Demotic literature is characterized by fluidity, not fixity. Multiple copies of the same composition show significant variation, creativity, and discursivity, both in narrative and wisdom, which is significant given the entirely different organizational principles of these genres. Such creativity, therefore, characterizes scribal activity in this period in general. By synthesizing and furthering this picture with new readings and comparisons, the project is making crucial evidence available for biblical scholars interested in textual history, who are often forced to speculate with single texts. Since contemporary biblical compositions also show similar tendencies of growth and variation identified in the Demotic papyri, the comparative approach of the project (focused on scribal techniques rather than individual motifs) has already now proven a fruitful enterprise.
The project’s rigorous application of methodologies long developed and employed in biblical exegesis has, in turn, shed new light on the composition and transmission of Demotic literature, and strengthened the case for comparison. In particular, the methodologies of form and redaction criticism have brought new insight into Demotic compositions that either show similar tendencies of growth by editing, or which are extant in recognizably distinct literary layers. Some of these phenomena went completely unnoticed for over a century, while others were intimated but never fully worked out, until now. Such insights could only result from the close cooperation of biblical scholars and Egyptologists which at this moment takes place uniquely within DEMBIB.
Finally, the similar contexts of Demotic and Judean literature yielded a thematically coherent array of literature. Since the scribes in question worked under the horizon of foreign domination and looked back onto a past of native rule, the return of native sovereignty is an important theme, especially in prophecy. Putting new, overlooked, and newly reanalyzed Demotic and Judean prophecies in dialogue has yielded a rich and complex picture. These prophecies envision earthly rule spanning a wide horizon of possibilities, ranging from personal, kingly rule to messianic figures and theocracy. Based on this thematic range attested across contemporary Demotic texts, the project has demonstrated the value of nuancing existing models of literary growth in biblical research to allow for simultaneous, contradicting developments.
