Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

The idea in 1 Timothy from which Irenaeus develops this idea (i.e. Torah scroll as 'pillar') is found in the rabbinic literature. Even the idea that the square shaped world held up by three pillars one of them being the Torah scroll - https://books.google.com/books?id=IUMyAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA70&dq...

The rabbinic interest in a 'universal square' (ribu'a olam 'world square') shaped like the world and a square tavla (tablet, book) seems reminiscent of Irenaeus's tessara katholika pneumata or four catholic spirits/winds at the four corners of the world which is shaped like the gospel (codex).

It is said that "Tavla; in Talm. Heb. denotes a board; tabla ; or'any thing made square like." Indeed the same term in Aramaic extends its meaning to 'book' according to Jastrow - http://cal.huc.edu/showjastrow.php?page=518

I think I hit the jackpot in the further detailed examination of Roman and rabbinic understandings of the world as a square in the following essay: For the rabbis, the most basic unit of place, which one is prohibited from leaving during the Sabbath, measures four square cubits – arba amot – about 3...

The Jews (like the Chinese) imagined that the world was square-shaped and treated towns as square shaped for the sake of the Sabbath - https://books.google.com/books?id=FJMx_VPpjFgC&pg=PA203&dq=the+world+%22shaped+like+a+square%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwie7qGlpv_PAhUM2WMKHRpgDOUQ6...

The four corners of the world itself marked out the shape of the true cross, as one seventh-century Irish commentary on the Gospel of St Mark put it: 'what is the very appearance of the cross if not that of the quadrate form of the world?'(ipsa species crucis quidest nisiforma quadrata mundi).87 The...

Odd that the 'diatessaron' means something quite similar. All these gospel texts that mean something like 'by four' ...

And the same term 'square' in Aramaic means 'to divide into four.' Odd that ... rbˁ vb. D to make square D View a KWIC 1 to make square Gal, PTA, Sam, JBA. PTMas52.a:29[2] : דירבענה ‏ so that he should make it (i.e. the plant) square. PTSot20.b:57[2] : מאן דמרבע ארבע גרבין בעי אשיתתיסר ‏ one who for...

Rylands Library Papyrus P52 is a fragment of a single page from a codex that once contained the gospel of John. It is the oldest New Testament manuscript ever discovered. The original codex was likely square shaped. So also P66: http://cdn2.hubspot.net/hub/75864/file-15481871-gif/images/papyrus_66a-...

Hurtado on the Turner's observation that the earliest (third century) codices tended to be 'square-shaped.' Interestingly, he (Turner) found that parchment codices of the same early period tended overall to be more square shape, with their breadths noticeably closer to their heights. Also, as with e...