Heat bakes the flat dirt of the Syrian desert. Monks sit inside shallow caves to escape the sun. They write stories of early humans fighting fires in the dark. The dry air cracks skin and preserves animal hides holding these words.
The text emerged from this region near Edessa around the year 500 a.d. Translators moved the pages into Ethiopia centuries later. The original Syriac writers lived in a city sitting 1,700 feet above sea level. Rain falls only 15 inches per year in this territory.
Writers in this dry territory used local fire pits as models for the narrative. The thirty-ninth chapter describes an enemy building a massive fire to trap two people. The monks used their own daily struggle with open flames to shape the scene. Ash and burned wood fill the ruined hearths of these ancient monasteries today.
Fire only consumes what already carries the capacity to burn.
The monks understood this physical reality. They wrote about a Creator who sends his word to stop the heat. The characters in the text watch the flames recede into the dirt. The authors left the fire burning in the minds of anyone reading the hide.