads with each other over every particular. At certain times in history and in certain matters this may be partially true but in at least one area, Christianity and science are pretty much in lockstep with each other. That area is in the transmitting of the printed Word of God.
For millennia mankind has used any material available to write on. This has ranged from common, ordinary stone to hand sized cuneiform tablets made from clay, to shards of pottery called ostraca, to plates of metal such as gold, silver and bronze, to sheets of paper like material made from plant fibers, to specially prepared animal hides and more. In each and every case, the materials …show more content…
Instead, when empty, if they could not be repurposed, they were broken up at their final point of destination into sherds or broken chunks called Ostraca. The usable sized Ostraca were then used as writing material, An example of this is the Lachish Ostraca. These Ostraca were discovered at an ancient city of Judah called Lachish. They are dated to around 600 BCE or shortly before Judah fell to the Babylonians. As might be expected, many of the letters are correspondence related to military preparations for an invasion.
The Science: The basic science which brought about the Cuneiform tablets is also behind the ostraca. Both are made from clay and both are fired in a kiln. The Cuneiform tablets are purposefully made for writing upon, while the ostraca are repurposed from broken shipping and storage containers. Occasionally the message was scratched on the ostraca using a harder instrument. However, the message was generally written on it using ink and a