Writing had a numinous power, especially in pre-literate societies. Writing was not used, at first, to canonize religious praxis, but to engender religious awe. Writing was a gift of the gods. It had supernatural powers to bless and to curse. It had a special place in the divine creation and maintenance of the universe. According to one ancient Jewish tradition, the letters of the Hebrew alphabet as well as the art of writing were created on the sixth day (M. Avot 5:6). The idea that writing was given to humankind as part of the very creation of the world was known also in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. Writing was not mundane; rather, writing was used to communicate with the divine realm by ritual actions or formulaic recitations in order to affect the course of present or future events. According to Jewish tradition, the stone tablets given on Mount Sinai also were created on the sixth day. God himself writes on these two tablets with his very finger. Ancient Mesopotamia also described heavenly tablets (known as the Tablets of Destiny) in its creation myth, The Enuma Elish. According to biblical literature, God actually keeps a heavenly book, inscribed with people's names, which God adds to and erases thereby inscribing the eternal fate of those named. The books of Moses reflect this early notion of writing as supernatural. Such mysterious and numinous understandings of writing are typical of largely oral societies like early Israel.