Early Christian papyri: 4th century upper limit?

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Leucius Charinus
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Early Christian papyri: 4th century upper limit?

Post by Leucius Charinus »

Mentioned in a separate thread but worth a thread of its own ....

The Limits of Palaeographic Dating of Literary Papyri: Some Observations on the Date and Provenance of P.Bodmer II (P66)
By Brent Nongbri, Macquarie University [2014]

https://www.academia.edu/6755662/The_Li ... mer_II_P66_


Abstract
  • Palaeographic estimates of the date of P.Bodmer II, the well-preserved Greek papyrus codex of the Gospel of John, have ranged from the early second century to the first half of the third century. There are, however, equally convincing palaeographic parallels among papyri securely dated to as late as the fourth century. This article surveys the palaeographic evidence and argues that the range of possible dates assigned to P.Bodmer II on the basis of palaeography needs to be broadened to include the fourth century. Furthermore, a serious con- sideration of a date at the later end of that broadened spectrum of palaeographic possibilities helps to explain both the place of P.Bodmer lI in relation to other Bodmer papyri and several aspects of the codicology of P.Bodmer II.


MY NOTES:
  • p.19/20


    .... Such a wide span is perfectly reasonable, and this point needs to be emphasized.
    We should not be assigning narrow dates to literary papyri strictly on the basis of
    palaeography.
    Four kinds of evidence support this contention -
    • 1. The first type of evidence comes in the form of papyri that demonstrate at least
      some scribes were capable of writing in multiple different styles generally assigned
      to different time periods. P.Oxy. 31.2604 provides an example, in which a scribe puts
      on a show of skills by copying the same poetic line in different styles, twice in a
      narrowly spaced hand at home in the third century and once in a spacious uncial typical
      of the first century.

      2 The second type of evidence is the phenomenon sometimes called "archaism". [36]
      The classic case is P.Oxy. 50.3529, a papyrus scrap written in a textbook example of a
      first century Roman hand. The editor of P.Oxy. 50.3529 noted its palaeographic affinities
      with the hand of P.Oxy. 2.246, a registration of livestock dated to the year 66 CE.
      P.Oxy. 50.3529 is, however, a copy of the Martyrdom of Dioscorus, so this writing can be
      no earlier than the year 307 CE. The span for this hand is therefore at least two and a
      half centuries

      3. Third, the active working life of a scribe could be remarkably long. Revel Coles has
      suggested that the same scribe could be responsible for copying parts of P.Oxy. 64.4441
      (315 CE) and P.Oxy. 67.4611 (363 CE), which "would result in a working life not less than
      49 years". [37]

      4. Finally, similarities in hands were passed from teachers to students, so that a given hand
      could last through multiple generations. [38]
    All of these factors suggest that we should be very wary of assigning palaeographic dates
    within narrow margins (and we should certainly end the highly dubious practice of palaeographically
    dating pieces "circa" a particular year). [39] A reasonable palaeographic date range for P.Bodmer lI
    would be mid-second to mid-fourth century.
    [40].


    (My formatting)

Also see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papyrus_66
  • Papyrus 66 (also referred to as \mathfrak{P}66) is a near complete codex of the Gospel of John, and part of the collection known as the Bodmer Papyri.

    The manuscript contains John 1:1-6:11, 6:35b-14:26, 29-30; 15:2-26; 16:2-4, 6-7; 16:10-20:20, 22-23; 20:25-21:9, 12, 17. It is one of the oldest well-preserved New Testament manuscripts known to exist. Its original editor assigned the codex to the early third century, or around AD 200, on the basis of the style of handwriting in the codex.[1] Herbert Hunger later claimed that the handwriting should be dated to an earlier period in the middle or early part of the second century.[2] More recently, Brent Nongbri has produced a broader study of the codex and argued that when one takes into consideration the format, construction techniques, and provenance of the codex along with the handwriting, it is more reasonable to conclude that the codex was produced "in the early or middle part of the fourth century." [3]
A "cobbler of fables" [Augustine]; "Leucius is the disciple of the devil" [Decretum Gelasianum]; and his books "should be utterly swept away and burned" [Pope Leo I]; they are the "source and mother of all heresy" [Photius]
Steven Avery
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Early Christian papyri: 4th century upper limit?

Post by Steven Avery »

From Brent Nogbri, in an email response to trying to fix the terminus ante quem (which was not in the paper above, I asked him because it seemed to be the one lack.)
There is no real fixed terminus ante quem for P.Bodmer II, unless you consider its deposition with the other Bodmer papyri (which could range anywhere from the 6th to 7th century, depending on what materials one chooses to include in the Bodmer find--but even the dates for these later Coptic manuscripts are established by palaeography, so we still have to be careful). Palaeography can, I think, give us a broad swath of possible dates for a piece like P.Bodmer II, and I don't really see any examples of handwriting like that of P.Bodmer II after the middle of the fourth century, so I would be pretty surprised if it was produced later than that period.

So it is likely not after Vaticanus, but it could even be quite a bit later. It could be quite a bit earlier, but an ultra-early date is similarly suprising. Notice that the full range is 300-400+ years (making New Testament papyri aficionados, building fanciful textual theories, cringe) not the pretend and play figures of 50 to 100 years.

And I tend to doubt that any sound palaeographic expert would assign a date with less than a range of 200 years, for pieces absent external markers and that are based only on the materials and writing styles. Nongbri is indicating that even that would be unwarranted limiting. What I am saying is that any NT palaeographic expert who does fix dates within 50-100 years (again, absent external evidence markers) is .. what is a nice word for charlatan?

===============

Let me state this a bit differently. I think when it comes to palaeography and codicology in general, most New Testament scholars coming at it from the textual criticism world have barely gone through basic training. There may be some exceptions .. maybe. Some, at least, have handled lots of NT manuscripts. I'm skeptical if that makes them a palaeographic expert and if they can separate their textual theories from their palaeographic determinations. (I recently wrote about this on a textual forum looking at a 9th century palimpsest, maybe I will send that to Brent for his consideration.)

Thus, to their credit, the British Library when studying Sinaiticus had actual experts in the physical materials working on the project (the codicology aspects) who really were outside the New Testament studies camps. However, they learned to write in such a way as to make glaring anomalies be presented as simply puzzles.

Anyway, I did not mean to take this too far astray. The OP makes the basic point, a 4th century limit (absolute) does not have a real basis, although it is a fair estimate of a likelihood for upper end. And the 2nd and 3rd century claims are too limited.

Steven
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Leucius Charinus
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Re: Early Christian papyri: 4th century upper limit?

Post by Leucius Charinus »

Steven Avery wrote:From Brent Nogbri, in an email response to trying to fix the terminus ante quem (which was not in the paper above, I asked him because it seemed to be the one lack.)
There is no real fixed terminus ante quem for P.Bodmer II, unless you consider its deposition with the other Bodmer papyri (which could range anywhere from the 6th to 7th century, depending on what materials one chooses to include in the Bodmer find--but even the dates for these later Coptic manuscripts are established by palaeography, so we still have to be careful). Palaeography can, I think, give us a broad swath of possible dates for a piece like P.Bodmer II, and I don't really see any examples of handwriting like that of P.Bodmer II after the middle of the fourth century, so I would be pretty surprised if it was produced later than that period.


So it is likely not after Vaticanus, but it could even be quite a bit later.
Hi Steven,

As you're questioning Sinaiticus as a much later fabrication (of the "Church Organisation"?) do you also question the traditional consensus dates for Vaticanus and Alexandrinus?

It could be quite a bit earlier, but an ultra-early date is similarly suprising. Notice that the full range is 300-400+ years (making New Testament papyri aficionados, building fanciful textual theories, cringe) not the pretend and play figures of 50 to 100 years.
It may be a landmark paper.

And I tend to doubt that any sound palaeographic expert would assign a date with less than a range of 200 years, for pieces absent external markers and that are based only on the materials and writing styles. Nongbri is indicating that even that would be unwarranted limiting. What I am saying is that any NT palaeographic expert who does fix dates within 50-100 years (again, absent external evidence markers) is .. what is a nice word for charlatan?
According to Grant “Constantine managed to convince himself he’d had a religious experience” so anything less might also be termed a religious experience. These people have managed to convince themselves that they'd had a religious experience with the data.

The OP makes the basic point, a 4th century limit (absolute) does not have a real basis, although it is a fair estimate of a likelihood for upper end. And the 2nd and 3rd century claims are too limited.
The early dating of papyri has resulted in several consequent claims the most outrageous one IMHO being that the early Christians were the inventors of the codex. Eric G. Turner opens his book "The Typology of the Early Codex" with the statement that
  • "The greatest benefactors of mankind are unsung and unknown - the inventor of the wheel, the deviser of the alphabet. Among their number we should place the inventor of the codex."


The opening paragraph then continues to elaborate on the advantages of the codex and the disadvantages of the roll. There is nothing here to contradict. Three cheers for the "unsung and unknown"!!! However, in the second paragraph, the author states ...

  • "Let me be quite clear. I do not mean to reopen the question of the origin of the codex. C.H. Roberts in his British Academy paper on "The Codex" of 1954 has set out a series of attractive hypotheses which are likely to hold the field until new evidence is forthcoming.. Pointing to the fact that almost all Christian texts found in Egypt (beginning in the second century of the Christian era) are in codex, not roll form, at a time when parallel finds from the same source show that the codex form was scarcely used at all for Greek and Latin literature, he has suggested that the codex was a deliberate innovation of Christian evangelists, who evolved it from the parchment notebook."



Such claims are a direct result of a gradual push by various enterprising and pioneering academics to get as hypothetically close as they can to the great silence of the first century and the presumed chronology of Christian Origins. Precisely the same warnings apply to the "Early Dating" of the non canonical papyri fragments which have been dated before the 4th century.

The later dating of the papyri better fits the following distribution, because most of the "Early NT papyri" are from codices.

Image


Be well,



LC
A "cobbler of fables" [Augustine]; "Leucius is the disciple of the devil" [Decretum Gelasianum]; and his books "should be utterly swept away and burned" [Pope Leo I]; they are the "source and mother of all heresy" [Photius]
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