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"Then I said, "Behold, I have come to do your will, O God, as it is written in the scroll of the book". Hebrews 10:7. All quotes from ESV.

Here scroll is kephalidi and book is bibliou.

"...one like a son of man, with a golden crown on his head". Revelation 14:14. Here head is kephales.

"...Christ is the head of the church". Ephesians 5:23. Again head is kephale.

Maybe bibliou is a scroll or codex. [Wikipedia-codex acheived numerical parity with the scroll around 300 A.D.].

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As with all the many examples of a hapex legomenon (as in κεφαλίς) we must rely upon extra-biblical literature to see its meaning. BDAG gives this meaning:

diminutive of κεφαλή, literally, 'little head', in our literature, only once, modeled after the OT (Ezk 2:9) and in a quote from Ps 39:8 [LXX] κεφαλίδι βιβλίου roll of a book

The Strong' Concordance is also helpful for showing the origin:

literally: little head, then: the knob at the end of the wooden core of a roll of papyrus, then) a roll, volume, division (of a book).

Note that κεφαλίς (little head) is the diminutive of κεφαλή (head). In Eph 5:23 Jesus is described as κεφαλὴ (head) and NOT κεφαλίς (little head).

The intent of this passage is made clear in Heb 10:5 -

Therefore, when Christ came into the world, He said:

Thus, Jesus quotes Ps 40:6-8 - a Messianic prophecy about (obviously) Jesus. That is, Jesus claims to be the fulfillment of prophecies in the OT, and Torah in particular, about Himself.

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  • +1 Possible further point: Might "in the scroll" be "somewhere in the scroll", but "in the heading of the scroll" as a translation be stronger and act as an indication of what the scroll is all about?
    – C. Stroud
    Oct 16, 2021 at 16:33
  • @Dottard-Douay-Rheims: "in the head of the book".
    – C. Stroud
    Oct 16, 2021 at 17:00
  • @C.Stroud - in the scroll of the book is just a reference to what is written, ie, the prophecies of Messiah.
    – Dottard
    Oct 16, 2021 at 20:57

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