Haran

More newly discovered ancient Bible MSS to add to the stack:

http://rosetta.reltech.org/TC/vol08/Head2003.html

Kosh

Thanks for posting this Haran! Too bad they only date back to 4 CE, which is when all the other copies show up. Would still be nice to know what the book said during the first 3 centuries, before all the redactions, when we only have, what... .002 percent represented? (CX can quote the exact number).

Haran

I thought it might be interesting to some.

Cool! I missed the ones dating back to 4 CE! Although, I can't for the life of me quite figure out why any of the NT books date back that far! Oh well, the earlier the better.

I do wish there were earlier copies, but even if we found very early copies (or even the originals) they would be so hotly contested they would never be recognized for what they were.

Aside from that, some of these newly discovered MSS are still pretty early, comparatively speaking. According to this preliminary report, they supplant the earliest witnesses for particular parts of the NT in a couple of minor instances.

Anyways, just thought the news might be interesting to some of those into textual criticism. Others will miss the light-hearted joke entirely, roll their eyes, and think I'm actually saying that the NT must be correct because there are now approximately 24,005 copies!

CX

Cool. Thanks for the info. I'm especially interested in Gk MS 2.

godfry n. glad

Yes, thank you, Haran.

I don't see any reference to 4 CE in the report you linked us to...and, you're right, to have NT documents date to 4 CE would be rather remarkable. Perhaps Kosh meant to write "4th century CE", which would date the material into the same timeframe as two Codices?

Anyway, not all the MSS scraps listed are NT. The Jeremiah fragment is OT(HB) material. And...Your OP stated (correctly, I might note) that the report was about "newly discovered ancient Bible MSS", not "newly discovered ancient NT MSS."

niggle, niggle, niggle...


godfry

Kosh

Now I understand Haran's comment. When you get old and type fast, you tend to leave words out...

Haran

Playful sarcasm doesn't come across very well in cyberspace, does it?

I was poking a little fun back at Kosh because he left out "century"...

I'm afraid I don't understand what the "niggle" is. I didn't say the discovery was NT MSS only.

godfry n. glad

Hmmm... Then what's this in your second post, this thread?:

"Cool! I missed the ones dating back to 4 CE! Although, I can't for the life of me quite figure out why any of the NT books date back that far! Oh well, the earlier the better." - Haran

Seems to me you've changed the goalposts from "biblical", where you started out, to "NT" and slammed Kosh with the difference. Whereas, you started out the thread (and, again, I note, correctly) by stating that the collective fragments are "biblical", rather than NT. Considering that a fragment of Jeremiah dated to 4 CE wouldn't be all that remarkable (other than how they dated it that accurately), I considered the shift of terms a cheap shot. Warrented, most of the finds are NT material, but that inclusion of Jeremiah doesn't allow that restrictive of descriptive term for the lot of fragments being described.

The niggle is mine.

Yeah, I guess playful sarcasm _doesn't_ come across well, does it?



While we're on it, how is it that fragments like these are authenticated and dated? I assume that the material on which it is written and the style of writing play a part, but are there any other "markers", as it were, of the age of such a document?

godfry

godfry n. glad

Hotly contested?

Supplant the earliest witnesses for particular parts of the NT?

How do these recent finds "supplant" extant early witnesses? Wouldn't they just "challenge the textual purity" or some such, rather than "supplant" the earlier text?

I'd think that supplanting some earlier text would hardly make it "hotly contested". "Supplanting" seems like a "done deal". "Hotly contested" sounds like both, or even multiple, variant texts might have a shot at being "the definitive".

Then again, aren't there variant texts dated to the same timeframe? Isn't this how we know that there was an ongoing redactive process? Wasn't "orthodoxy" an evolving process?

Man... The terminology you experts throw around.


godfry

Haran

I think you are having some comprehension problems, Godfry...

Where does my quote say that the discovery was only NT MSS?

What are you talking about, Godfry??

Here's Kosh's quote again:
Kosh can correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure he intended to say 4th century here and left it out by accident. I assume his later remark, "Now I understand Haran's comment. When you get old and type fast, you tend to leave words out..." pretty much confirms my suscpicion.

Kosh's remarks seemed to pretty obviously address only the NT MSS among the discoveries... I was simply responding to his remarks. One could possibly see his first remarks as a cheap shot...

Make better sense now?

You can have your "niggles" if you like, but I don't think there's any real reason for them (at least in this case)...

I can't say for sure, but I believe they were probably dated via paleography. The article is only a preliminary report, so I'm not sure how they authenticated and dated them.

Do you think the scholarly community will spurn them because they are unprovenanced? I suppose that only things as potentially important as the James Ossuary are rejected for such reasons...