Tod

From THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, an article entitled: Dismissal of Jesus inscription called hasty Scholars: Authenticity of burial box unsettled

The oldest confirmed surviving artifact that mentions Jesus is a fragment of Chapter 18 in John�s Gospel from a manuscript dating to A.D. 125.

I was under the impression that much older, albeit very small, fragments of the Gospels existed. I realize that many fragments claimed to be much older aren't agreed by most scholars to be as old as they are claimed to be.

Does anybody know of any older confirmed fragments that a majority of scholars agree is older than this, or is this really the oldest confirmed fragment of a gospel?

Layman

That is the oldest for the New Testament. Though a few scholars on the margins have made arguments that some of the NT was found in the DSS. Most scholars, whether liberal or conservative, remain unpersuaded.

Yuri Kuchinsky

Check out this article, Tod,

THE RYLANDS PAPYRUS FRAUD
http://www.trends.ca/~yuku/bbl/rylands.htm

Best,

Yuri.

CX

Nope. That's pretty much it, but it's dating is in question. 125 C.E. is a reasonable concensus, but there are those who consider it somewhat later. That being said there are only 3 tiny scraps that date solidly before 200 C.E. Most of our current greek critical text comes from the 4th century and later. There's a thread in the recommended reading on the MSS evidence for the NT. I'd recommend talking a look if you're interested.

CX

The aforementioned thread is available here

Vorkosigan

Scnelle, who is rather conservative, believes that it is no longer viable to regard this as a settled concensus, as recent redatings have moved p52 into the second half of the second century (after 150).

Vorkosigan

Haran

Ha!

Philip Comfort, who is rather conservative and a paleographer (as opposed to Schnelle - who is a historian?), dates p52 circa 100-125 AD. And, if I remember right, he gives MSS for paleographic comparison.

Haran

Here's a question no one has brought up before (that I can think of anyway):

What are the oldest dated MSS of the NT (i.e. with an actual date on them - not dated via paleography)?

I'd research it, but I'm curious to see if anyone else knows...

Steven Carr

I don't. I always thought that dated does not mean with an actual date on them.

ie if I write on the back of something else, that does have a date on, then I can date it using the something else.

spin

Gosh I hadn't noticed how cute that thread got at the end.

Has the Schmidt palaeographical analysis caught on in the circles yet? It's a dating based on a lot of comparison not used in the original hopeful dating of P52 and places the text late in the second century.


spin