Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

There are two particular phenomena associated with early Christian scribal practices.

1) Use of the codes
2) Use of nomina sacra

A variety of proposals have been put forward to explain the origin of these phenomena and why or how they became so prevalent among Christians.

I consider both of these to be evidence that all of Christian literature goes back to a single source. When we combine the observation of these scribal practices with the high degree of correlation among Christian scriptures, the evidence is even stronger.

What we know about Christian scriptures is this:
There is an extremely high degree of inter-textual correlation across the texts of the New Testament. Almost the entirely of the Gospel of Mark is shared with the Gospel of Matthew and Luke. The Gospel of John likewise shares the same basic structure, many of the same scenes, and indeed even some of the exact same text as the Synoptic Gospels.

The Gospel of Mark, and to a lesser degree Luke, shares significant text with the Pauline letters. Acts of the Apostles shares material with the Pauline letters and the Gospels, especially Mark. And of course the Johannine materials share similarities with each other , 1 Peter shares material with Pauline letters, 2 Peter shares material with many NT works, and James shares material with Romans.

So the distinctive uses of codices across all Christian materials, the distinctive use of nomina sacra, and the extensive intertextuality of the materials all supports the conclusion that the core of Christian scripture all traces back to a single common source.

In Books and Readers, Gamble proposes that the use of the codex likely originated with the initial Pauline letter collection. I entirely agree. In fact I go beyond this propose that all of Christian literature essentially developed out of the Pauline letter collection.

I would propose that the Pauline letters were produced in codex format using nomina sacra within a secretive mystery cult. To this initial codex a new (and separate) introductory codex was created about Paul's ministry. To this a new (and separate) codex was created (proto-Mark) as an introduction to the Pauline material. But these existed as three separate codices. At some point, some of these materials made their way outside the mystery cult. From the materials that made it outside the cult, almost all other Christian scriptures were derived.

As a control, have you examined the presence of the Eusebian Canons in our Greek manuscripts of the gospels? Manuscripts before the fourth century do not have them, of course some fourth century manuscripts have them and some do not, and I believe that manuscripts that do not have them are rare after the fifth century. (I asked David Parker and Bart Ehrman if they knew of any, and they couldn't think of any off the tops of their heads, but there may well be some). Anyway, I wonder how you explain this. Are all the late manuscripts that contain the Eusebian canons copied from Caesarean exemplars (i.e., the texts as well the Canons themselves) or did the Canons go viral (i.e., were they adopted by scribes copying other text families with different genealogies)?

The point is, if the Eusebian Canons were adopted by scribes copying texts with other text genealogies, why would it be implausible to think this could have happened with the nomina sacra as well?

Best,

Ken

Are Letters of Paul fully aligned with Acts of the Apostles? I suggest not.
Plus, p.Oxy. 5575 does not have nomina sacra.
I, so far, doubt that early Christian scribes, even if they mostly preferred codex format, were all on the same page, as it were, with all aspects of scribal practice. I doubt they even *could* have been identical in practice even if, for whatever reason, we unnecessarily imagined they wanted that.
A proposed single source, it seems to me, to be imposed model, attempted lately as such. Not, imo, a persuasive scenario.

StephenGoranson wrote: ↑Sun Oct 29, 2023 8:53 am Are Letters of Paul fully aligned with Acts of the Apostles? I suggest not.
Plus, p.Oxy. 5575 does not have nomina sacra.
I, so far, doubt that early Christian scribes, even if they mostly preferred codex format, were all on the same page, as it were, with all aspects of scribal practice. I doubt they even *could* have been identical in practice even if, for whatever reason, we unnecessarily imagined they wanted that.
A proposed single source, it seems to me, to be imposed model, attempted lately as such. Not, imo, a persuasive scenario.

Of course canonical Acts and the Pauline letters are not aligned. Canonical Acts is an orthodox revision of earlier material. I would say that the only original parts of Acts remaining are the first person parts and part of the trial of Paul. Everything else has been re-written or added.

Every single Christian scripture of the first four centuries uses nomina sacra. Virtually every Christian scripture or the first three centuries, with a few rare exceptions that appear to be cases of independent note making and re-use of scrolls, is written using a codex. And all of this behavior shows up in the very earliest manuscripts we have. Both of these things were also quite unique. While codices did exist, they were very rarely used in non-Christina literature prior to the 4th century.

These aren't scribal practices that would have been so heavily adopted independently, they had to have originated with a common source. It appears that what you are proposing is that this standardization could have happened at a later stage, after a variety of independently produces works had been produced. Is that correct? So you are suggesting that there were a verity of documents from different sources and then at some point those documents were collected together and standardized?

rgprice, above, in part:
"Every single Christian scripture of the first four centuries uses nomina sacra."

False, as noted today.

StephenGoranson wrote: ↑Sun Oct 29, 2023 11:47 am rgprice, above, in part:
"Every single Christian scripture of the first four centuries uses nomina sacra."

False, as noted today.

P.Oxy. 5575 is tiny and does not contain any of the main four words that use nomina sacra. So this doesn't even count. Ok, yes, there may be tiny fragments of text that are so small that they don't contain nomina sacra because they don't contains words that nomina sacra were used for. This hardly makes your point.

nomina sacra for Father and Heaven do not appear in p.Oxy. 5575.

StephenGoranson wrote: ↑Sun Oct 29, 2023 12:15 pm nomina sacra for Father and Heaven do not appear in p.Oxy. 5575.

But many texts don't use nomina sacra for Father and Heaven, especially early texts.

So, not common practice, despite your common source unevidenced preference.

StephenGoranson wrote: ↑Sun Oct 29, 2023 1:47 pm So, not common practice, despite your common source unevidenced preference.

You're just trolling now. Everyone knows that the use of nomina sacra expanded over time to include more words, but that the earliest words were just God, Lord, Jesus, Christ.