This is about scribe, the profession. For the New Zealand rapper, please see Scribe (rapper).
Scribe (or Scrivener) is an ancient profession, a person who could read and write. This usually indicated secretarial and administrative duties such as dictation and keeping business, judicial, and history records for rulers such as kings, Nobility, temples, and cities. Later the profession developed for example into public servants, accountants, and lawyers.
There was also a subordinate class of scribes, most of whom were Levites. They were engaged in various ways as writers. Such, for example, was Baruch, who "wrote from the mouth of Jeremiah all the words of the Lord" (Jer. 36:4, 32).
In later times, after the Captivity, when the nation lost its independence, the scribes turned their attention to the law, gaining for themselves distinction by their intimate acquaintance with its contents. On them devolved the duty of multiplying copies of the law and of teaching it to others (Ezra 7:6, 10-12; Neh. 8:1, 4, 9, 13). It is evident that in New Testament times the scribes belonged to the sect of the Pharisees, who supplemented the ancient written law by their traditions (Matt. 23). The titles "scribes" and "lawyers" (q.v.) are in the Gospels interchangeable (Matt. 22:35; Gospel of Mark 12:28; Luke 20:39, etc.).