Illuminating the History of the Bible

Manuscripts

Dating Ancient Manuscripts with Help from Modern Software

Dating Greek manuscripts by handwriting can be precarious, but a new method may put the results on firmer ground.

Paleographers perform an important initial step in the textual criticism of the Bible, from studying the development of ancient Greek handwriting to determining the date and provenance of undated manuscripts. One maxim of textual criticism is that, all things being equal, the earliest readings are preferred. However, ancient literary manuscripts often were not dated by their scribes, so how are we to determine the date of undated biblical manuscripts?

Traditional dating methods

Aside from using modern scientific methods that may damage a manuscript, sometimes there are clues that we can use to determine a date. For example:

  1. Some manuscripts have a colophon. This is a note appended to the end of the manuscript by a scribe. It may provide a date and other information, yet sometimes colophons have been forged, even in antiquity, to make a manuscript appear older.
  2. The archeological context may produce a relative date for dating some manuscripts.
  3. Sometimes a documentary manuscript like a deed or will was reused, usually by writing on the opposite side of the document that is dated, which also produces a relative date.
  4. Some manuscripts have none of these “helps” for dating. In that case, paleographers traditionally date a manuscript by its writing style. This is the most common method.

In this last procedure, paleographers classify the handwriting of dated manuscripts into various handwriting styles, which have been ordered chronologically by century. Then, to determine a date for an undated manuscript, they compare the script of the undated manuscript to these chronologically ordered styles.

Paleography is often considered more of an art than a science.

Having begun in the eighteenth century, the field of paleography is relatively young, and yet a surprising number of issues have developed with this methodology. For example, the definitions of the various handwriting styles can lack clarity, since the same adjectives, like upright and round, are used to describe multiple styles. Furthermore, scribes employed multiple styles during the same time period, so a clear linear progression from one style to the other does not always occur. These two issues alone can make a comparison of parallel writing styles difficult, so scholars spend many years developing their expertise. Thus, paleography is often considered more of an art than a science.

Traces of subjectivity   

Over the years, some manuscripts have been wrongly dated. Ernest Colwell highlighted one case: “There is in Leningrad one folio of a Greek Gospel for which [Caspar Rene] Gregory accepted the date AD 1247. Yet he assigned the manuscript on Mount Sinai from which it was taken to the fourteenth century.”1Ernest C. Colwell, Studies in Methodology in Textual Criticism of the New Testament, ed. Bruce M. Metzger, NTTS 9 (Leiden: Brill, 1969), 125. Pasquale Orsini confirmed the difficulty in dating manuscripts using the examples of P.Kellis Lit. II 97 and the Codex Tchacos, for which paleographic dating contradicts the scientific data, and even the historical and archaeological contexts relating to these manuscripts.2Pasquale Orsini, Studies on Greek and Coptic Majuscule Scripts and Books, vol. 15 of Studies in Manuscript Cultures, eds. Michael Friedrich, Harunaga Issacson, and Jorg B. Quenzer (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2019), xiii–xiv. In a recent example, Georgi Parpulov redated the important New Testament manuscript GA 35 from the eleventh century to the fourteenth century. This manuscript is considered a prime representative of the Byzantine text and so was the base text for The Gospel According to John in the Byzantine Tradition published in 2007.

A picture of the John Rylands John fragment or Gregory-Aland P52
Papyrus 52 (2nd c.) on display at the John Rylands Library. Source

Perhaps problems, such as these, stem from the subjective nature of the methodology traditionally employed. Brent Nongbri has highlighted several issues with the use of handwriting styles, such as circularity and potential bias toward early manuscripts. In his study of manuscript P75, Nongbri cautioned against dating papyri too early. He was concerned that most parallels chosen for dating P75 were themselves paleographically dated, and therefore, they were not independent witnesses for a second-century date for P75.3Brent Nongbri, “Reconsidering the Place of Papyrus Bodmer XIV–XV (P75) in the Textual Criticism of the New Testament,” JBL 135 (2016): 408.

In another case, according to Nongbri, leading scholars use the widely accepted, second-century dating of manuscript P52 in assessing the date of the Gospel of John, yet Nongbri maintained that P52 has the same attributes as third-century papyri, which should broaden the acceptable date range for this manuscript.4Brent Nongbri, “The Use and Abuse of P52: Papyrological Pitfalls in the Dating of the Fourth Gospel,” HTR 98 (2005): 23–32. Not all have accepted Nongbri’s results, but his work is a reminder that paleographically dating manuscripts has been subject to controversy and debate among scholars regarding the accuracy actually obtained by this process.

Using computational modeling

The need for a more objective approach is apparent. Models are key to discovering patterns, testing predictions, communicating explanations from the known to the unknown, and ultimately, gaining objectivity. Furthermore, employing a graphical modeling and analysis tool, like decision tree ensembling, allows a user to see the results of an analysis easily. Another benefit of a decision tree model is that it is appropriate to use when a series of decisions need to be made to determine an answer, which corresponds nicely to the procedure for dating a manuscript. Therefore, the purpose of my research is to determine whether computational modeling may be used to provide a more objective basis for dating ancient Greek manuscripts.

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The research for this project proceeded in three broad steps. First, a group, or domain, of similar manuscripts was chosen, which included Greek minuscule literary manuscripts for the initial project. In other words, manuscripts selected to be modeled had to be written in the Greek language in the minuscule hand, which is a script having lower-case letters that are sometimes connected. Furthermore, the contents of the manuscripts had to be literary in nature rather than the every-day type of documents known as documentary. In addition, only internally dated manuscripts were used, rather than manuscripts dated paleographically to a century or range of centuries. These manuscripts were chosen from the collections at Oxford’s Bodleian Library, the Cambridge University Library, the BNF in Paris, and the University of Michigan’s Harlan Hatcher Graduate Library. Additional manuscripts for the model were selected from the online collection at the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts.

Second, the structure of the model had to be devised and the manuscripts analyzed against it. To devise the model, secondary literature on paleography at the Tyndale House Library in Cambridge was reviewed to accumulate a list of over 100 attributes of Greek minuscule literary manuscripts. These attributes are “omnitextual,” meaning they are not only about the shapes of letters and ligatures, but also include codicological and orthographical attributes, such as the material of the manuscript and the shapes of breathing marks.

In order to work with the attributes programmatically, the attributes are also discrete, or granular, rather than a combination of various characteristics like handwriting styles would be. The chosen dated manuscripts were compared against this list of attributes to record evidence for the existence of these attributes in each century in which the manuscripts were written. Thus, the corresponding attributes were noted for each dated manuscript in order to build a model of the Greek minuscule literary domain. This procedure is called training the model.

Third, a second set of dated Greek minuscule literary manuscripts was selected in order to test, or validate, the accuracy of the model, which has been named Omnitext™. In blind tests, these manuscripts were compared to the model and computations made for each century in which a corresponding attribute was found. This procedure is called ensembling.

Attribute9th c.10th11th12th13th14th15th16th17th
Greek letter✔✔✔✔✔✔✔✔✔
Greek letter    ✔✔✔✔✔
Each script attribute gets a “vote” for each century in which it is used.

For example, if a matching attribute from a manuscript appeared in the model throughout the minuscule period, from the ninth through the seventeenth centuries, every century receives a point, also called a vote. However, if the next matching attribute only appeared in the model from the thirteenth through the seventeenth centuries, then only those centuries receive a vote. In this example, the thirteenth through seventeenth centuries rise in importance, and the ninth through twelfth centuries fall in importance. The matching of corresponding attributes continues for approximately 100 attributes, and the plausible date further narrows.

When all attributes have been examined, the votes for each century are aggregated to produce a secure date based on the evidence in the model. The century with the most votes is the predicted “winner.” If there is a tie, a date-range between the centuries is predicted. For each test, the model predicted the correct date, either to the century or to a range of centuries including the correct date. The test results indicate that a decision tree model using ensembling can provide a more objective means to determine a secure date range for those manuscripts that are undated.

The future

From Omnitext, which is software with a patent pending with international license based on this methodology, three reports may be obtained about the manuscript examined. First, and most importantly, is the date prediction. Second is a report of the most impactful attributes for dating the manuscript, in other words, the attributes that helped narrow the date range. Third is a report of the dated manuscript in the model that most closely matches the undated manuscript that was compared to the model, based on their corresponding attributes. Thus, Omnitext is providing evidence for paleographical decisions and, in this way, commending the field as more of a science than an art.

Omnitext is providing evidence for paleographical decisions and, in this way, commending the field as more of a science than an art.

Recently, Omnitext has been integrated with the New Testament Virtual Manuscript Room at the Institute for New Testament Textual Research at the University of Münster. The goal is to include other researchers in the paleographical analyses of manuscripts by comparing manuscripts to the model. This procedure is called a correlation.

Recently, a graduate student has tested the process and students at Birmingham Theological Seminary, Samford University, and New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary are making Omnitext correlations. If you would like a demonstration of the process or want to analyze a manuscript against the Omnitext model (or have your students do so), please see Omnitext.org and contact Dr. Pat Sanders. With the development of this new tool, a more secure and objective date range based on evidence may be obtained in dating Greek minuscule manuscripts.

Notes

  • 1
    Ernest C. Colwell, Studies in Methodology in Textual Criticism of the New Testament, ed. Bruce M. Metzger, NTTS 9 (Leiden: Brill, 1969), 125.
  • 2
    Pasquale Orsini, Studies on Greek and Coptic Majuscule Scripts and Books, vol. 15 of Studies in Manuscript Cultures, eds. Michael Friedrich, Harunaga Issacson, and Jorg B. Quenzer (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2019), xiii–xiv.
  • 3
    Brent Nongbri, “Reconsidering the Place of Papyrus Bodmer XIV–XV (P75) in the Textual Criticism of the New Testament,” JBL 135 (2016): 408.
  • 4
    Brent Nongbri, “The Use and Abuse of P52: Papyrological Pitfalls in the Dating of the Fourth Gospel,” HTR 98 (2005): 23–32.

The Changing Fortunes of Codex Vaticanus

Today, Codex Vaticanus is treated as a premier biblical manuscript. It was not always so.

Among those precious treasures kept in the Vatican Library is a fourth-century manuscript of the Greek Bible, with the shelf-mark Vaticanus Graecus 1209. For many, this ancient manuscript is known as the “Codex Vaticanus.” Among biblical scholars, its standard reference is the Roman capital letter B or the two digits 03 (or a combination of these two). This manuscript is generally regarded as one of the pillar witnesses for reconstructing the Greek New Testament. Thanks to the digital era and the generosity and effort of the Vatican Library staff, since 2015, anyone can simply search online and see this elegant manuscript without leaving home.

Historically, however, these aspects were not taken for granted. In fact, this manuscript for a long time was not seen as an important witness, its dating was uncertain, its access was limited, and its name was not “Codex Vaticanus.” How can these changes be accounted for? In what follows, I will highlight several of the more interesting aspects of Vaticanus’s changing fortunes over the centuries.

From corrupted witness to crowned pillar

This manuscript was brought to the scholarly world’s attention by the famous Dutch humanist Desiderius Erasmus (1466–1536). In 1521, he received a letter from his close friend in Rome, Paolo Bombace (1476–1527). He informed Erasmus that a Greek manuscript in the papal library, written in very ancient characters, did not contain the Comma Johanneum (the trinitarian passage at 1 John 5:7). Years later, Erasmus encountered the Spanish scholar Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda (1490–1573), who became one of his many opponents. Sepúlveda wrote against Erasmus’s project of the Greek New Testament by referring to an ancient manuscript in the Vatican Library that has hundreds of differences from Erasmus’s editions. We know today that he was referring to Codex Vaticanus.

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Sepúlveda also pointed out that Vaticanus’s text is similar to the underlying Greek text of the Latin Vulgate, thereby supporting the authenticity of the Latin textual tradition against Erasmus’s new and controversial Latin translation that he had based on other Greek manuscripts. In response, Erasmus insisted that the Greek and Latin texts he edited were superior to the texts found in Vaticanus and the Vulgate. In defending his preferred text, Erasmus further came up with a hypothesis that Vaticanus, together with other witnesses like it, must have been corrected according to the Vulgate text, thus making it of little use for his edition.

Known as the “Latinization theory,” Erasmus’s proposal would become dominant in the coming two centuries. Consequently, Codex Vaticanus was dismissed by the majority of scholars following Erasmus. Despite its antiquity, it was seen as a “Latinized” and corrupted witness.

Such a label was retained all the way until the second half of the eighteenth century. Because of the developments in scholarship, especially the paradigm shift in terms of the way manuscripts were assessed, scholars started looking at this manuscript from another perspective. The German classicist Karl Lachmann (1793–1851) and his Greek New Testament, published in 1831, can be seen as a watershed in text-critical studies. Lachmann highly valued Codex Vaticanus and considered its similarity with the Latin tradition not as the result of corruption but as an indication of a commonly shared, ancient source. Combined with other insights from his contemporaries, Lachmann’s observation became the basis of modern critical scholarship.

One of the features that distinguishes Codex Vaticanus is that it contains the Old and New Testament. Facsimile photo by Chandler Nick

As a result, subsequent editions of the Greek New Testament were prepared by making heavy use of Vaticanus’s text. Notably, the Cambridge textual critics Brooke Foss Westcott (1825–1901) and Fenton John Anthony Hort (1828–1892) published their influential The New Testament in the Original Greek in 1881, in which they were confident that our manuscript should be seen as the best witness among all the retainable sources. Through Westcott and Hort’s text, Codex Vaticanus bears a lasting impact on many contemporary vernacular New Testament translations.

From filtered data to full access

Erasmus’s Latinization theory was not the sole factor that caused subsequent scholars to be persuaded. Inaccessibility also played a decisive role. Before the internet and digitization became the norm, examining manuscripts was laborious and luxurious. One had to travel to where a certain manuscript was held, usually in a library or monastery, and stay there to study the manuscript. This came with various challenges, sometimes including a refusal to consult the material. The study of Codex Vaticanus was not an exception.

For a long time, Vaticanus was only seen by a few privileged individuals who could obtain the grant from the Vatican authorities. Under such restrictions, scholars outside Rome hardly knew of any readings from this manuscript. Particularly in the seventeenth and the first half of the eighteenth centuries, they usually had to rely on a 1580 publication by Franciscus Lucas Brugensis (1548/9–1619), where some twenty notes about the manuscript’s New Testament text are found.

However, the information was not always precise, and more importantly, the data were selective. Lucas Brugensis aimed to illustrate the reliability of the Latin Vulgate, so his references to our manuscript mainly concerned those cases where they support the Latin rendering. His data certainly reflected this. They were chosen based on his particular interest in the resemblance between Codex Vaticanus and the Latin tradition.

As a result, even what was accessible to scholars from Vaticanus was a “filtered” dataset. By its nature, this filtered data only confirmed the hypothesis proposed by Erasmus that the manuscript was a poorly Latinized witness.

Between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, there were many attempts to produce collations of this manuscript, but the goal was seldom achieved. Fortunately, Andreas Birch (1758–1829) found success in examining the manuscript closely during his stay in Rome. He then published an elegant Greek New Testament edition of the Gospels, Quatuor Evangelia Graece, in 1788. Based on personal examination, it contained the first published collection of textual variants of Codex Vaticanus, alongside a lengthy introduction to the manuscript’s characteristics.

Birch’s contribution was significant to the critical study of the New Testament, as it allowed scholars to employ one of the ancient manuscripts known to the text-critical world. Moreover, he was the very first critic who made the public audience aware of the absence of the traditional Markan ending in the manuscript: Codex Vaticanus ended the Gospel of Mark at 16:8 (“for they [the women] were afraid”), followed by a subscription signifying the closure of the book.

Until that point, scholars had no hard evidence to support the patristic evidence that some manuscripts ended Mark at 16:8.

Until that point, scholars had no hard evidence from any Greek manuscript to support the patristic evidence that some manuscripts ended Mark at 16:8 (e.g., Eusebius, to Marinus 1). This abrupt ending would later be accepted as the critical text, thereby substantially changing our understanding of this Gospel’s narrative. But until Birch’s day, only very few scholars outside the Vatican Library knew about this important fourth-century witness to this ending, let alone considering it being the ending of this Gospel.

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From uncertain identity to the ‘Vatican manuscript’

The third and last aspect I want to address is the name “Codex Vaticanus” itself. Nowadays, it is regularly applied to this great Greek Bible manuscript. However, just like the evaluation of its text, this name has changed over time. For instance, when John Mill (1645–1707) was preparing his Greek New Testament edition, his references to our manuscript were not consistent. He variously called it “the Vatican manuscript,” “the Vatican Greek manuscript,” “the ancient manuscript,” or even “a certain manuscript in the Vatican Library.”

Since Mill had to depend on secondary sources, he was not entirely sure how many Vatican manuscripts he was referring to and was also uncertain whether only one single ancient manuscript was responsible for all the referenced data. In the era of inaccessibility, mistaken attributions were found here and there among scholarly works, which were hard to verify.

The title page to Wettstein’s first edition (1751). Photo credit

Later, knowledge about the manuscript gradually grew, and more and more pieces of information became available in the eighteenth century. In his 1751–1752 edition, Johann Jakob Wettstein (1693–1754) created a numbering system for all known Greek New Testament manuscripts. At that point, our manuscript was assigned the letter B, a convention that has lasted until today.

Wettstein’s designation also contributed to the formulation of this manuscript’s distinctness, making it the most famous codex of the Greek Bible in Rome. At the turn of the nineteenth century, the Latin term “Codex Vaticanus” (its literal translation would be “a Vatican manuscript”) seems to have become the consistent reference to our manuscript in English scholarly literature. The exclusive use of this term for the manuscript reveals scholarly awareness of its significance and superiority. As noted, this would become the standard name of the manuscript from then on. Alongside the high estimation of its value and the greater use of its text, Codex Vaticanus eventually became the manuscript par excellence among all the New Testament witnesses. Today, it still holds that place for many.

Conclusion

Such an investigation prevents us from judging previous scholarship too quickly.

What can we learn from this unique history? you may ask. Tracing how a particular manuscript was used and perceived over the centuries makes us more aware of the ground and root of our present-day position. It provides us with important historical contexts. Such an investigation also prevents us from judging previous scholarship too quickly without understanding the historical backgrounds and limitations the critics of the past had to face. In this case, it helps us understand why past scholars dismissed Codex Vaticanus as unimportant.

In a way, the changing perceptions of Codex Vaticanus showcase the developments in the discipline of New Testament textual criticism. The study of this multifaceted change also makes us aware of the privilege we have in the digital era. It is a great gift to have full and unrestricted access to this crowned witness, from everywhere, at any time.

How the Two Testaments Became One Bible

When production of two-testament Bibles began in the fourth century, the notion already had centuries of precedent.

I love asking long-established couples how they first met. From Ruth and Boaz on, such stories often reveal the kindness and sovereignty of God in sweet and sometimes unpredictable ways, especially if the union appeared on paper unlikely, but has gone on to be happy and fruitful.

There is one couple, whose union at first seemed extremely unlikely, but which has gone on to be happy and fruitful for two thousand years: the union of the two testaments in the Christian Bible. But how did our two testaments come together? How did those books, which first-century Christians were writing about Jesus, come to be included with the Jewish Scriptures in what we call the Bible?

Uniting the Bible’s two testaments

It’s an important question, because the unity of our Bibles matters more than many Christians today realize and effects many controversial questions. The unity of Scripture means that one of the most important contexts for interpreting any biblical passage is the rest of the Bible. By approaching the Bible as one united collection of books, the early Christians were saying that the context of a biblical book within the Bible is as or more important than its original historical context in ancient Judaism or Greco-Roman culture.

The unity of the Bible is also the basis for connecting themes and symbols across the Bible. This assumes that the Bible has a grand, overarching story, rather than being an assorted collection of anecdotes, moral teachings, and theological ideas. This assumption is basic to Christian preaching, theology, and ethical interpretation of the Bible, but it only makes sense if the two testaments actually do belong together.

This was far from obvious in the first century AD. Imagine how you would feel if someone suggested that some new books, from our own time, deserved to be bound into your Bible. That’s what the early Christians started to do to the Jewish Scriptures, from very soon after the death of Jesus. From as far back in the history of the church as we can trace, it seems to have been uncontroversial among Christians that these new books, about Jesus, had the same authority as the Jewish Scriptures, which Jews had been reading, revering, and seeking to obey for centuries.

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Reading the two testaments as one book

We see beginnings of the story in the New Testament. First Timothy 5:18 appears to quote Deuteronomy and then something very similar to Matthew’s Gospel, and calls them both “Scripture.” Second Peter 3:16 unambiguously calls Paul’s letters “Scripture.” The Greek word translated “Scripture” (graphē), means anything written. But in religious contexts, it almost always meant authoritative Scriptures. When New Testament authors call other New Testament books “Scripture,” they are saying that these early Christian books have the same status as the Old Testament Scripture.

Similarly, the early-second-century Christian writer Polycarp quotes Ephesians and calls it “Scripture” (Polycarp, Philippians 12.) Justin Martyr, also in the second century, records what a worship service looked like in his church (Justin, First Apology 67). It included readings both from the Old Testament Scriptures and the “memoirs of the apostles,” which probably means the Gospels or related texts.

In contrast, the second-century heretic Marcion believed that Christians should not read the Old Testament. Marcion is interesting, because by the time he was active, only about a century after the death of Jesus, it was uncontroversial that books like the Gospels and the letters of Paul were at least as authoritative and at least as deserving of Scriptural status as the Old Testament.

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Marcion controversially tried to cut the Old Testament (and many parts of the New Testament which quote it or appear to agree with it) out of the Bible—but this means that by his time, the basic shape of a Bible with two testaments must have been well-established. In the mid-first century, Jesus’ followers were controversially writing new books and adding them to the Jewish Scriptures. In the mid-second century, Marcion was taking the old books out of the Christian Scriptures, which was only possible because no-one doubted the scriptural status of the new books.

Also in the second century, Irenaeus of Lyon was constructing a theology that assumed the unity of both testaments. His book Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching summarizes the gospel by presenting the story of the whole Bible. His very approach assumes the unity of the Bible.

This evidence shows that from very early, Christians were treating the Bible as a single book.

Fitting the two testaments in one codex

But if the Bible was already being read as a single book, was it being physically produced as a single book? The technical name for a book containing the whole Bible is a “pandect.”

Pandects were rare in the ancient world, not least because books this size would have been difficult and expensive to produce.

Pandects were rare in the ancient world, not least because books this size would have been difficult and expensive to produce. We know of very few large books from the ancient world. There is Origen’s Hexapla, a copy of the Old Testament containing six different columns in multiple Greek translations. We also know of a manuscript containing all of the ancient Greek epic poem, the Odyssey (which runs to about four hundred pages in modern English editions).

When it comes to biblical manuscripts, there are four from prior to 600 AD that were probably originally pandects. They are Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Vaticanus, Codex Alexandrinus, and Codex Ephraemi rescriptus. In the first three, substantial portions of both testaments still survive, so it is very likely they originally contained all of both testaments. In Codex Ephraemi, we have only the New Testament and large parts of the Old Testament wisdom literature. However, the New Testament and the wisdom literature seems such an unusual combination (of which we have no other evidence) that it is likely this manuscript originally contained all the books of both testaments.

The view of Ephraemi rescriptus from the bottom. Photo credit

These manuscripts all contain the Old Testament in Greek translation (often called the Septuagint), since few early Christians could read Hebrew. They also contain the Old Testament Apocrypha and some contain a few early Christian texts in addition to the New Testament books (but these are placed after Revelation, which may suggest the scribes thought they were in a lesser category).

Further hints from our manuscript evidence

Of course, many of our early biblical manuscripts are small fragments and so it is impossible to know for certain what else they contained. One of our earliest manuscripts, known to biblical scholars as P52, is a tiny scrap of John’s Gospel. It is impossible to know what was in the original, complete version—all of John, all of the Gospels, all of the New Testament, all of the Christian Bible or some more unusual combination of texts?

However, some of these early, small fragments include page numbers and these generally suggest that they contained only a single biblical book. It is likely therefore that manuscripts of the whole Bible were rare and the four we know of are not only important but unusual.

Book technology at the time means that, even with these manuscripts, it’s unlikely all the books of the Bible were physically bound into a single volume. However the presentation, arrangement of words on the page and column layout is the same in each of these manuscripts all through the Bible, so it is very likely that they were intended to be used as single books, rather like a modern book produced in multiple volumes, but always sold together and with such similar font and layout that they are obviously intended to be read as one (such as N. T. Wright’s Paul and the Faithfulness of God or some editions of The Lord of the Rings).

The origins of the pandects

What led to the production of these pandects? As we have seen, the theological belief in the unity of the testaments existed from the late first century, so it is natural that scribes should start creating manuscripts with both testaments, but it is possible there was a specific reason to produce pandects in the early fourth century.

The early Christian writer, Eusebius, records a letter he received from the Roman Emperor Constantine, the first Christian Emperor, requesting “fifty copies of the clearly sacred Scriptures” (Life of Constantine 4.36). Similarly, another early Christian writer, Athanasius, records that he made “copies of the divine Scriptures” for the Roman Emperor Constans (Defense before Constantius 4).

Are these ancient requests for pandects? Scholars disagree at this point. It is possible that “fifty copies of the clearly sacred Scriptures” means fifty copies of the Gospels, or even a combination like ten sets each containing five manuscripts, one of the Gospels, one of the Pentateuch, one of the Psalms, one the Prophets and one of the letters.

However, there is no indication in the context that this is what Constantine or Constans intended and the natural reading of the definite article in Eusebius’s account is that “the clearly sacred Scriptures” includes everything in the category of clearly sacred Scriptures (just as if one spouse says to another “I’ll collect the children from school” without further clarification, this means all their children and only their children). Fifty pandects would certainly be an exorbitant request, but Roman Emperors were hardly known for their modest tastes or restrained demands.

Were any of our four surviving pandects produced in response to these demands? It is impossible to be sure.

Were any of our four surviving pandects produced in response to these demands? It is impossible to be sure, but Sinaiticus and Vaticanus both probably come from about the right time and Sinaiticus, in particular, probably comes from about the right place. What is even more important than identifying individual manuscripts with Constantine’s or Constans’s order, is the simple fact that these Emperors were likely commissioning pandects at all. It seems that Constantine believed that a well-ordered and united Bible would help build a well-ordered and united church, which might even help create a well-ordered and united society.

Conclusion

The production of physically united Bibles began in the fourth century, quite possibly because this was the first time there were Christian emperors who could support the production of such large books. But even more important is the fact that, when these emperors requested such Bibles, the idea made sense—because Christians had been trusting and treasuring a unified Bible for centuries.

Resources for Reading Greek Manuscripts

If you want to read Greek manuscripts, use these tools to demystify what looks like an alphabet soup.

I have been a transcriber of Greek manuscripts for many years now, both paid and volunteer, and a question I often get as a result is how to interpret the vast number of letter combinations or “ligatures” that one finds in these texts. Over the years, I have read many books that cover this material, but have also collected various online resources that I can offer to new transcribers or those just interested in learning about these paleographic features.

Incidentally, learning these forms can also help with reading early printed Greek New Testament’s since the typeface used in those editions was modelled after written Greek and includes ligatures. In this article, I will offer my best suggestions for learning how to read Greek abbreviations and ligatures as seen in biblical manuscripts.

Terminology

First, let’s talk terminology. While the definitions often involve some level of overlap, there are differences in whether something is a ligature, a contraction, or an abbreviation.

  • Abbreviation — the intentional shortening of a word by removing its last few letters.
  • Contraction — the intentional shortening of word by removing letters between the first and last letters of the word.
  • Ligature — the joining of several letters together to create a shortened form of a word, or the replacement of that word with a symbol.
An example of a καί ligature and a nu at the end of a line in Codex Sinaiticus at Mark 15:27. Image source

Examples of abbreviations one might encounter in Greek manuscripts are numbers that have been replaced with their letter equivalent. Rather than spelling out the infamous mark of the beast in Revelation 13:18, for example, scribes often wrote its equivalent in letters (χξϛ). Another example would be the replacement of a final nu with an overhead line.

The most obvious examples of compactions or contractions that you will find in Greek manuscripts are nomina sacra which abbreviate certain common Greek nouns. Ligatures are more difficult to provide examples for since they generally employ symbols rather than letter shapes. However, two of the ligatures most often seen in manuscripts are the combination of omicron and upsilon and the καί (kai) ligature in its various forms.

History

Abbreviations and contractions can be found in Greek manuscripts during the centuries in which majuscule script was used exclusively. And, while ligatures generally do not appear widely in literary work prior to the transition to minuscule script, the presence of an early καί (kai) ligature can be found already in Codex Sinaiticus (4th c. AD) as shown above.

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Between the fifth and seventh centuries, as cursive majuscule became more prolific in documentary texts, ligature use increased as scribes desired a more rapid or tachygraphic mode of writing. By the ninth century, the conversion from majuscule to a literary minuscule began and the following centuries brought with them an increased production of ligatures for more words.

Generally, ligatures are used to represent words of three to four letters or less, but in some creative instances, the ligature for a word like κατά (kata) can be found in place of its use as a prefix on a word like καταβαίνω (katabainō). By the fourteenth century, manuscripts produced in a more scholastic style could be comprised of almost exclusively abbreviations, compactions, and ligatures, making the text almost indecipherable to anyone unfamiliar with this form of writing.

An example of lots of ligatures from GA 1969, f. 125r. The text reads: τότε δὲ πρόσωπον πρὸς πρόσωπον· οὐχ ὡς πρόσωπον τοῦ θεοῦ ἔχοντος·1My immense thanks to Dr. Amy Myshrall who was more than willing to share these examples of ligatures when she heard of this article. Image source

For present-day transcribers and students of Greek manuscripts the presence of these shapes and symbols can create an impenetrable barrier to proficiency, especially if they lack any resources to guide them through the maze. In order to help others become familiar with the forms they will regularly encounter in Greek manuscripts, I have compiled a list of resources, mostly available online for free, that can be used to help students along the way:

Print resources

The best print resources for reading and understanding ligatures are in several languages and are not available online are the following.

  • English: Pat Easterling and Carol Handley, eds. Greek Scripts: An Illustrated Introduction. London: Society for the Promotion of Hellenistic Studies, 2001.
  • Italian: Elpidio Mioni. Introduzione alla paleografia greca. Universita Di Padova Studi Bizantini E Neogreci 5 Padova: Liviana Editrice, 1973.
  • French: Alain Blanchard. Sigles et abréviations dans les papyrus documentaires grecs: recherches de paléographie. Bulletin Supp. No. 30. London: Institute of Classical Studies, 1974.

Related

Online resources

Fortunately, living in a digital age means that many of the earlier, and still very helpful, works on paleography are now available online. The most important of which in English is T. W. Allen’s Notes on Abbreviations in Greek Manuscripts (1967). It has a full description of common ligatures and a discussion on tachygraphy making it a unique and extremely valuable resource.

Next to that would be the work of the famous paleographer, Edmond Maunde Thompson whose work Handbook of Greek and Latin Palaeography (1893) is a bit dated, but still contains a very helpful chapter on abbreviations.

Moving to resources that are produced exclusively online, the Vatican library website has an excellent page containing an introduction to Greek paleography. One of the links on the page is to a discussion on abbreviations with helpful diagrams of several ligatures.

Additionally, an online PDF of the introduction to William Wallace’s (no, not that one) An Index to Greek Ligatures and Contractions has been made available, which contains his diagrams of numerous ligatures.

An online website dubbed the “Textual Critic’s Corner” also has a section devoted to ligatures, with images, along with very clear scans of ligatures used in printed Greek New Testaments and other Incunabula.

The best resource of all

I intentionally left this last online resource for the end because, if you saw it first, you would have ignored all the others! It’s called the CRBMI Searchable Ligature Tool and is the brainchild of Dr. W. Andrew Smith and the Center for Research of Biblical Manuscripts and Inscriptions (crbmi.org).

Enterprising transcribers there have developed a searchable ligature/abbreviation tool that allows someone to simply type a letter combination into a search bar and it will return images for all known ligatures of that combination. It is the most thorough database that I am aware of, and it should be a tab on everyone’s computer.

Lastly, I would be remiss to not also put on every reader’s radar what will be the largest compendium of all Greek ligatures ever produced. It is slated for publication in 2026, coming from the University of London.

I would encourage all who are interested to save the information and keep an eye out for its eventual release.

Conclusion

Knowledge of abbreviations, contractions, and ligatures in Greek manuscripts is of vital importance for anyone in manuscript studies, be they paleographers or text critics. They represent an important era of manuscript production and cannot be ignored if one intends to read or transcribe manuscripts after the eighth century. By providing these resources here, I hope that it will encourage more readers to work with late-antique manuscripts of the Greek Bible and give them the ability to teach others to do the same.

Notes

  • 1
    My immense thanks to Dr. Amy Myshrall who was more than willing to share these examples of ligatures when she heard of this article.

Putting the New Papyrus of Jesus’ Sayings in Context

While exciting and important, much about a recently published, headline-grabbing fragment is not unique.

Late last year, the Egyptian Exploration Society grabbed headlines when it announced the publication of a new cache of ancient papyri from Oxyrhynchus, Egypt. The 87th volume of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri contained several pieces of interest to scholars of the New Testament and early Christianity.

Among the newly published fragments were a vaguely “gnostic” speech attributed to Jesus (P.Oxy. 5576), part of an apocryphal dialogue between Jesus and Mary Magdalene (P.Oxy. 5577), and the remains of several otherwise unknown ancient biographies. The only item to generate headlines, however, was a small papyrus containing a portion of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. This fragment was no mere copy of Matthew’s Gospel. The papyrus now known to scholars as P.Oxy. 5575 is a combination of traditions about Jesus otherwise found in Matthew, Luke, and the non-canonical Gospel of Thomas.

The fragment’s significance

It’s this combination of diverse gospel materials that caught the attention of the wider-public. Upon the publication of P.Oxy. 5575, Michael Holmes, one of the fragment’s editors, explained its significance in this way:

What makes this a big deal? This is the first known occurrence of the weaving together of material similar to Luke and Matthew, on the one hand, and material similar to—and otherwise known only from—the Gospel of Thomas, on the other. In this significant respect, 5575 is unique among all known papyri.

“With a sharp enough scalpel,” it’s been said, “everything is unique.” And, certainly, no other fragment is exactly like P.Oxy. 5575. In a technical sense, Holmes is correct: There are no other papyri with precisely this combination of gospel parallels. But, in almost every other respect, this fragment is not unique at all. It seems to me that Holmes’s answer might leave readers with a misleading impression about the state of the evidence for other works that, like P.Oxy. 5575, combine traditions about Jesus without respect for canonical/non-canonical boundaries.

There are no other papyri with precisely this combination of gospel parallels. But, in almost every other respect, this fragment is not unique at all.

My goal here is neither to minimize the importance of this new piece of early Christian literature nor to exaggerate the evidence for similar works but, rather, to help the reader understand P.Oxy. 5575 by setting it into a larger comparative context. This new fragment of Jesus’ preaching is one of many early Christian compositions to bring together material about Jesus found in multiple gospels, including gospels beyond the canonical four.

Works that combine canonical material

The first set of helpful analogies are early fragments that combine some or all the canonical Gospels. Perhaps the best-known example is the Dura Fragment (P. Dura 10), a third century parchment from Dura Europos on the border of Roman Syria. The Dura Fragment contains only fifteen legible lines, written on one side of a parchment roll. These lines describe the women at Jesus’ crucifixion and introduce Joseph of Arimathea.

But the Dura Fragment doesn’t correspond to any known gospel. Rather, it carefully interweaves wording from the four canonical Gospels to produce a unique version of the story. For instance, one line reads “…there came a person (Matt. 27:57), being a councilor (Luke 23:50), from Erinmathea (sic), a city of Judea (Luke 23:51), his name was Joseph (Matt. 27:57), good and righteous (Luke 23:50), being a disciple of Jesus in secret because of his fear of the Jews (John 19:38) and he was expecting the kingdom of God (Luke 23:51).”

Almost every word of the Dura Fragment can be traced back to one of the canonical Gospels, but the result is an intricately interwoven tapestry of the four.

Similarly, the so-called “Fayyum Fragment” (P. Vienna G. 2325) combines elements from Matthew and Mark to produce a unique version of Jesus’ prediction of Peter’s denial. The Matthean phrasing, “I will strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered” (Matt. 26:31) is followed by the distinctively Markan phrasing, “Before a cock twice crows…” (Mark 14:27). Like P.Oxy. 5575, the wording of the Fayyum Fragment does not match any of the canonical Gospels exactly, but the parallels with multiple gospels are undeniable.

As the Dura Fragment and the Fayyum Fragment make clear, P.Oxy. 5575 is one of many early Christian works that re-combined and re-arranged traditions about Jesus.

Works that combine canonical and non-canonical material

These two examples are combinations of gospels now-considered canonical, whereas P.Oxy. 5575 combines the synoptics with material found in the non-canonical Gospel of Thomas. In this respect, the Greek fragments of Thomas found at Oxyrhynchus provide a better analogy for the newly discovered gospel fragment. The only complete manuscript of Thomas contains 114 sayings of Jesus in Coptic. About two-thirds of these sayings appear to be drawn from the canonical Gospels.

For dozens of additional sayings, however, there are no canonical parallels. Probably, the compiler of Thomas composed some of these non-canonical sayings from scratch, but parallels between Thomas’s non-canonical sayings and other early Christian sources suggest that the compiler drew on additional non-canonical gospels in composing the Gospel of Thomas. P.Oxy. 654, for instance, contains a saying of Jesus (GThom 2) that Clement of Alexandria says belonged to the non-canonical Gospel of the Hebrews (Stromateis 2.9.45; 5.14.96).

Gospel of the HebrewsThomas 2 (Greek; P.Oxy. 654)Thomas 2 (Coptic)
The one who seeks will not stop until he finds. And when he finds, he will be amazed. And when he is amazed, he will reign. And when he reigns, he will rest.Let the one who seeks not stop [seeking until] he finds. And when he finds, [he will be amazed. And] when he is amazed he will reign. And [when he reigns over everything] he will rest.Let the one who seeks not stop seeking until he finds. And when he finds, he will be troubled. And when he is troubled, he will be amazed and will become king over everything.

Probably the compiler of Thomas drew this saying of Jesus from the non-canonical Gospel of the Hebrews. And in P.Oxy. 654, this saying sits alongside Thomas 3, a version of the saying found at Luke 17:20–25. Side-by-side, this fragment preserves a combination of canonical and non-canonical gospel material. In this respect, P.Oxy. 654 is a close parallel to what we find in P.Oxy. 5575. 

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Other good analogies include P.Oxy. 4009 and the Egerton Gospel (BL Egerton Papyrus 2). The former is a fragmentary papyrus containing parallels to Matthew 10:16, Luke 7:36–50, and a non-canonical conversation between Jesus and Peter cited by the preacher of Second Clement. The Egerton Gospel, likewise, weaves together sayings of Jesus found in John 5 and 10, several synoptic stories, and a story about Jesus sowing seeds on the banks of the Jordan that has no canonical parallel. We do not know what ancient readers called these gospels, but fragmentary remains provide additional evidence of early Christians combining canonical and non-canonical materials about Jesus.

Further examples

If we look beyond the papyri, there is more evidence for the combination of canonical and non-canonical Jesus traditions. The Epistle of the Apostles, for instance, is an early second century, theologically-orthodox composition. It contains a summary of Jesus’ nativity, life, death, and resurrection. Most of this gospel-summary corresponds to one or more of the canonical lives of Jesus. However, the author also includes a scene of Jesus as a school boy, found only in the non-canonical Infancy Gospel of Thomas. The result is a gospel-like narrative that, again, weaves together strands from both canonical and non-canonical books.

In the second half of the second century, a Christian teacher named Tatian composed his own gospel by interweaving stories from earlier gospels. Later Christians called Tatian’s composition “The Diatessaron,” which translates to “the [gospel] through the four [gospels].” Although Tatian himself seems to have revised the content and wording of his sources, almost every line of the Diatessaron can be attributed to one of the four now-canonical gospels. There are, however, a few important exceptions, most notably a passage attributed to Tatian’s Diatessaron as found in the fourth-century Commentary on the Gospel by Ephrem.

Ephrem, Comm. 14.24Thomas 30 (Greek; P.Oxy 1)Thomas 30 (Coptic)
…when he said, Where there is one, I [am there], lest all those who are solitary be sad. Where there is one, I [am there].1Translation from Carmel McCarthy, Saint Ephrem’s Commentary on Tatian’s Diatessaron : An English Translation of Chester Beatty Syriac MS 709 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993).Jesus says, Where there are three, they are godless And where there is one-alone, I say I am with him.Jesus says, Where there are three gods, they are gods. Where there are two or one, I am with him.

This saying of Jesus, not found in any manuscript of any canonical gospel, appears in the Gospel of Thomas. Like P.Oxy. 5575, therefore, either Tatian or one of Tatian’s sources must have combined canonical Jesus traditions with a saying otherwise known to us only from a non-canonical gospel. 

There are, additionally, a few pieces of non-canonical material found in more-or-less complete manuscripts of the canonical Gospels. The copy of Matthew in Codex Sinaiticus, for instance, contains a version of Jesus’ “consider the lily” speech in Matthew 6:28 that says the lilies neither “card nor spin nor work,” precise phrasing otherwise only known from the Gospel of Thomas.

Related

Likewise, the famous story of the “Woman Caught in Adultery,” according to Jennifer Knust and Tommy Wasserman’s study, was known from the non-canonical Gospel of the Hebrews. At some point in the second or third centuries, readers inserted this story into manuscripts of the canonical John. Of course, P.Oxy. 5575 seems to reflect a more thoroughly interwoven combination of diverse gospel traditions than what is found in anything preserved in the complete manuscripts from the fourth century. But these traces of gospel combinations show that some early readers were happy to bring together the words of Jesus as found in canonical and non-canonical gospels.

Conclusion

P.Oxy. 5575 is one of several pieces of early Christian literature that shows how some ancient readers collected and combined Jesus material otherwise found in canonical and non-canonical gospels.

All the analogies to P.Oxy. 5575 that we’ve considered above make up only a tiny fraction of our documentary evidence for early Christian gospel literature. The vast majority of Christian literary papyri are either readily identifiable with specific works (e.g., P.Oxy. 4) or clearly distinct from any known work (e.g., P.Oxy. 840). And the practice of harmonizing the text of the canonical Gospels is surprisingly uncommon in the papyri.

Still, P.Oxy. 5575 is one of several pieces of early Christian literature that shows how some ancient readers collected and combined Jesus material otherwise found in canonical and non-canonical gospels. In particular, this fragment is intriguing new evidence that some early Christians continued to re-write and re-arrange stories about Jesus in the same way that the authors of Matthew and Luke used earlier gospels. As I hope to have shown, P.Oxy. 5575 is not the only evidence for this practice. But it is important new evidence for this aspect of early Christian book culture.

Notes

  • 1
    Translation from Carmel McCarthy, Saint Ephrem’s Commentary on Tatian’s Diatessaron : An English Translation of Chester Beatty Syriac MS 709 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993).

What’s the Big Deal about a New Papyrus with Sayings of Jesus?

A second-century date for a new Greek fragment with gospel material makes it unique among papyri.

On August 31st, the Egypt Exploration Society published the latest volume (LXXXVII) in its long-running series on the Oxyrhynchus Papyri (volume 1 appeared in 1898). The volume presents many interesting papyri, including a collection of short biographies of eminent Romans and a fragment of the book of Revelation. Thanks to an article in the Daily Beast, however, the spotlight has fallen on a small fragment (about 1.3ʺ wide × 3.6ʺ high) that contains sayings of Jesus in a form similar to the gospels of Matthew, Luke, and Thomas.

Why is this such a big deal? Let’s find out.

What Are the Oxyrhynchus Papyri?

The Oxyrhynchus Papyri are a massive trove of papyri (estimates range upwards of half a million) excavated near Oxyrhynchus, Egypt (modern el-Bahnasa) during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by a team organized by Bernard Grenfell and Arthur Hunt. The site is an ancient trash dump, where public and private documents of all sorts were discarded. These included tax assessments, court records, business letters, private letters (even one written by a student at school writing home to ask his parents to send more money), and literary documents. Most were written in Greek, but also Coptic, Latin, Arabic, Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac, and other languages are represented.

Grenfell and Hunt in Egypt. Wikipedia

The papyri—mostly in small fragments—range in date from the third century BC (the Ptolemaic era) to 640 AD (the end of the Roman period). When one of these papyri is published, it is given a standard prefix and a reference number. For example, the very first one published is P.Oxy. 1; the one that is catching so much interest now is P.Oxy. 5575.

The literary papyri (perhaps 10% or so of the total) encompass a wide range of Classical and Hellenistic literature. They also include a fair number of Christian writings of all sorts, including prayers (e.g., P.Oxy. 407, 4010), hymns (e.g., P.Oxy. 1786), letters, amulets (e.g., P.Oxy. 1077), homilies, and literary documents.

This last category includes fragments of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, several Pauline letters, some Catholic letters, and Revelation, as well as fragments of the Gospel of Thomas (P.Oxy. 1, 654, 655),1These fragments were not recognized as fragments of the Gospel of Thomas until after the discovery of a complete Coptic translation of Thomas near Nag Hammadi in 1945. Gospel of Mary (P.Oxy. 3525), perhaps (but not likely) Gospel of Peter (P.Oxy. 2949, 4009), some unidentified “gospel” fragments (P.Oxy. 210, 840, 1224), several fragments of the Shepherd of Hermas, and one of the Didache (P.Oxy. 1782).

So, P.Oxy. 5575 is one of the latest additions to this relatively large category of Christian literary texts from Oxyrhynchus. Why is it attracting so much attention? There are two reasons: first, its content, and second, its (probable) date.

What’s in the New Fragment?

While it’s not possible to represent accurately the form and layout of the Greek text in English translation, the following layout is an attempt to give an impression of the layout of the content of the fragment. (References in the following discussion to line numbers apply to this English presentation only—they do not correspond to the lines of the Greek fragment.)

Recto (→)Verso (↑)
… he died (?). [I tell] you:
[do not] worry [about]
your [life,] what you will eat,
[or] about the body, what
[you will wear.] For I tell you:
[unless] you fast [from
the world,] you will never find
[the Kingdom,] and unless you
… the world,
you [will never …]
the Father … the birds, how
… and [your (?)] heavenly 
Father [feeds
them (?).] You therefore …		[Consider the lilies,]
how they grow …
Solomon …
in [his] glory … [if] the Father [clothes]
grass which dries up
and is thrown into the oven,
[he will clothe (?)] you …
You [also (?)] therefore …
for [your] Father [knows what (?)] …
need you have. [Instead (?)]
seek [his kingdom (?),]
and [all these things (?)]
will be given [to you (?)] …  
An English translation of P.Oxy. 5575
The recto (left) and verso (right) of P.Oxy. 5575 as photographed in 2012 before another small piece of the fragment was identified. Photos by Ardon Bar-Hama

The first decipherable letters on the recto side (corresponding to the “odd number” page) of 5575 may be part of the last word of the main saying in Gospel of Thomas 63.1–3 (a saying similar to Luke 12:16–21).

Gospel of Thomas, 63: “Jesus said: There was a rich man who had much money. He said: ‘I will use my money so that I may sow and reap and  plant and fill my storehouses with produce, so that I lack nothing.’ This was what he thought in his heart. And that night he died.”

The saying then continues: “Whoever has ears let him hear.” (This saying survives only in Coptic.)

Then follows a saying similar to Luke 12:22/Matt 6:25a (lines 1–5). Next comes a saying similar to Gospel of Thomas 27 (lines 6–10), followed by words similar to Luke 12:24/Matt 6:25b–26 (lines 11–14).

Gospel of Thomas, 27: “Jesus said, ‘If you do not fast to the world, you will not find the kingdom of God; if you do not keep the Sabbath as Sabbath, you will not see the Father.’”

This is from the only Greek fragment that preserves saying 27 (P.Oxy. 1). The Coptic version is similar, but it lacks “Jesus said” and “of God.”

One interesting difference involves the Greek word for “birds”: in line 11, 5575 has ornea, instead of korakas (Luke) or peteina (Matthew).

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On the verso (“even number page” side) the text is similar to Luke 12:27–28, 30b–31/Matt 6:28b–30, 32b–33, with some differences, larger and smaller. An example of a larger difference: whereas Luke 12:30 and Matt 6:32 end with two “reminders” (i.e., that gentiles seek after such things, and that the heavenly father knows that we need them), 5575—like Justin Martyr, who also quotes this passage (1 Apol. 15.15)—mentions only the second.

Why is it important?

What makes this a big deal? This is the first known occurrence of the weaving together of material similar to Luke and Matthew, on the one hand, and material similar to—and otherwise known only from—the Gospel of Thomas, on the other. In this significant respect, 5575 is unique among all known papyri.

If the proposed date is right, then 5575 would be … one of the earliest witnesses to any Christian document.

As for the date: if the proposed date—probably “second century”—is right, then 5575 would be the earliest extant witness to sayings associated with the Gospel of Thomas, and one of the earliest witnesses to any Christian document. Now, put the two issues together—a relatively early date, and a unique interweaving of sayings known from Luke and Matthew with a saying known only from the Gospel of Thomas—and the questions and possibilities overflow. As the editors observe,

5575 may be from a sayings collection, or, given the flow from one saying to another, perhaps a discourse. One possibility is that it represents, or is closely related to, a work which was not dependent upon Gos. Thom. but rather served as a source for it.

Or, alternatively, the Gospel of Thomas may be a source for the saying in this fragment—a view that would, in light of the fragment’s early date, require a major re-assessment for the composition of Gospel of Thomas (of these last two possibilities, the former seems far more likely).

Remaining questions

More questions include: who wrote it, and why? What was his major concern? What does this fragment tell us about second-century Christianity that we didn’t already know? These are all excellent questions, but unfortunately for us, the fragment is so brief and so lacking in any larger context that we simply don’t have the information to answer them. We can speculate, but it is important to keep in mind the difference between speculation and evidence—and to enjoy the thrill of a new discovery.

Several papyrus fragments of Revelation have been found at Oxyrhynchus. An earlier version of this article suggested otherwise.

Notes

  • 1
    These fragments were not recognized as fragments of the Gospel of Thomas until after the discovery of a complete Coptic translation of Thomas near Nag Hammadi in 1945.

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