Thank you for providing this info, Andrew.
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Originally Posted by andrewcriddle
I am not a paleographer but IIUC the following recent work is relevant
Schmidt dated P52 to around 170 CE in A. Schmidt, Zwei Anmerkungen zu P.Ryl.III 457, APF 35, 1989. This is a very brief paper and only partly concerned with redating the papyrus. It seeks to redate P52 as being similar in age but slightly earlier to Chester Beatty papyrus X which is itself not a dated manuscript but which paleographers usually date c 200 BCE.
The paper (which I have read) is so brief as to provide little basis for evaluating it.
However, it has generally been thought that P52 is not all that much older than the 'unknown gospel' known as the Egerton papyrus. This used to be dated to c 150 CE however recent discovery of a new fragment of this manuscript has provided strong paleographical evidence for redating to c 200 CE.
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So here we go... This just shows how reliable the paleographical dating is.
Today they say this document is 150 CE, and tomorrow it is 200 CE.
Anyone who wants to base anything on paleographical dating is engaging in wishful thinking.
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Originally Posted by andrewcriddle
Given the paleographical similarities between P52 and the Egerton papyrus this supports a somewhat later date for P52.
The present situation seems to be that dating on the basis of comparison with precisely dated (non-Christian) papyri still supports a date of 100-150 CE.
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Nonsense.
What sort of a comparison can you make with a piece of writing (i.e. P52) that has no provenance? What are you going to compare it to?
This is like reading tea leaves.
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Originally Posted by andrewcriddle
However, comparison with Christian but unfortunately not precisely dated papyri supports a date of 170 CE with probably a rather large uncertainty IMO a sensible representation of this evidence would be 135-205 CE.
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How about 70-270 CE?
100-year margin of error seems entirely appropriate for _any_ paleographical dating.
OTOH for a piece of writing the size of a postage stamp, 200-year margin of error would be much safer.
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Originally Posted by andrewcriddle
Combining these two types of evidence I would prefer to express the probable range as 120-160 CE. Before 120 runs into problems with the similar but not precisely dated Christian material whereas after 160 runs into problems with the precisely dated paleographically similar but non-Christian material.
AndrewCriddle
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And I would say that P52 is entirely useless for any purpose. It has _nothing_ to tell us about the early history of the gospels
The only use of P52 is to demonstrate just to what extent our whole NT establishment is lacking in credibility at this time.
Once again, my old article is here,
THE RYLANDS PAPYRUS FRAUD
www.trends.ca/~yuku/bbl/rylands.htm
All the best,
Yuri
01-19-2005, 03:57 PM
Rylands (split from "oldest gospels")
