avi

There have been several threads on the forum, which mention or describe various aspects of Papyrus 45. These include all of the following threads, and others as well, i.e. the list below is not exhaustive.

Were the Gospels written in Good Faith? Dec. 2009 mountainman
Pete and Arius Sept. 2008 Jeffrey Gibson
The Papias Smear Jan. 2008 Joe Wallack
God-man digression Nov. 2007 Jeffrey Gibson
Mark 7: Geographic error Jan. 2010 rhutchin
The Original Ending of Mark, debate May 2009 Joe Wallack

Whereas the existing threads cite evidence from P45 to augment or refute an argument regarding one of the topics under discussion, the purpose of this new thread is to challenge the presumptive date of origin of P45. At present, papyrus P45 is supposed to contain the earliest copy of the Gospel of Mark. The date for this manuscript, depends upon the authority consulted, but seems to be based exclusively on handwriting analysis. P45 is thought to bear close resemblance to Codex W

Contradictorily, however, this latter document, “W”, is thought to date from the mid fifth century.

The date offered by Frederic G. Kenyon, the scholar who published P45 in 1933, (included in the collection of The Chester Beatty Biblical Papyri), is the first half of the third century:Perhaps the authorities in this field of papyrus handwriting analysis concur with Kenyon's assessment. I have no knowledge of, nor understanding of, this field of inquiry. Having now read the text version of Kenyon's 1933 publication, (i.e. Part 1 of “FASCICULUS II” (--> the photographic reproduction of the Papyrus, Part 2, was unavailable at the local library)) for the passages of Mark which I am examining, I have come to doubt Kenyon's proposed mid third century date of authorship, a date which heretofore seems to have been well accepted for this papyrus--> hence, the purpose of this thread. To me, it is rather unpersuasive to move the date of origin of this text forward two hundred years, simply because of a “sloping character” of the handwriting.

My simplistic view is that, absent a definitive date, e.g. a known burial place, or some external event concealing the documents for a known period of time, one compares the text to other, known versions. In the present circumstance, I am comparing Mark 7: 30 and 7: 31 from P45 with four different sources, each supposed, rather confidently, to possess a relatively well accepted date of origin, based upon handwriting analysis, and upon external factors. Why choose these four sources, and not four different sources?

“W” is the text cited by Kenyon as being most closely related to P45.
Byzantine Majority, Codex Sinaiticus, and Hort & Westcott are all well accepted sources. The latter text, based upon Codex Vaticanus, is the source of choice for many inquiries, notwithstanding Kenyon's unenthusiastic assessment:
Key: ….... = lacuna, or obscure text in P45 or W.
ns() = no space, deletion of a word, (), found in the other three, but not found in P45 or W.
sw() = substitute word in W, lacuna in P45.

P45:....... qousa eiV ton oikon ns(authV) euren to daimonion exelhluqoV …............ qugatera beblhmenhn epi ths kleinhs k.....................n
ek twn oriwn turou kai seidwnos hlqe.........
…..n thV galilaiaV ana meson twn oriwn de...

"W": (my transcription of the image seen here

http://images.csntm.org/Manuscripts/...odexW_176a.jpg

kai apelqousa eiV ton oikon ns(authV) euren to daimonion exelhluqoV kai thn qugatera beblhmenhn epi ths klinhs
kai palin exelqwn ek twn oriwn turou kai sidwnos hlqen sw(eiV ) thn qalassa...thV galilaiaV ana meson twn or...n......(eis?)

Byzantine Majority:
kai apelqousa eiV ton oikon authV euren
to daimonion exelhluqoV kai thn qugatera beblhmenhn epi ths klinhs
kai palin exelqwn ek twn oriwn turou kai sidwnos hlqen pros thn qalassan thV galilaiaV ana meson twn oriwn dekapolewV


Codex Sinaiticus:
και*απελθουϲα*ειϲτον*οικον* εαυτηϲ*ευρεν*το*παιδιο*βεβλ ημενον*επι*
την*κλινην*και*το*δαιμονιον *εξεληλυθοϲ*
31*και*παλιν*εξελθω*εκ*των*ορ ιων*τυρου*ηλθεν*δια*ϲιδωνοϲ *ειϲ*την*θα
λαϲϲαν*τηϲ*γαλιλαιαϲ*ανα*με ϲον*των*οριων*δεκα*

Hort & Westcott:

kai apelqousa eiV ton oikon authV euren to
paidion beblhmenon epi thn klinhn kai to daimonion exelhluqoV
kai palin exelqwn ek twn oriwn turou hlqen dia sidwnoV eiV thn qalassan thV galilaiaV ana meson twn oriwn dekapolewV

I then propose that this comparison, albeit of only two passages, reveals a striking similarity, between W and P45. In particular, the odds that both manuscripts would delete the same word, not as a lacuna, or obscure region of text, but simply duplication of the same omission (of the word “her”, as in “her house”), suggests that either P45 served as template for W, else, another source served as template for both, else, P45 was forged using W as template (W is more complete). Since the origin of P45 is unknown (procured in a market place in Egypt), it is difficult to narrow the choices further.

It is somewhat troubling to my hypothesis of error duplication, that the name of the town, Sidon, is spelled differently in P45 and W. According to Kenyon's transcription of P45, there is an extra epsilon: seidwnos

Here is Kenyon's argument for an early third century dating of P45:

avi

spin

There is a strong relationship between long iota and epsilon-iota. "Nazirite" in Codex Alexandrinus is nazeiraios. "Pilate" can get spelled "Peilatos". This may be a feature of later koine Greek. At the bottom of this B-Greek post, there's an example dated to the 2nd c. (UGEIAINEIN/UGIAINEIN).

(And P45 is dated to the 3rd century.)


spin

avi

Well, and that is precisely what Kenyon asserts as well.

My question is upon what basis does this truism rest?

Let me be more explicit:

Is the basis for the widespread belief that P45 dates from the third century, Kenyon's assertion that it was created in that century, or has there been some newer, revisionist investigation, which has reconfirmed Kenyon's initial hypothesis?

Have you, spin, or anyone else on the forum, seen the original version of P45, else, at least, the photographic copy of P45, upon which Kenyon's transcription is based? I have not.

Is it not confounding to observe the identical idiosyncratic deletion of the same single word in both W and P45? Is it not peculiar that the text follows the Byzantine reading, and not the reading of Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, given that it is supposed to be mid third century in origin. What? Does that mean that we should then consider the Byzantine text more compelling as evidence of the original version of the four gospels, in view of the harmony between P45 (or at least those two passages from Mark) and the Byzantine text, when compared with Hort & Westcott? In my unlearned opinion, if P45 was actually composed in the mid third century, then my assumption regarding the authenticity of Hort & Westcott is suspect, and those who tout the Byzantine version have some legitimate basis for their contention. It is far easier, for me, to indict the date assigned to P45, than to acknowledge the validity of the Byzantine version.

avi

spin

There are a great many dated Greek papyri, often administrative texts from Egyptian Greek cities written by public officials, which supply font exemplars for specific dates and thus Greek palaeographic sequences that are usually uncontroversial. 50 years is not a particularly precise dating that might cause doubt.

Westcott and Hort is a composite text balancing the witness of all the texts available in the late 19th century, ie they had neither P45 (1933?) nor W (1906?). These two texts are considered to belong to a group sometimes labeled as the Caesarean text-type, a manuscript tradition used by Origen and Eusebius.


spin

mountainman

The WIKI article on P45 suggests that we are not dealing with a small fragment but in fact the remnant 30 leaves of a larger standard codex. About the text type the article states:

My bet would be that we are dealing with another one of the fifty Constantine Bibles of the early 4th century, which according to Eusebius's "Vita Constantini" were prepared by a large number of professional scribes working in an imperially sponsored scriptorium under the orders and oversight of Eusebius himself under instructions from Constantine. The earliest complete Greek codices all date to the 4th century and have been conjectured by many scholars to either be one of, or copies of, the original 50 Constantine Bibles.

andrewcriddle

FWIW this is a photograph of a page of P45

Andrew Criddle

avi

Thank you very much, Andrew.
Wow.
I am a little bit surprised at the poor quality of this manuscript....
It certainly is different from W.

The handwriting appearance on your photograph, Andrew, seems, at least to my untrained eye, less slanted to the right, rather than more slanted, (as I had understood Kenyon to have suggested,) when compared with W.

Is anyone sufficiently skillful (I am not) reading Andrew's photograph, to determine whether or not the (numerous!) lacunae in P45 correspond to the omission in Mark 7:30, described above, rather than representing another instance of "scribal error".

kai apelqousa eiV ton oikon authV euren
omitting authV. Is it a lacuna in P45, rather than an omission?

I am wondering if Kenyon's text transcription of this image, unintentionally, neglected to include a lacuna, giving the impression that the same omission error is found in both W and P45?

Thanks very much for inserting this photograph!

avi

spin

The omission of auths is not through a lacuna. It was probably just a brainfart.
(You need to replace the "V" with an "s". What you are pasting is not a transliteration. You're using material that has substituted Greek letters for keyboard strokes. Because the final sigma is different from other sigmas you can use a V to get it. However, the transliteration requires something a bit more humanly understandable, the "s".

Here's another software representation:

kai apelyousa eiv ton oikon authv...

This uses a small "v" for the final sigma and a "y" for theta, while your uses a "q".)


spin

avi

hey, thank you very much for this correction. I have to admit, I did exactly as you suggested!!!

Haha. I do not have facility with importing other fonts. I used a word processor to perform the transcription of W, from the image at the link above, but, when I transferred this text to the forum's word processor, all of the lovely Greek fonts disappeared, replaced by unattractive roman letters, except for Codex Sinaiticus, which for whatever reason, did not change.

So, thanks for the correction.

What about the issue regarding the omission, versus a lacuna? Are you able to read the text of the photograph, to ascertain whether or not Kenyon confounded an omission with a lacuna? Or, alternatively, is Kenyon's transcription right on the money, i.e. both P45 and W have the same peculiar error of omission? Is it perhaps the case that in Koine Greek, use of the modifier, "her" as in "her house" was optional? Maybe the scribes simply omitted it, routinely, and I simply happened upon two texts both of which omit this word, as an indication, not that these two texts are intimately conjoined, but rather, that this "error" of omission, was very common?

avi

spin

As I said previously regarding P45, it wasn't cause by a lacuna -- given the way it is reported in NA27.

The illustrative photo linked to is of a page from John.

If we have a family of texts which feature the same lack of a word, it has nothing to do with a lacuna. P45 and W are not the only texts lacking the personal pronoun, but they are the earliest.

In Greek you say, in the literal word order, "the house her":

ton oikon auths

Leave out the auths and you simply have ton oikon, "the house" (acc.). It reads meaningfully with the omission.


spin