Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Seeker2000 · 06-05-2005, 01:38 PM

On a website I read that the oldest known papyrus mentioning Jesus' name is the Magdalen Papyrus or P64, containing parts of Matthew. Apparently it was first dated to be from around 200 AD, but then the German scholar P. Thiede made the claim that it should actually be dated to the first century, around 66 AD.

Doing a Google search, I found the text below on a website where a Catholic apologist answers some mails (?).

My questions are:

a) What about this Nero reference - does anyone know more about it? Does it date the Gospel of Matthew to the time of Nero? (the parts in the text referring to this are in red below)
b) What are the general pros and cons about dating the Gospel of Matthew that early? What's in favor of Thiede's claim and what isn't?

Here's the text from the website I mentioned:
You can also go to http://www.catholicintl.com/qa/2004/...m#Question%207 and read it there.

Quote:

Question 7- A Rebuttal to the Use of the Oxford Papyri?

Mr Sungenis:
I have recently engaged a friend (and former professor of mine) in a discussion/debate concerning the historical-critical method of biblical exegesis(I coming from an orthodox Catholic perspective, she from a liberal Protestant point of view) I presented to her the evidence revealed on the Oxford papyri and I have pasted below her her attempt to debunk it. Since I am rather a "rookie" when it comes to biblical criticism, I was wondering if you could provide me with any information or suggestions to give her an effective rebuttal.

Thank you in advance (and may God Bless your work!)

Robert Pickard

R. Sungenis:Robert I will address her points briefly below.

Robert – I did some research on it and it’s called the Magdalen Papyrus
(Papyrus 64) and it was actually discovered in 1901, dated to around 200 and has been at Oxford since then. Apparently what happened is that an evangelical German named Carsten Thiede published a pretty sensational article in 1995 redating the fragment to the latter third of the first century, and claiming therefore, that the Gospel of Matthew is an “eyewitness�? account. Basically Thiede’s article was before my time as a religious studies prof and no papyrologist or New Testament scholar takes him seriously, so he’s not even discussed in the text books, so one wouldn’t learn anything about him looking at the most recent discussions.

R. Sungenis:With remarks like "no papyrologist or New Testament scholar takes him seriously," this professor is desperately trying to marginalize Thiede. Even if it were true, the fact that academia houses about 95% liberal scholarship which holds the unbiblical and untraditional view that Matthew did not write Matthew, no wonder no one is going to listen to Thiede. They will do anything to discredit him, since all of their illustrious careers are based on opposing Thiede. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out. END

From what I’ve learned talking to my friend at UCR and reading reviews of Thiede’s book, he didn’t do a very thorough job. Besides, his date of the “latter one third of the first century�? actually jives with the date of 85 that most scholars give Matthew. But it doesn’t matter much, his analysis of the script was pretty sloppy; seeing nus where there weren’t any, putting in large reconstructions, etc.

R. Sungenis: Oh, so now the professor wants to put Thiede on her side by claiming that Thiede's dating is in the same ballpark as hers?! This professor doesn't know what she wants. But the fact is that she can't count. Thiede places his dates just prior to 70 AD in the late 60s AD. If that is the case, then 0-33 is the first third, 34-66 is the second third, and 67-99 is the last third of the first century. So if Thiede is picking a date of 68 AD, obviously his date is in the "last third of the first century." But the professor is failing to reveal that Thiede's date COMES BEFORE 70 AD and the destruction of Jerusalem! THAT is the crucial factor. If that is the case, then Matthew wrote his own gospel, and he rightly predicted the fall of the Jews (Matthew 24), and the gospel was not written by a second generation scribe. END

One thing you should know, though, and I don’t know if this is being presented accurately on the Catholic and fundamentalist sites: The marginal gloss referring to Nero is not a marginal gloss on the gospel fragment, it’s not even a marginal gloss at all. It’s a financial transaction on a fragment of its own that was found with Papyrus 4 (Luke), a fragment that many scholars think came from the same papyrus as P64 (the Magdalen Papyrus). So the reference to Nero’s rule was not found on the same papyrus as the Matthean manuscript.

R. Sungenis: Nobody said it was on the same papyrus! The thesis is that the Nero reference was written during the same time as Matthew and with the same style of writing as Matthew.

Scholars reviewing Thiede also presented some excellent reasons for thinking the Magdalen Papyrus is from 200 or later – namely, you can tell that the fragment was part of a double-columned codex, something that doesn’t appear till mid second century ( and it’s interesting that Thiede completely ignores this);

R. Sungenis: Oh really? Since when does a business transaction purporting to be from the time of Nero become written up only 150 years after Nero died? END.

the script is something called Biblical majuscule, and in his comparisons with other manuscripts from the first century, Thiede. does not use majuscule fragments to do his comparisons to try to date P64 to the first century, because there aren’t any – majuscule emerges in the 2nd century. So again, either he doesn’t know what a majuscule is or he doesn’t care, but it’s hard to even respect someone who doesn’t know the fundamentals of the discipline he’s writing about.

R. Sungenis: Gee, what impeccable logic. Majuscules don't appear until the 2nd century, but we'll fault Thiede who doesn't refer to them, when, in fact, Thiede doesn't need to refer to them, since he is dealing in the 1st century. END

Anyway, I’m not trying to be too nasty here, but if we’re going to be cautious of people with agendas, then this guy and those who use his work (because they don’t know anything about papyrology and want to believe what he says because they need the texts to be in the right period for their faith to be certain) are the ones to be careful of.

R. Sungenis: Yes, we certainly want to be "cautious of people with agendas." Thank you for the warning. I know precisely how to apply it.

Amaleq13 · 06-05-2005, 02:41 PM

You will find Paul Tobin's comments on the Magdalen papyrus here and criticisms of Thiede's efforts here.

andrewcriddle · 06-05-2005, 02:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seeker2000

On a website I read that the oldest known papyrus mentioning Jesus' name is the Magdalen Papyrus or P64, containing parts of Matthew. Apparently it was first dated to be from around 200 AD, but then the German scholar P. Thiede made the claim that it should actually be dated to the first century, around 66 AD.

Doing a Google search, I found the text below on a website where a Catholic apologist answers some mails (?).

My questions are:

a) What about this Nero reference - does anyone know more about it? Does it date the Gospel of Matthew to the time of Nero? (the parts in the text referring to this are in red below)
b) What are the general pros and cons about dating the Gospel of Matthew that early? What's in favor of Thiede's claim and what isn't?

Here's the text from the website I mentioned:
You can also go to http://www.catholicintl.com/qa/2004/...m#Question%207 and read it there.

There are discussions of Thiede's claims at http://www.tyndale.cam.ac.uk/Tyndale...Head/P64TB.htm

http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~petersig/...xt.final.reply

http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~petersig/thiede2.txt

(The second and third links appear to be basically the same)

Andrew Criddle

Vorkosigan · 06-05-2005, 03:28 PM

Quote:

R. Sungenis:With remarks like "no papyrologist or New Testament scholar takes him seriously," this professor is desperately trying to marginalize Thiede. Even if it were true, the fact that academia houses about 95% liberal scholarship which holds the unbiblical and untraditional view that Matthew did not write Matthew, no wonder no one is going to listen to Thiede. They will do anything to discredit him, since all of their illustrious careers are based on opposing Thiede. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out.

This is just stupid. Does this fellow really think that anyone's career would disappear if Matthew were to date from 66? Quite the opposite!

Diogenes the Cynic · 06-05-2005, 04:24 PM

Quote:

the script is something called Biblical majuscule, and in his comparisons with other manuscripts from the first century, Thiede. does not use majuscule fragments to do his comparisons to try to date P64 to the first century, because there aren’t any – majuscule emerges in the 2nd century. So again, either he doesn’t know what a majuscule is or he doesn’t care, but it’s hard to even respect someone who doesn’t know the fundamentals of the discipline he’s writing about.

R. Sungenis: Gee, what impeccable logic. Majuscules don't appear until the 2nd century, but we'll fault Thiede who doesn't refer to them, when, in fact, Thiede doesn't need to refer to them, since he is dealing in the 1st century. END

Does this Sungenis person even understand what he's responding to. The payrus itself uses a majuscule script which ispso facto dates it to the 2nd century. The retort that Thiede is "dealing with the 1st century" is a priori nonsense. He isn't dealing with a century at all, he's dealing with a text and trying to determine the century. One of the ways to determine that is by script. In this case, the script is 2nd century, a fact which Thiede ignored.

Steven Avery · 06-05-2005, 08:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Diogenes the Cynic

The payrus itself uses a majuscule script which ispso facto dates it to the 2nd century.

Hi, interesting thread.
I'm only going by what is in the thread here.. now if this script is also used on "a business transaction .. from the time of Nero", then that would cause a little problem for the supposed "ipso facto" dating. Can somebody clarify this aspect ? Thanks.

Shalom,
Praxeas
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic/

Wallener · 06-05-2005, 09:11 PM

Quote:

Gee, what impeccable logic. Majuscules don't appear until the 2nd century, but we'll fault Thiede who doesn't refer to them, when, in fact, Thiede doesn't need to refer to them, since he is dealing in the 1st century.

Wow. That's a rather blatant example of someone perfectly cancelling out their own argument, lol. Dare I say - a canonical example.

Steven Avery · 06-05-2005, 09:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wallener

Wow. That's a rather blatant example of someone perfectly cancelling out their own argument, lol.

Let's not atomize. The same person, Sungenis, had just pointed out a weakness in the "Majuscules don't appear until the 2nd century" argument (He may be factually wrong, however nobody has taken that view yet, and the argument is clear). Ergo, his awkward language in the second response can be seen as an adjunct to the earlier argument, rather than an independent logical weakness.

Shalom,
Praxeas
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic/

Steven Carr · 06-05-2005, 09:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by praxeus

Hi, interesting thread.
I'm only going by what is in the thread here.. now if this script is also used on "a business transaction .. from the time of Nero", then that would cause a little problem for the supposed "ipso facto" dating. Can somebody clarify this aspect ? Thanks.

You need to read pages 124-125 of The Jesus Paprys by Ancona.

There the Nero Papyrus is described as virtually a twin of the Matthew one

(Presumably it also comes from a Codex... Thiede would not have blurred such a point)

Diogenes the Cynic · 06-06-2005, 12:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steven Carr

You need to read pages 124-125 of The Jesus Paprys by Ancona.

There the Nero Papyrus is described as virtually a twin of the Matthew one

(Presumably it also comes from a Codex... Thiede would not have blurred such a point)

Are you joking? You're citing Thiede's own ghostwriter?

Also, Thiede would absolutely obscure the fact that either fragment came from a codex because the switch from scrolls to codices came in the 2nd century.

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06-05-2005, 02:41 PM	#2
Amaleq13 Veteran Member Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Eagle River, Alaska Posts: 7,816	You will find Paul Tobin's comments on the Magdalen papyrus here and criticisms of Thiede's efforts here.

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