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Tyndale Open Bible Dictionary

LEATHER

Prepared animal hide, used extensively in Bible times for a wide variety of purposes. It was used as clothing in early times (Gn 3:21). At the beginning of the period of the prophets, their raiment, made from animal skins, became a means of identifying them (2 Kgs 1:8; Zec 13:4). Elijah’s mantle (1 Kgs 19:13, 19; 2 Kgs 2:8, 13-14) is described in the Greek OT as sheepskin. Animal skins were also used to make shoes (Ez 16:10), girdles (Mt 3:4), and other articles of clothing (Lv 13:48).

Some household utensils were made of leather. The most common was the container for holding liquids, such as milk (Jgs 4:19), wine (Mk 2:22), and water (Gn 21:14). Oil, extracted from olives, then purified and refined, was also stored in skins, until required for cooking, toiletry, or medicinal purposes, or as fuel for lamps. In all probability leather was used for beds, chairs, and other household articles. There is no reference to leather being used to make tents, but animal skins were employed in the construction of the tabernacle (Ex 25:5; Nm 4:8). Clearly, the references are to tanned skins. Their use would ensure that the roof was waterproof.

The Bible is silent concerning the use of leather for making armor or weapons; however, it would be a natural choice for helmets and shields for defense, slings for offense, and quivers to hold arrows. Rubbing oil into the surface of shields, presumably to keep them from becoming brittle and therefore useless, is referred to in 2 Samuel 1:21 and Isaiah 21:5 and points to their being made of leather. A painting in the tomb of an Egyptian nobleman from about 1900 BC supplements the meager knowledge that the Bible provides concerning the use of leather in OT times. In the painting the men wear sandals and the women boots. A leather water bottle is strapped to one man’s back. Another, an archer, carries a quiver on his back. The asses are carrying objects that have been identified as two pairs of goatskin bellows.

Leather was used extensively as writing material, but early on almost wholly in Egypt. There, parchment, also derived from animal hides, has a very ancient history. The difference between leather and parchment is that the former is tanned, whereas the latter is produced by treating the skins with solutions of lime, salt, or dyes, scraping off the hair on one side and the flesh on the other, stretching and drying them in a frame, then rubbing them with a pumice stone to produce smooth surfaces on both sides. The use of prepared skins for writing material was known before 2000 BC in Egypt, but according to Pliny, the term “parchment” did not come into use until about 160 BC in other areas.

No leather documents have been recovered from Assyria or Babylonia, probably because leather was used much less extensively there than elsewhere in the ancient East. Middle East literary allusions point to its having come into use there at a later period. The term “parchment” is not found before the Persian period, and the phrase “written on parchment” does not occur before the early years of the Seleucids (312–64 BC). Even then papyrus was the chief writing material.

Another leather product, vellum, is fine parchment made from calf, kid, lamb, or antelope skins. In Rome, from the first century BC through the second century AD, vellum was in restricted use. Not until the third and fourth centuries did vellum prevail. It was at this time that the celebrated Codex Vaticanus and the Codex Sinaiticus were produced. The whole Bible now could be gathered into a single codex, which was in the form of a modern book with folded sheets, whereas previously a set of from 30 to 40 rolls of papyrus would be required for the Bible. Vellum also allowed for the palimpsest, from which the original writing could be erased and written upon again.

In the OT leather or skins are not mentioned in connection with writing. Books in roll form are mentioned in Psalm 40:7, Jeremiah 36, and Ezekiel 2:9–3:3, but these were probably papyrus. Before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the earliest reference to Jews using parchment or leather as writing material is found in Josephus, toward the end of the first century AD. However, we now know that around 100 BC parchment was used by Jews. The Talmud requires the Law to be written on skins of clean animals, a regulation that still stands for books to be used in the synagogue, but it is not certain that this points to an ancient tradition.

Some of the Dead Sea Scrolls were written on leather. For example, the great scroll of Isaiah, written about 100 BC, consists of 17 sheets sewn together into a length of almost 23 feet (7 meters). The autographs of the NT were probably written on papyrus. Certainly John wrote his second letter on papyrus (2 Jn 1:12) within the last quarter of the first century.

Tanning is not mentioned in the OT, but it is implied in Exodus 25:5 and Leviticus 13:48. The possible use of skins of unclean animals and the constant contact with dead bodies made tanning an unclean trade, and it was forbidden in the city. However, the preparation of skins for parchment was considered an honorable calling.