BIBLICAL LIBRARIES
both. The use of a special meaning is one thing, the denial of the ordinary meaning quite another, and this has been the mischief in this case for in the matter of these ancient collections the denial of the name library has, in actual use, quite commonly been taken for a denial of the fact of ancient libraries. The mere use of the word library in a special meaning is one thing, and the denial of the term library to anything but all-literary and big collections is quite another. The casual reader does not go much behind the returns. "So and so says" or "all Assyriologists agree that there were no libraries before Ashurbanapal," are phrases commonly taken to mean, by those not quite familiar with the facts, that there were no collections at all. The layman does not understand that Assyriologists only mean to say that there were no libraries quite so literary or quite so big as that of Ashurbanapal.
The reason given for denying the name
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