Evidence from the nations surrounding Israel during the first temple period indicates that their traditional sacred writings were intimately bound up with temples. Dating perhaps from the latter part of the fourth century BCE, the Chronicler's work presents the Jerusalem temple and its furnishings as the realisation of a plan or pattern which King David had received in writing from God. Scripture in the temple became a powerful symbol of the continuity of Jewish tradition. The fully developed bond between temple and sacred writings in Judaism to which Josephus attests is the product of a long and varied history. The Hebrew Bible is reticent about how the scribes who wrote it were trained; what lessons they received in letters and culture; and how they transmitted their learning. That the temple played a significant role in all these activities is likely, and recent research tends to confirm that likelihood.