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* WritingThe ability to communicate is a basic requirement of social life and the Bible includes numerous references to humanity's development of tools and techniques for communicating.* The fundamental archetype of all communication, and the first mentioned in the Bible, is the word of God ([[Genesis 1]]). God speaks and it happens. In other cases, God uses intermediaries to communicate to humans: through angels, a donkey [[Numbers 22:28]], dreams, prophets, a disembodied hand [[Daniel 5]] and ultimately through Jesus [[Hebrews 1:1]] - [[Hebrews 1:2]]. Conversely, as attested throughout the Bible, we can communicate to God through spoken words. According to the story about the Tower of Babel ([[Genesis 11]]), God deliberately caused people to have multiple languages so we would not understand each other. Some may say that if God has imposed that restriction on us then we ought not work against it by developing better ways to communicate. But an approach with more Biblical support is one that parallels our response to the curses in [[Genesis 3]]. Although God says women will have pain in childbirth and men will have to toil hard to gather food, we do whatever we can to reduce that pain and toil. Correspondingly, it is completely in line with God's process of redemption that we seek to overcome barriers to communication. It's interesting that in the early Christian church, God used the opposite strategy from what he employed at Babel: empowering the apostles to speak ''multiple'' languages so that all people would understand the news of the risen Christ ([[Acts 2]]). The first reference in the Bible to writing is in [[Exodus 17:14]], where God instructs Moses to write on a scroll so that the defeat of the Amalekites would be remembered. Moses also writes on stone -- the second copy of the Ten Commandments in [[Exodus 34:28]]. About 1400 years later, Zechariah uses a writing table ([[Luke 1:63]]) and Paul requests Timothy to bring his scrollsand parchments ([[2 Timothy 4:13]]).* trumpetsTrumpets are used for communication, especially for signals during battle or to sound an alarm. Moses was specifically instructed to make two silver trumpets to call the community together (in [[Numbers 10:1]] - [[Numbers 10:10]]. Paul makes reference to this type of signalling in [[1 Corinthians 14:8]] and [[1 Thessalonians 4:16]].* libraries The Bible mentions a library of government archives in [[Ezra 6:1]]. This is reported quite positively, because a document retrieved from that library enabled the returned Israeli exiles to continue rebuilding the Temple in Jerusalem. This was in 5th century BC Babylon and a far cry from today's quick searches on Google! (As a historical aside, the first known example of such a library was the Hittite archives around 1300 BC -- in the time of the book of Judges. The Hittite archivesprobably even included a catalogue.)