Reading the oldest fragment of the New Testament - Papyrus P52 However, this trend has been a long time coming. Rather, paleographers look at the letters in relation to the entire piece of writing; in other words, it is the overall likeness that constitutes a morphological match. 41.2968 that we see with P52. instead f , instead of , instead of , etc. For the Gospel of Johnto have . According to the Discussion copied from Gospel of John I've added a starter article on the Rylands parchment, entitled P52, that might serve as a better place to insert some of the arguments surrounding the dating of the extant record. (1) The person would have to make a discovery that overwhelms the scholarly world in the extreme. The second method is to do a comparative analysis with literary manuscripts having a date based on the association with a documentary text on the recto or verso.[1] Comfort goes on to explain, As paleographers seek to assign a date to a manuscript, they employ comparative morphology, which is a comparative study of letter forms. Instead, he argues that the similarity of the text of P75 to that of Codex Vaticanus is better explained in that, according to him, they were both produced in the fourth century C.E. In the 1800s into the early 1900s, Higher Criticism (biblical Criticism) ruled the day wherein liberal to moderate Bible scholars dissected the Word of God until it became the word of man and a garbled word at that. Comparison of book hands with dated documentary hands will be less reliable. [76] Two further comparators they propose are PSI V 446, the official proclamation of an edict of the prefect Petronius dated 132137 CE; and P. Fayum 87, a municipal receipt dated 156 CE;[75] while they also note, as other commentators have done, the close similarity of 52 to 104 for which they propose a date of 100200 CE. Dr. Philip Wesley Comfort(1950)is a noted professor,author, andeditor. [79] Nevertheless, since all of these papyri have been dated paleographically, and mostly with reference to the same dated documentary comparators, they may be considered as a manuscript cluster whose estimated dates will vary as a group, amongst which 52 is commonly recognised as having earlier features. 200 based on this feature appearing in a newly published portion of the Egerton Gospel. Being balanced, we can say that setting dates for literary manuscripts (P52) is largely educated guesswork, not beyond doubt, but external and circumstantial factors can help scholars date manuscripts. Philip Comfort and David Barrett,The Text of the Earliest New Testament Greek Manuscripts, Volume 1: Papyri 1-72 (Oct 2019, p. 273), Hixon cites Dr. Don Parker, Papyrologist atMacquarie University, Ancient History Dept, Sydney. This would be like C. H. Roberts with his 100-150 C.E. Why is the early date of P52 important apologetically? In 2120, scholars can look back at who changed the dates of the early papyri. G. 2325 (apocryphal gospel, theFayum Fragment)], as he has offered us a comprehensive examination of the history and the variety of views amongst the papyrologists for the dating of P52and P.Egerton 2, as he presents his argument that Roberts was correct on all three points: (1) both P52and P.Egerton 2 are close parallels, (2) they are set apart by widely separate dates, and that P52is to be set to the earlier date. Manuscript P52 - CSNTM Paleographic evidence does not work that way. The problem with Nongbris newfound manuscripts used for comparison is that they are all documentary texts being compared with the literary text of P52. There was a darkening of the characters by going over them again. NT Textual scholar Harold Greenlee writes, This higher criticism has often been applied to the Bible in a destructive way, and it has come to be looked down on by many evangelical Christians. Greenlee, J. Harold. [49] Brent Nongbri[4] has criticized both Comfort's early dating of 52 and Schmidt's late dating, dismissing as unsound all attempts to establish a date for such undated papyri within narrow ranges on purely paleographic grounds, along with any inference from the paleographic dating of 52 to a precise terminus ad quem for the composition of the Fourth Gospel. dating of P52. First, Elijah Hixon, like Don Barker, was also a sounding board, and we had many back and forth discussions on messenger. ).36 SB 5.7987, reproduced in figure 6, is, in my opinion, the least convincing of Robertss parallels. He goes on to say, This may be unsatisfactory for those who would like to locate [P52] in a narrower time frame, but the paleographical evidence will not allow it.. It hampered the discussion that the apostle John could not have written the Gospel. Jongkind, Dirk (2007). Roberts describes the handwriting as "heavy, rounded and rather elaborate",[6] but nevertheless not the work of "a practised scribe" (i.e. Attribution: This article incorporates some text from the public domain: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. For more information, visit http://journals.cambridge.org. The Rylands Library Papyrus P52, also known as the St. John's fragment, is a fragment from a Greek papyrus codex, which was a sewn and folded book. [26][27], 52 is a literary text and, in common with almost all such papyri, has no explicit indicator of date. By the Editors of the Madain Project. A. Schmidt, "Zwei Anmerkungen zu P. Ryl. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. Roberts observed that the scribe [of P52] writes in a heavy, rounded and rather elaborate hand, often uses several strokes to form a single letter (cf. [7] Colin H. Roberts, An Unpublished Fragment of the Fourth Gospel in the John Rylands Library, (Manchester, England, Manchester University Press, 1935), 13. This appears to be more postmodern skeptical thinking that is driving or motivating the investigation. P52 was just a scrap but it was a scrapcontaining John 18:31-33, 37-38. John MacArthur (as a theologian and an apologist, not a textual scholar) comes from the same mindset. From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository. Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. display a great variety of graphic solutions.[5] He adds, At this time, the most notable phenomenon in writing found in the domain of skilled and calligraphic hands is the development of normative scripts (i.e., handwritings that follow precise rules and are repetitively stable in their technique and manner of execution, with the result that they have great staying power).[6]. Porter notes the warning from Eric Turner, [c]onfidence will be strongest when like is compared with like: a documentary hand with another documentary hand, skillful writing with skillful, fastwriting with fast. The papyrus is written on both sides and hence must be from a codex, a sewn and folded book, not a scroll, roll or isolated sheet; and the surviving portion also includes part of the top and inner margins of the page. "coreDisableSocialShare": false, However, this manuscript has a date on it. @Alfio Russian . "New" Date for that St John's Fragment, Rylands Library Papyrus P52 During his university studies, he was troubled by higher criticism of the Bible, as taught by famous German theologians, who sought to prove that the Greek New Testament was not authentic. The Rylands Papyri are a collection of thousands of papyrus fragments and documents from North Africa and Greece housed at the John Rylands University Library, Manchester, UK.The collection includes the Rylands Library Papyrus P52, also known as the "St John's fragment", a fragment from a papyrus codex, generally accepted as the earliest extant record of a Canonical gospel. Jews?". [5] Roger S. Bagnall, The Oxford Handbook of Papyrology (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2009), 123. and said to them, "I find not one The only thing Comfort has not done is work at caring for and preserving rare papyrus originals as Kenyon did at the British Museum. [20] Nongbri, Brent (2005) The Use and Abuse of P52: Papyrological Pitfalls in the Dating of the Fourth Gospel. Harvard Theological Review 98:1, 31-32, ftn. But what is the passage recorded on P52? View all posts by Christian Publishing House, Christian Apologetics, Introduction to New Testament Textual Studies, NT Textual Criticism Articles, Papyrus Manuscripts, The Battle for the Bible - NT, Biblical Criticism, Higher Criticism, Modern-Day Scholars, New Testament Textual Criticism, NT Textual Criticism, Textual Criticism, Please Help Us Keep These Thousands of Blog Posts Free for All. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings. # **PAPYRUS 137 (P137): The Recently Published Earliest Manuscript Fragment of Mark ** The Controversial PAPYRUS 137 (P137) is a fragment of the Gospel. Roberts himself noted this point in his edition of 52. It is these that have formed a library of letters with the styles that go into making each letter during different time periods.[2]. and (for this) I have come into the world so that I would test In addition, it had made its way down in Fayum or Oxyrhynchus, Egypt. The consequence is to extend the range of dated primary reference comparators both earlier and later than in Roberts work; and Nongbri stresses that, simply from paleographic evidence, the actual date of 52 could conceivably be later (or earlier) still. The hastas of phi () and psi () extend both up and down. "[58] In this respect, Porter also notes that although the hooked apostrophe form found in the Cologne fragment of P.Egerton 2 is unusual in the second century, there is at least one known dated example in a papyrus of 101 CE and three others of mid or late second century date. Dating from between 100 and 160 CE, the Saint John Fragment, Rylands Library Papyrus P52 , a fragment from a papyrus codex written in Greek, is generally accepted as the earliest extant record of a canonical New Testament text. Kindle Edition. The Bible and Modern Discoveries (3): the "P52" Papyrus 2019. [6] Several letters are inclined to stray away from the notional upper and lower writing lines. Bell and Skeat, Fragments, 1. Roberts does not point out any specific characteristics of this papyrus, and I am uncertain what similarities he sees here. Paleographers could be viewed as manuscript detectives; through their knowledge of the writing of ancient texts, the forms, and styles, we get a reasonably close idea of when a manuscript was copied. The so-called Rylands Library Papyrus P52 may be tiny in size but its archaeological significance cannot be overstated. 2.22. Yes, well, this is expected because the scribe of P52 is not a professional scribe; he is a practiced scribe, a reformed documentary hand, which is a literate writer with experience in making copies of literature. Then, in the middle of the twentieth century, we from literal Bible translations (what God said by way of his human authors) and entered into the era of interpretive translations (i.e., dynamic or formal equivalent), wherein the translators give the reader what they think the authors meant by their words. Response: Fallacy Argument from Authority. Philip Comfort writes, The primary means of dating a New Testament manuscript, as an undated literary text [e.g., P52], is by doing a comparative analysis with the handwriting of other dated documentary texts. not a professional bookhand). As I mentioned before, he uses paleography in an effort to undermine P52. Textual criticism simply takes the known [manuscripts] MSS of the New Testament, studies the differences between them, and attempts by established principles to determine the exact wording of the New Testament originals. (2008, p. 2) Textual criticism is looking to the external evidence (manuscripts) and internal evidence (authors style, words he used, grammar and syntax, and other principles), so as to determine what the original words were in the original texts. Subsequently, other comparator literary papyri have been suggested, notably P. Oxy. [16] Nongbri, Brent (2005) The Use and Abuse of P52: Papyrological Pitfalls in the Dating of the Fourth Gospel. Harvard Theological Review 98:1, 35-36. 41.2968, that is, both are obviously less well-formed and less regular than that of P52, but it is to be expected that a document would be written more quickly and less deliberately than a literary text. Nongbri says that the upsilon is very similar to those of P52, as is the mu. Agreed on the upsilon. The match of letterforms, generally speaking, is what we look for. There is an impression of a rough bilinearity.[24] (bold mine) There is no effort on the part of the scribe of P.Oxy. Roberts compared P52 to an early dated manuscript that is no longer considered to be so early.40 A recent redating of P.Egerton 2 concluded that it dates to circa AD 150250 and that it is not impossible that [P.Egerton 2] was produced sometime at the turn of the third century. (Hixon, p. 102). Everyone knows that paleographic dating is conditional and difficult. Hixon writes from above, An early date ofP52might render these possibilities unlikelyeven extremely unlikelybut it cannot disprove them.. On the other hand, the generous scale and format of the codex pages of 52 are such that it is highly unlikely that it could originally have comprised the four canonical gospels; Roberts calculated that such a codex might have required 576 pages. Has data issue: false I have not provided any third-century documentary papyri that are absolute dead ringers for the handwriting of P52.[25]. In this respect, the verdict of the editors of P. Egerton 2 upon the writer of that text is applicable to ours: P. Ryl. Two examples from redaction-critical commentaries demonstrate this point. [66], An altogether different approach to dating New Testament papyri has been proposed by a number of paleographers in recent years, drawing on the notion of "graphic stream" developed by Guglielmo Cavallo. Total loading time: 0 [2] Since 2007, the papyrus has been on permanent display in the library's Deansgate building. For Nongbri and other paleographers and papyrologists, it is troublesome when textual scholars and Christian apologists take the dating of 100-150 C.E. (4) I am the Good Shepherd (10:11, 14) He also brings forward an ad hominem attack on Roberts age and experience. If we bought a used book that was missing the copyright page, we would have no idea of when it had been published. P52. 2.22.[18]. if they select and date therein? Manuscripts - CSNTM Palaeography, Precision and Publicity: Further Thoughts on P.Ryl.iii N. St. John's Fragment. The Ryland's Library Papyrus P52 - YouTube - Updated American Standard Version Why is this fragment of John's Gospel so valuable to those who love the Bible today? Moreover, not every document will be as closely matched like the other. Book Submission for Christian Publishing House, Myths and Mistakes In New Testament Textual Criticism, John Rylands University Library of Manchester, Recent Efforts to Reconstruct Early Christianity on the Basis of Its_Papyrological Evidence, Recent Efforts to Reconstruct Early Christianity on the Basis of Its_Papyrological Evidence [9789004234161 Christian Origins and Greco-Roman Culture], View all posts by Christian Publishing House.

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