andrewcriddle

I've checked "Gospel Fragments" the relevant page is 21 not 112. (112 discusses the knowledge/ignorance of Jewish customs by the author of PEgerton 2.) As I suspected the date of the turn of the second to the third century is the date given for PEgerton 2, a date which is now widely accepted. PEgerton 2 is relevant for the dating of P52 because scholars who have studied both texts agree that the script of P52 resembles PEgerton 2 but is somewhat earlier. If PEgerton 2 dates from c 200 CE, then dates for P52 of much before 150 CE become unlikely.

Although "Gospel Fragments" notes (P12 N5) the later dating of P52 by Schmidt, the comment on P113 N53 implies that the author would date P52 to c 150 CE or maybe earlier.

Andrew Criddle

mountainman

To reiterate the cited theme .... "the papyrological evidence should take a second place to other forms of evidence in addressing debates about the dating of the Fourth Gospel." This judgement applies to any gospel and any text.

Palaeographical dating is not to be regarded as a primary dating methodology (like C14 may). It is a secondary dating methodology, and it is not a scientific methodology.

It is being used incautiously by people who have very little else to support their arguments about chronology.

mountainman

In the mid 4th century the city of Oxyrynchus experienced a massive population explosion. Whether they were fleeing Alexandria is not known. But we might certainly expect more papyrological rubbish to have been dumped in the 12 or 13 rubbish dumps that sprang up in "the second city around the city walls" of Oxyrynchus in the mid 4th century.

I have not seen this issue addressed by the academics. It is not logical, or at least extremely unlikely, that significant amounts codex specific papyri is being found which predate the beginning of this massive population explosion. It is far more likely that by the mid 4th century people were copying the official bibles of the imperial Christian Roman Empire. Of course there will be finds that are dated in the epoch BCE, but these should be the exception rather than the rule.

Grenfell and Hunt packed the papyri fragments in biscuit tins and placed into a series of over 900 brief cases sized boxes and sent back to Oxford in the early twentieth century. Academic analysis has made its way through at least 128 boxes to date.


The mainstream reconstructed history of Christian origins makes a big deal about these "early papyri", perhaps in error.

No C14 dating has been done on any of these. The reason given is usually related to contamination of the specimens by human hands on the ground in the early 20th century. This may be a valid reason, but the Oxford Radiocarbon Unit is practically next door to the Oxford Oxyrnchus Papyri Dept. Tests could be made for the sake of scientific rigor.

manoj

- The 'originals' are at least a few decades after the supposed events (assuming the events happened and the mainstream dating of the 'originals' is valid).

- The years between the original and the earliest surviving copies have no bearing on how much trust we can place on the originals themselves.

- Earliest surviving copies are mere fragments. They don't tell us much about the originals. (For instance, there are just 13 words in P52).


- The earliest complete manuscripts are from the 4th century (Sinaiticus, Vaticanus).

- There is a lot of variation between the manuscripts.

- A huge number of manuscripts are quite late (90% from 9th century and later? or something like that...)

- The other texts being compared (in the posted image) are not advertised as the inerrant word of the almighty god. :huh:

Cheers
Manoj

aa5874

Please, please, please, let us NOT get disracted from the OP.

It is claimed that there are 24,000 NEW Testament manuscripts but astonishingly they reveal a BIG BLACK HOLE for the 1st century and before c 70-CE.

It is simply false that there are dated manuscripts within 40-70 years of the supposed death of the so-called Jesus.

The earliest date by Paleography is a fragment of gJohn to 125 CE and is dated Later by other experts using the same method.

All arguments for NT manuscripts written before c 70 CE are based on IMAGINATION not on Palaeography.

manoj

The image says, "Years between original & earliest surviving copies".

The claim being made, as I understood was that the earliest manuscripts are 40-70 years from the originals (of the manuscripts), not 40-70 years from the events themselves.


It is not clear how the range 40-70 was arrived at. Given a tentative date of AD 125 for P52, is the claim that Gospel of John was written sometime between AD 55-85. That's earlier than even the mainstream consensus!

If one accounts for the difficulty in accurately dating P52, the range becomes much wider.

Cheers
Manoj

PhilosopherJay

Hi andrewcriddle,

Thanks for this. I was tempted to spend the $47 + shipping to buy the book. I would have been disappointed if I had done that and this was the only point made about P52. Although, I'm sure the material is generally fascinating.

According to Nonghi's The Use and Abuse of P52
Colin Roberts' use of Egerton Papyrus 2 was methodologically flawed. He writes:

This makes sense. If you're dating evidence A by B, you can't say that you are dating C by A and B. If the dating of A depends on B then C depends on B too and not on A and B. For example, let us say I am walking my friend Katniss' dog and I run into old friends Alice and Barbara. They ask the age of Katniss' dog and I say I don't know her age, but I notice that my dog looks about the same age as Alice's dog. I ask Alice the age of her dog. She does not know as she is also a dog walker for a friend, but she says, "My dog looks about the same age as Barbara's dog. Let me ask her." Barbara says that she thinks her dog is 10 years old. Alice says, "That would make my dog 10 years old too. Since you have two 10 year old dogs to compare Katniss' dog to and her dog look the same age as both of them, you can be sure that Katniss' dog is 10 years old. In fact, the dating of Alice's dog does not help the dating of Katniss' dog. If Barbara is mistaken and her dog is 12, not 10, then my dog is 12 and so is Alice's dog. The only thing that counts here is the age of Barbara's dog. The evidence that Alice's dog is a certain age is only as good as the evidence that Barbara's dog is a certain age. Since Alice's dog's age is only calculated through Barbara, the actual evidence for Katniss' dog's age depends solely on her resemblance to Barbara's dog and the accuracy of Barbara's dating of her dog.

Since P.Ergerton 2 was dated by Roberts though the other fragments used to date P52, the dating of P.Ergerton 2. was irrelevant to the dating of P52, but depended on the other documents he used.

I think we should take Dr. Brent Longbri very seriously when he demolishes Colin Robert's methodology for dating P52. He is currently a Post Doctoral Fellow in Early Christianity in the Department of Ancient History at Macquarie University in Australia. He received his PhD from Yale University in 2008 in the field of religious studies. He held teaching posts at Yale University and Oberlin College before coming to Macquarie in 2010.

Longbri's own methodology in the article has never been refuted because it is basically the same methodology that Roberts used in first dating P52, only Longbri has the advantage of having more matching fragments than Roberts had back in 1935.

These are the fragments that Roberts used and the letters he matched to them. We will include P.Ergerton 2 despite it now generally being dated later towards 200 C.E.:

Longbri was able to match the following:

Roberts was able to match 12 letters total (and 2 letters sometimes similar) in 7 documents (2 letter average match) from 81-153 C.E.

Longbri was able to match 28 letters total in 5 documents (5.6 letter average match) dated from 152 - 225/278 C.E.

The conclusion that we may come to based on the totality of this evidence is that P.52 may be as early as 81 or as late as 278 C.E. The closest documents matching the lettering styles are centered around the year 200. Based on the evidence we would say P.152 belongs around 185 + or - 90 years.

Warmly,

Jay Raskin

*P52 has two styles of Alpha. Roberts was not able to find any document that matched both styles. Longbri found three documents.

Joan of Bark

Further to Manoj's point, IIRC, according to Bart Ehrman (Misquoting Jesus?) there are about 5600 surviving copies of the gospels, no two of which are identical. Therefore reliablity is highly questionable.

aa5874

Who claimed gJohn was written between 55-85 CE??? Who knows of originals of gJohn that were written between 55-85 CE???

Again, we see DATES for gJohn are produced from Chinese Whispers--Not from Paleorgaphy or C14.

Incredibly those with IMAGINARY DATES for IMAGINARY originals want to DICTATE the chronology and history of events in the 1st century.

If we have 24,000 New Testament manuscripts and none DATED to the 1st century and before c 70 CE then then we have a BIGGER AND BLACKER hole than was previously known.

PhilosopherJay

Hi Pete,

I agree that paleography is often used incautiously. However, I would not say that it is not a scientific method. When used correctly, it can give quite accurate and important results.
For example, we know that the letter "J" was introduced as a consonant in the 16th century. Show me any manuscript or printed text where Jesus or Julius Caesar is written with the letter "J" and I can tell you with virtually 100% accuracy that it was written after the year 1500. The symbol @ was first used on a typewriter keyboard in 1899. See a text with the printed symbol @ and you can be sure it was written after 1899.

The style and strokes of written letters do evolve over time and this does allow us to date writing. However, letters rarely change all at once in all places. A style of a letter may change in one place, but not in another for decades or centuries. As long as one understands its limits, paleography can gives us good scientific information. This does not mean, naturally that every use of paleographic dating will prove to be accurate.

Warmly,

Jay Raskin