Literary and Religious Activity

Abstract

The second pre-Christian millennium was one of cultural pluralism in the Near East, with Canaan, Egypt and Mesopotamia interacting, exchanging their intellectual products and, with the Canaanites, serving as the intermediary. But not much of the Canaanite literature has survived. The ordinary writing material was perishable papyrus, and the written material related mostly to business transactions. Ironically they who perfected and disseminated the earliest, most durable and most adequate system of writing, the alphabet, left so little by way of written records.