LETTER, used in several senses and to tr. several different terms in both Testaments. In all, the KJV and other Eng. VSS. tr. four Heb. terms as “letter.” In antiquity letters, messages sent by carrier from one location to another and set down on some material, consisted of three types. They were cuneiform signs written on clay tablets, sherds and fragments of pottery inscribed with inked letters, and sheets of parchment which had been scraped and dried and then been inked. Apparently all three of these were known in Biblical times and are mentioned in the OT. Engraving cuneiform wedges or hieroglyphic signs was the common method in Sumeria, Akkadia, Babylon, Persia and Egypt, and such a practice is mentioned in Job 19:24. After the introduction of the Phoen. alphabet the system of inscribed potsherds known as ostraca became widespread and even in Egypt memoranda and messages were dispatched in this fashion. The excavation of such ancient Heb. letters at Lachish (Josh 10:3, et al.) concerning the siege of the city, written in the time of Isaiah and dealing with the Assyrian campaign of Sennacherib into Syria-Pal. 701 b.c., proved that such were also known to the Jews. Undoubtedly this type of ostraca is involved in the stories of Naboth (1 Kings 21:8) and Hezekiah (2 Kings 19:14), as well as in the other references in the annals of the First Commonwealth. The parchment type of letter is not expressly distinguished in the OT, but the discovery of the Aram. papyri from the Jewish colony at Elephantine c. 5th cent. b.c. and the Bar-Kokhba letters dating from a.d. 132-135 written on parchment support the assumption that such letters were known at least after the Pers. era.

The four Heb. terms are: 1. אִגֶּ֫רֶת, H115, meaning a “letter,” a tablet of a specific small size with a clay envelope upon which the addressor and addressee were noted and on occasion some of the contents were indicated. It appears in the later books of the OT which would have been influenced by Neo-Assyria, i.e. 2 Chronicles, Nehemiah, and Esther.

2. סֵ֫פֶר֒, H6219, is the most common word for written materials of all types in the OT, including annals (Gen 5:11; Num 21:14; 1 Kings 11:41, et al.), law codes (2 Chron 17:9), prophecies (Nah 1:1), as well as letters (Isa 37:14, et al.). Actually its specific tr. as “letter” is largely a matter of context as in few cases in the contexts are there clear indications that only “letter” fits, for this reason there are wide variations in the VSS. In Jeremiah 36:2, 4 the term appears with the Heb. מְגִלָּה, H4479, “scroll,” “roll” as a secondary indication of the meaning. In such cases the term can refer only to a parchment roll. The term סֵ֫פֶר֒, H6219, is cognate to Ugaritic s p r, “to count” and by extension, “a list,” “message.” There is also a relationship to Akkad. šapāru, “to send,” but also “to write.” It may be that it is from the Akkad. nominal form of this verb, našpartu, “message” and a secondary development less the “n” prefix, šipirtu, that the Heb. word is sprung. It occurs, however, also on stone stele as early as the 10th cent. b.c. (Ahiram of Byblos, 2; and texts from Zenjirli, H. Donner and W. Röllig, Kanaanäische und Aramäische Inschriften, Bd. I [1962]). Therefore it also was applied to inscribed and not merely inked writing texts. The term spread widely throughout the Near E and cognates are found not only in Phoen. and Aram. but also in Ethiop. and Arab.

3. A considerably less common Heb. term, נִשְׁתְּוָן, H10496, is a loan word from Iranian, such as ni-augment a-sta-yam, “ordered them,” “gave them orders.” Some have proposed the Neo-Pers. root nivishtan, “to write” (KB p. 641). The term appears in Ezra 4:7, et al. In Ezra 4:7 the text specifically states, “and the writing of the letter was written in the Aramaic character, and set forth in the Aramaic tongue” (JPS). However this does not determine the form of the communication as Aram. ostraca and stone inscrs. have been found as well as parchment rolls. In Ezra 4:18 and elsewhere a variant form, נִשְׁתְּוָנָ֕א is found but the meaning is identical.

4. Another word found seldom in the text but tr. as “letter” in Ezra 5:7, is, פִּתְגָם, H10601, which is also a loan word of Iranian origin possibly from paith, “to engrave,” nipaith, “to write.” The word also occurs in Ecclesiastes 8:11 where it is read “sentence” (KJV, RSV, JPS) and Esther 1:20, “decree” (KJV, RSV, JPS). Other references fall between the meanings, “writing” and “decision.” In considering the matter of written communication among the peoples and rulers of antiquity it must be remembered that although by all the evidence now known literacy was low, yet those with position and wealth could avail themselves of the service of a scribe, either slave or free, and so letters were commonplace. The vast royal correspondences from Mari, ancient center of Babylonian trade, c. 1700 b.c. and El Amarna, the capital city of the pharaoh Akhenaton, c. 14th cent. b.c., demonstrate the importance of such correspondence. In the last cent. great doubt was cast upon the historic reliability of the Heb. text by various European and American schools of Biblical criticism. However the discoveries of ancient letters of the type often alluded to and occasionally quoted in the OT has forced a major reconsideration of the more radical critical views.

In the NT the terms tr. “letter” and “letters,” are used in the sense of “letters of the alphabet” and also in the sense of “epistle” or “missive.” Two words occur with about the same frequency. The one found in the gospel narratives is, γράμμα, G1207, from which the office of, γραμματεύς, G1208, “scribe” is derived. The word is of old classical Attic origin and is found in Aeschylus, Herodotus and other of the 4th to 3rd cent. b.c. authors. In its most ancient usage it means “letter,” “note,” apparently the concept of “letter of the alphabet” was attached to it later. In the former sense of “letter” it is used to tr. the Heb. sēpēr, #2 above, in the LXX and prob. represents the Aram. equivalent in the NT dialogues, e.g., Acts 28:21. However, its more common meaning is the one of “letter of the alphabet.” In this meaning it was undoubtedly infused with the notion of the exact, hair-splitting exegesis of the OT text common in that time. This kind of letter for letter study of the Torah was the basis of the later Talmud and Midrashim. The apocryphon and commentary passages of the DSS have illumined knowledge of this historical process. Such OT hermeneutics are involved in Paul’s use of the word gramma in Romans 2:27, 29; 7:6. In the scene of the Lord Jesus before the learned men of the synagogue in John 7:15 it is this sense of the word that is meant but in its more general form. Some have understood this phrase regarding “letters” as referring to Jesus’ ability to read, but it is actually in reference to His exegetical ability, as is seen in Christ’s answer which describes His teaching of the Scriptures. The other use of this word is that to describe characters of another, presumably strange language. In the scene of the crucifixion, the KJV of Luke 23:38 following the reading of the TR, states, “in letters of Greek, and Latin, and Hebrew,” which is perfectly good koiné Gr., but not in the oldest MSS. In the postscript to Galatians 6:11, 12, Paul mentions indirectly his poor eyesight. He states, “See with what large letters” and uses the gramma in such a fashion that its meaning is indisputable.

The other term tr. “letter” in the NT is the familiar ἐπιστολή, G2186, which appears in the later titles of most of the NT antilegomena. In the contexts of the NT epistles only Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Colossians, 2 Thessalonians and 2 Peter, along with Acts, actually utilize the term. In all occurrences the term means a parchment letter, a written message, an epistle (q.v.). It is used of both Christian documents which were prob. written in Gr. (2 Cor 7:8) and Jewish documents which were prob. in Aram. (Acts 9:2). The word appears rather late in classical Gr. as it is found no earlier than Herodotus who uses it in a tale about Hercules (IV. 10) in the sense of a verbal commission or command. It was apparently only later used with the exclusive meaning of “letter” as is clear from the comparison in 2 Thessalonians 2:2 where the bounds of communication are set at “word” and “letter.”

In classical Gr. an officer both of the military and civil order was denoted as ἔπιστολευς, “secretary,” but the term is not developed in the NT. In the LXX the term is used as equivalent to the Heb. terms for “letter,” “writing,” “command” and “message.” The exact sense of “written” messages does not seem to be foremost.

Bibliography F. G. Kenyon, Books and Readers in Ancient Greece and Rome (1932); T. Hudson-Williams, A Short Grammar of Old Persian (1936); J. Bottéro and A. Finet, Répertoire Analytique, Archives Royales de Mari (1954), XV; J. A. Knudtzon, Die El-Amarna Tafeln (1964), Bnd. II; C. Gordon, Ugaritic Textbook (1965); G. Kittel, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (1965), Vol. II & IV, in loc.