Early Christian Manuscripts: Examples of Applied Method and Approach

265 Pages·2010·2.81 MB·English

by  Thomas J. Kraus

Early Christian Manuscripts
Texts and Editions for
New Testament Study
Edited by
Stanley E. Porter and Wendy J. Porter
VoluME 5
Early Christian Manuscripts
Examples of Applied Method and Approach
Edited by
Thomas J. Kraus & Tobias Nicklas
lEidEN • boSToN
2010
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data
Early Christian manuscripts : examples of applied method and approach /
edited by Thomas J. Kraus & Tobias Nicklas.
p. cm. — (Texts and editions for New Testament study ; v. 5)
includes index.
iSbN 978-90-04-18265-3 (hardback : alk. paper)
1. Christian literature, Early—Manuscripts. i. Kraus, Thomas J., 1965– ii. Nicklas,
Tobias, 1967– iii. Title. iV. Series.
bR60.E27 2010
270.1—dc22
2010008596
iSSN 1574-7085
iSbN 978 90 04 18265 3 (harback)
iSbN 978 90 04 19434 2 (e-book)
Copyright 2010 by Koninklijke brill NV, leiden, The Netherlands.
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CoNTENTS
Editors’ Preface ........................................................................................... vii
introduction ................................................................................................. ix
list of Contributors .................................................................................... xiii
Preface .......................................................................................................... xv
Abstracts ....................................................................................................... xvii
Chapter one Reconstructing Fragmentary Manuscripts—Chances
and limitations ....................................................................................... 1
Thomas J. Kraus
Chapter Two Hunting for origen in unidentified Papyri:
The Case of P.Egerton 2 (= inv. 3) ...................................................... 39
Rachel Yuen-Collingridge
Chapter Three Papyrus oxyrhynchus X 1224 .................................... 59
Paul Foster
Chapter Four is P.Oxy. Xlii 3057 the Earliest Christian letter? .... 97
Lincoln H. Blumell
Chapter Five 𝔓50 (P.Yale i 3) and the Question of its Function ..... 115
John Granger Cook
Chapter Six The Reuse of Christian Texts: P.Macquarie inv. 360 +
P.Mil.Vogl.inv. 1224 (𝔓91) and P.Oxy. X 1229 (𝔓23) .......................... 129
Don Barker
Chapter Seven Papyri, Parchments, ostraca, and Tablets Written
with biblical Texts in Greek and used as Amulets:
A Preliminary list .................................................................................. 145
Theodore de Bruyn
Chapter Eight The Egyptian Hermas: The Shepherd in Egypt
before Constantine ................................................................................. 191
Malcolm Choat and Rachel Yuen-Collingridge
vi contents
Chapter Nine The babatha Archive, the Egyptian Papyri and their
implications for Study of the Greek New Testament ...................... 213
Stanley E. Porter
index ............................................................................................................. 239
EdiToRS’ PREFACE
This volume continues the series of Texts and Editions for New Testament
Study (TENTS). We hope that it provides useful insight into an area of
New Testament and related study through treatment of relevant texts and
issues.
The series Texts and Editions for New Testament Study is designed to offer
texts and editions, with commentary and comment, of important sources
for the study of the New Testament and its world. Primary sources are
envisioned as a mainstay of the series, in which documents that enlighten
and support New Testament study are published in definitive, accessible
and informative editions, often with supporting commentary. Collections
of essays and monographs that focus upon these types of important sources
are also welcome as they advance the scholarly discussion. The series is
designed for scholars and is meant to push discussion forward by providing
access to and engagement with primary sources and the latest critical schol-
arship. This is a growing and dynamic series of volumes designed to extend
study of the New Testament in ways that have not been fully explored in
recent scholarship.
The editors welcome submissions of proposals for manuscripts. it is
anticipated that subsequent volumes will include editions of papyri and
inscriptions relevant for New Testament study, other Greek and related
documents, early Christian and Jewish texts, Coptic documents, commen-
taries on important primary sources, and critical analyses of various por-
tions of the New Testament in relation to these documents and the world
out of which they emerged.
if you would like to make a proposal, or to discuss further a potential
topic of a future volume, please do not hesitate to contact one of the edi-
tors of the series.
Stanley E. Porter
Wendy J. Porter
McMaster divinity College
[email protected]

iNTRoduCTioN
EARly CHRiSTiAN MANuSCRiPTS:
EXAMPlES oF APPliEd METHod ANd APPRoACH
Thomas J. Kraus and Tobias Nicklas
Even before New Testament Manuscripts: Their Texts and Their World
(TENT 2; leiden: brill, 2006) was in print, definite arrangements had been
made to comprise studies for a second volume. Some of the contributors to
the first volume and some others who could not contribute due to workload
or other obligations confirmed their willingness to write articles for a sec-
ond volume whose primary focus would be on (a) individual manuscripts
and (b) on certain groups of manuscripts. Consequently, the approach of
the second volume would be a more papyrological one. in other words, this
implies, for instance, that standard technical terms to describe manuscripts
and critical transcriptions of their texts had to be presented in order to base
a discussion of specific features on them. Soon we had a remarkable line-up
of scholars and topics so that we were very confident of publishing a second
volume just one year after the appearance of the first. but then occurred, by
accident, what many other editors and authors know about: some contribu-
tors could not continue their work on their articles. it is needless to list the
private or professional reasons that stopped the progress of the book, but all
of them were serious. We fully understood and accepted each of them. As if
that weren’t enough, we, the editors, had to face some difficulties ourselves
that brought our project to an immediate stop. Above all, the usual but
heavy workload, some other projects we were and are still involved in, and
the experience we had already had with volume two made it impossible for
us to start anew. Thus, we decided not to pursue the aim to publish another
set of articles on New Testament or Early Christian manuscripts and to turn
to other projects.
However, just by chance we made contacts with scholars who had
recently started working on significant topics that would fit exactly within
the scope of the volume we had laid aside. And it was just by accident that
they accepted our offer to contribute to this volume immediately so that,
together with some of the proposed articles from contributors who were
still willing to write for a new volume on manuscripts, these studies added
up to what we present here: a set of studies that specialize on certain fea-
tures of early Christian manuscripts. The contributions to this volume now