Toto

This thread is bogged down on another issue. There have been previous threads on this that have been more productive, and I hope this will be discussed in a separate thread.

I know that Richard Carrier has said that Nazareth exists. I don't know of anyone here who is that dogmatic on the issue. I have not gone through Rene Salm's work with enough attention to know if he has a point or not. The fact that he is a Buddhist piano teacher should be irrelevant if he makes a good argument, right, all you fans of formal logic?

patcleaver

All the datings of P52 and other so called gospel fragments are just guesses.

In 1935, P52 was dated by C. F. Roberts to 100-150 CE based on handwriting analysis (see C. H. Roberts, An Unpublished Fragment of the Fourth Gospel in the John Rylands Library (Manchester, 1935) 16).

In 1989 A Schmidt dated P52 to 150-200 (see A. Schmidt, ‘Zwei Anmerkungen zu P. Ryl. III 457’, APF 35 (1989) 11–12).

Brent Nongbri, The Use and Abuse of P52: Papyrological Pitfalls in the Dating of the Fourth Gospel, in: Harvard Theological Review 98 (2005), 23-48. Essentially, it seems, the margin in dating such a manuscript is so large that palaeography in this case cannot serve to disprove (or prove) “Tübingen” [300 CE]. Although the preponderance of hands most similar to P52 are found in the first three decades of the 2nd century, nevertheless there are other examples of hands with similar characteristics dated as late as 152 CE - and that a prudent margin of error must allow the possibility of P52 being younger still by several decades (or equally, as much as a century older). Which of course does not mean that GJohn cannot be “early”, but any date has to be argued based on something besides mere handwriting style. Nongbri shows that even an early third-century date is possible for P52, and he concludes:

“What emerges from this survey is nothing surprising to papyrologists: paleography is not the most effective method for dating texts, particularly those written in a literary hand. Roberts himself noted this point in his edition of P52. The real problem is the way scholars of the New Testament have used and abused papyrological evidence. I have not radically revised Roberts's work. I have not provided any third-century documentary papyri that are absolute "dead ringers" for the handwriting of P52, and even had I done so, that would not force us to date P52 at some exact point in the third century. Paleographic evidence does not work that way. What I have done is to show that any serious consideration of the window of possible dates for P52 must include dates in the later second and early third centuries. Thus, P52 cannot be used as evidence to silence other debates about the existence (or non-existence) of the Gospel of John in the first half of the second century. Only a papyrus containing an explicit date or one found in a clear archaeological stratigraphic context could do the work scholars want P52 to do. As it stands now, the papyrological evidence should take a second place to other forms of evidence in addressing debates about the dating of the Fourth Gospel.” (p. 46).

Handwriting analysis has been shown to be reliable within 100 years for Egyptian inscriptions, by statistical analysis (citation needed). However, there is no statistical analysis, that I am aware of, that the handwriting analysis for dating early documents such as P52 is reliable. The John Rylands Library used to claim that P52 was dated 125 +- 25, but now only says that it is 2nd century, and they also say that dating should not be relied upon.

Problems with handwriting analysis:
1) Papyrus is fragile and only lasted about 20 years in use, so it had to be recopied every 20 years or so, and copiers usually made copies in the original handwriting style. Handwriting style is much more reliable for originals such as inscriptions and tablets.
2) Even in ancient times, forgers knew to forge documents in ancient handwriting styles.
3) The vast majority of ancient documents are lost, so a handwriting style may have been in use many decades earlier and hundreds of years later than any extent examples that we have of that handwriting style.
4) errors proliferate when ancient documents that are misdated are used to date other ancient documents.
5) many early documents such as P52 were not discovered by archeologists in site, but were purchased from antiquities dealers. Forgery of antiquities sold by such dealers is rampant, and it is impossible to know whether P52 is a forged antique or not. Even carbon dating would only prove that the paper itself was ancient.

for background see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papyrus_52

The so called fragments of gospels such as P52, may not be fragments of gospels at all, but simply portions of pre-gospel materials that the gospels were consolidated into at a much later time.

For most early fragments of the bible, we can only guess when or where they were originally found.

For example, the Codex Khaburis (Khaboris , Khabouris) was a Syriac version of the bible on vellum/parchment (sheep skin). It was originally dated in 1966 to 120 CE based on handwriting analysis. Later in 1995 it was dated to 300 by handwriting analysis, but dated to 1250 CE based on analysis of the vellum. Later in 1999 the vellum was carbon dated to 1040-1090 CE. It was probably copied many times, perhaps dozens of times between 120 and 1050, and each time the copier used the original handwriting style. The copier even copied notes in the margin, in a different handwriting style, that may be from around 500 CE.

The bottom line is that the dating of P52 and similar biblical fragments, based on handwriting analysis, is really just best guess or speculation.

patcleaver

The gospels may have been referring to a mythical town even if there was an ancient town that was continuously occupied in the first century at the archeological site called ancient Nazareth. Unless you can show that ancient town at the site was called Nazareth at the time of Jesus or that its geography fits the description in the Gospels, then Nazareth is still probably just a mythical town.

aa5874

Very informative post. Excellent stuff.

andrewcriddle

Repeating a pevious response I made to this stuff

There is a brief article about the Khaburis Codex (A Syriac Peshitta NT) here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khaboris_Codex
the claims of its early date appear to have been made by biased and unreliable parties. There does not appear to be a dispute between the date assigned on paleographic grounds by objective academics and the results of carbon dating.

Andrew Criddle

Antipope Innocent II

Pardon? What possible rational reason would you have to assume something so utterly absurd?

Considering that the fact he was from Nazareth was a major problem for early Christianity (since the Messiah was meant to be from Bethlehem) this makes absolutely zero sense.

This totally absurd argument reminds me to of the apocryphal sceptic who solemnly declared that the plays of Shakespeare were not written by William Shakespeare but by another author of the same name.

Totally ludicrous stuff.

mens_sana

LOL. Unfortunately, there is also the assertion that the Gospel of John was not written in Ephesus by John, rather by another man in the same city, with the same name. And in this case, it is a reasonable claim.

Iasion

Hiya,

Yup, another thread drowning in crack-pottery.
Get rid of him.


Iasion

PhilosopherJay

Hi All,

Just a quick thought, since there is no evidence of Nazareth before the Fourth century, all arguments about the existence or non-existence of Nazareth are arguments from silence.

For example, I say that the town of Smallville did not exist in the 1930's because no map from the 1930's shows it existing. This is an argument from silence (the silence of the maps). You say that it did exist, but that it was too small for it to be listed on any maps of the time and mapmakers were careless about recording small towns. This also is an argument from silence; it too is based on the silence of the maps.

The silence of the historical record does not prove or disprove the existence of Nazareth in the 1st Century, however it is evidence that Nazareth did not exist and Jesus of Nazareth is a fictional character. In the same way, if I said that I was born in 1908 in Queens, and after a search of Queen's birth certificates, no birth certificate in my name was found, one could not say that this is proof that I am lying. One could only say that it is evidence (from silence) that I am lying.

Further, how does the Caesarean tablets you refer to prove the existence of Nazareth in 135? I am not sure if people generally know the history of those tablets or what is actually on them.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

FathomFFI

Hi PJ.

It's not actually "evidence" but only an argument. An argument of silence is all about the lack of evidence. In some legal systems juries are explicitly instructed not to infer anything because of an accused person's silence; this is known as the right to silence. Thus, the jury may not infer anything from the accused's failure to testify. This in effect bars the use of argument from silence as being admitted as evidence of anything.