In my article "Epistle" in the Book of Mormon, I discussed that the use of the term "epistle" in the Book of Mormon is not an anachronism, as (1) the Book of Mormon is a translation of an ancient text into English and (2) "epistle" refers to a literary record in a form of a letter.
I have added the following to this article from a book I read recently which discusses letters ("epistles" if you will) in the Bible:
I have added the following to this article from a book I read recently which discusses letters ("epistles" if you will) in the Bible:
Some references are to the official correspondence of royalty, for example, Huram (Hiram) of Tyre’s letter to Solomon written in connection with plans to build the temple in Jerusalem (2 Chron. 2:10 [v. 11 in English]), or public decrees. (These include, for example, Esth. 3:12, the edict to kill the Jews; 2 Chron. 30:1, Hezekiah’s invitation to celebrate the Passover in Jerusalem; Esth. 9:20-23, Mordecai’s letters to the Jews concerning the celebration of 14 Adar; see also 9:29, Esther’s letter, and Esth. 8:8; 8:5; 8:10; 1:19.) Some are accusatory; for example, Ezra 4:7-16, the letter written by Bishlam, Mithredath, Tabeel, and their comrades to King Artaxerxes to derail the returned exiles’ building projects, and the king’s response (Ezra 4:17-22). Such an accusatory letter relates to another genre of written communication, the lettre de cachet: the communiqué to place Uriah in the forefront of the battle (2 Sam. 11:14, 15); Jehu’s communiqué to the elders of Jezreel to dispatch with Ahab’s seventy sons (2 Kings 10:1, 6, 7); the false accusation against Naboth (1 Kings 21:8, 9). (See also Job 31:35; perhaps also Job 13:26.) Partaking of the interplay between oral and written discussed by Finnegan, Thomas, and others are texts such as Ezra 1:1 (2 Chron. 36:22) referring to a written edict of Cyrus that is also spread in the land orally by herald. Similarly, Elijah is said to engage in a long-distance form of prophecy, sending a letter to King Jehoram of Judah. This passage at 2 Chron. 21:12-15 is not represented in the Deuteronomistic corpus (see at 2 Kings 8). At 2 Chron. 32:17 Sennacherib is pictured to have written letters to “deride” God—letters that are read aloud as a public proclamation to frighten the Israelites. Here communiqué, curse text, oral and written merge.
It is worth noting that this intertwining of written and oral communication with special emphasis on the former is found particularly in postexilic material (see also the written agreement to the covenant discussed above [Neh. 10:1]). Indeed the vast majority of references to letters are late. Note, for example, that Hiram’s response to Solomon in the Deuteronomistic passage parallel to the story of the building of the temple in 2 Chronicles 2 does not introduce Hiram’s words of response with references to a letter or writing (1 Kings 5:1-22 [English vv. 7-8]; cf. 2 Chron. 2:10 [English v. 11]). The later writer of Chronicles frequently adds the accoutrements of a more literate mentality to the earlier version in the Deuteronomistic History. The epigraphic corpus offers many actual examples of letters from the period of the monarchy. One does not mean to imply that letters are a postexilic phenomenon or the like. Nevertheless, late biblical authors of Ezra-Nehemiah, 1 and 2 Chronicles, and Esther certainly refer to letters as recordlike documents on file, as proof for certain clams of reliability, or as testaments to the importance and factuality of certain decrees. (Susan Niditch, Oral World and Written Word: Ancient Israelite Literature [Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press, 1996], 90-91)
