mls@dasys1.UUCP (Michael Siemon) (08/17/89)
There was an inquiry a short time ago about the Bodmer papyri, with some questions about their signficance, and that of the early papyri in general, to the study of the New Testament. I don't know anything about the discovery of these, or the somewhat earlier Chester Beatty discoveries, but there is a good discussion of their importance in Kurt and Barabara Aland's _The Text of the New Testament_ (Eerdmans, 1987; ISBN 90 04 08367/7) which is *the* basic guide to the early manuscripts. The book is crammed with data (and opinions, too!) -- it lists of *all* the early papyri and uncial manuscripts, tables of their contents and of the coverage of the NT books by this textual evidence. There are over 60 plates illustrating the manuscripts, so you can *see* what the evidence looks like. Altogether, highly recommended if you have any interest in the early history of our text. I will quote some of the Alands' comments on the papyri, bracketing my own comments: "Only nine papyri were known or edited by the turn of the century... By the 1930s the number of known papyri had grown to more than forty without any of them arousing any special attention, despite the fact that many of them were of a quite early date. Then came the discovery of the Chester Beatty papyri: p45, p46, and p47. The excitement aroused by these manu- scripts had not yet subsided when in 1935 Colin Henderson Roberts published p52 dating from about A.D. 125. The problems raised by these papyri were still being debated when the Bodmer papyri p66, p72, and p74 were published between 1956 and 1961. "The critical significance of p52, which preserves only a fragment of John 18, lies in the date of 'about 125' assigned to it by the leading papyro- logists. Although 'about 125' allows for a leeway of about twenty-five years on either side, the consensus has come in recent years to regard 125 as representing the later limit, so that p52 must have been copied very soon after the Gospel of John was itself written in the early 90s A.D. It provides a critical witness to the quality of the New Testament textual tradition, further confirming it by exhibiting a 'normal' text." [the Alands point out that our early manuscripts are of three kinds: a strict adherence to our received text, a loose copy that at times is nearer a paraphrase than a copy, and a "normal" tradition that lies between the other two in its dependence on its model. Early manuscripts are about equally divided among these three types. It is worth noting that we have an equivalent in our translations, with paraphrases, word-for-word ponies and attempts at turning the language of the original into something that makes good prose in the "target" language of the translation. -- mls] "While it is true that papyri from the third century were known before the discovery of the Chester Beatty papyri, none of them was as early as p46, which contains the Pauline letters and has been dated 'about 200' (with some leeway on either side). But more significantly, all the early papyri known previously contain no more than a few verses of the NT..." [p46 throws interesting light on the question of which letters are "genuine" Pauline ones. While p46 has "the last two to seven lines of each page missing" it is still a continuous witness with all except Philemon & 2 Thessalonians of the letters now thought to be Paul's and containing *only* Ephesians among the ones now thought to have other authorship (plus Hebrews which was anciently attributed to Paul, though the text makes no such claim.) More to the point of a recent controversy in talk.religion.misc, 1st and 2nd Timothy are not attested at all in early papyri, in fact not until the fourth century (e.g., in Sinaiticus and Vaticanus.) 2nd and 3rd John, also have no early attestation. An argument from silence is weak, but we have enough papyri now that there is some value in the distribution of the texts. -- mls] "Even in its physical aspects the first published Bodmer papyrus p66 presented a completely new phenomenon... Here was a gospel of John preserved in the form of a book, except for some minor damage around the edges: from the first folio with the superscription of the book... Even the original sewing of the quires could be recognized... No one had ever thought it possible that a papyrus manuscript could survive 1750 years (it was dated about A.D. 200) in such good condition... The impliciations of ... p75 of the gospels of Luke and John went even further. Written some- what later, at the beginning of the third century, it comprised twenty- seven almost perfectly preserved sheets ... together with a part of their binding... its text proved to be so close to that of Codex Vaticanus (B) that the theory of recensions, i.e. of thoroughgoing revisions of the NT made in the fourth century, was no longer defensible." [Basically, the papyrus evidence provides confirmation for both the current reconstruction of an "original" text of the NT and for the critical theories of authorship that were developed independently of this evidence. They also substantiate that "strict" manuscripts, as for example Vaticanus, are indeed a careful preservation of the documents they intend to preserve. This strictness is not quite as thoroughgoing as Jewish or Muslim text traditions, but it is not to be lightly disregarded. And there is some witness to our CURRENT text going back to within a generation after the apostles, with more witness across the entire scope of the NT by the year 200. That is, the papyri essentially undercut any argument that the Church did any doctoring of the apostolic documents in the period when it came to an accomodation with the Empire. The papyri witness the continuity of the apostolic tradition. -- mls] -- Michael L. Siemon "Look at him! a glutton and a drinker, ...!cucard!dasys1!mls a friend of taxgatherers and sinners!" And yet God's Wisdom is proved right by all who are Her children. -- Luke 7:34-35