scribe, Jewish scholar and teacher (called in Hebrew, Soferim) of law as based upon the Old Testament and accumulated traditions. The work of the scribes laid the basis for the Oral Law, as distinct from the Written Law of the Torah. The period of their activity is in doubt. They may have been active from the time of Ezra (c.444 B.C.) to that of Simeon the Just. In Talmudic literature, the term may be applied to any interpreter of the Law from Moses to the period just before the compilation of the Mishna.

Scribe, Augustin Eugène, 1791-1861, French dramatist and librettist. He began his prolific and highly successful writing career with vaudeville sketches. One of the first playwrights to mirror bourgeois morality and life, he infused 19th-century French opera and drama with liberal political and religious ideas. Among the best of his comedies, which are notable for their well-structured plots, is Bataille de Dames (1851). His historical drama Adrienne Lecouvreur (1849) was later adapted as an opera. Scribe wrote librettos for about 60 operas by such composers as Auber, Meyerbeer, Halévy, Bellini, and Verdi.