2-J

mountainman claims that the earliest christian writing that has been radiocarbon dated is a copy of the Gospel of Judas, which could date to around 300.

Is this true? If so, why have the none of the Christian papyri which are allegedly older been radiocarbon dated? Especially due to the (prima facie) unreliability of paleographic dating? Surely such radiocarbon datings could be of vital importance to NT scholarship.

Huon

The precision of the C14 dating is + or - 60 years in the possible range of dates. For instance, you could find 240-360 for a manuscript.

2-J

Does that make it not worth doing?

patcleaver

This is just nit picking, but the date of the harvest of the papyrus plants (that were made into the papyrus used for writing the gJudas) based on the ratio of C14 to C12 was estimated to be around 290 CE (not 300).

Based on multiple measurements, the standard deviation was estimated to be 30 years.

see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_distribution

According to statistics, the probability that the papyrus was harvested within one standard deviation (30 years) is about 68%, and the probability that the papyrus was harvested within two standard deviations (60 years) is about 95%.

If you look at the normal distribution diagram http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:S...on_diagram.svg

The tail of the probability curve indicates that the probability that the papyrus was harvested after 320 (one standard deviation) is about 16%.

There is always the possibility that someone wrote it in 390 on 100 year old papyrus.
There is always the possibility that someone wrote in in 190 and it was copied in 290.

I do not think we have enough quotes from the gJudas to establish with high confidence that this is the gJudas mentioned by Eusebius, but it probably was just because the name is the same.

mountainman

Dear 2-J,

The material tested to date has been derived from the bindings of the codices (books themselves) and Pat has given a good summary. The only other thing to add is that free papyrus (ie: unbound fragments) are quite susceptible to contaminants, particularly the carbon from candle smoke and handling. Other than this, I have no idea why someone has not already taken a small sample from any one of the purportedly older (via paleographic assessment) papyri fragments and put it through the C14 analysis. Of course this may already have been done, with the results not published.

Best wishes,


Pete

DCHindley

Why is paleographic dating unreliable "on the face of it"?

Like a lot of things, writing style (as in shapes of letters, whether they are written fast or slow, etc) changes over time. It is reliable in proportion to datable samples of scripts available for comparison. It is not subjective at all.

Since most of the papyri were dug up in rubbish dumps - along with bills, contracts, etc, many with precise dates - there is a lot to use for comparison. The usual range for comparative paleographical dates in the 3rd century AD is about 50 years +/-. Most of the datable rubbish heap papyri, I believe, date between 150 - 450 CE, but don't quote me. The concentration of remains during that period has something to do with changes in the Nile's flooding patterns or something.

DCH

spin

It just means that accepting any validity of palaeography in the case of ancient Greek fonts would falsify his



which for most of us is really just



The upshot is that one has to deny palaeography in an era with a good selection of dated texts and a large number of exemplars, otherwise the farce of Eusebian Christogenesis couldn't go on.


spin

mountainman

Dear Dave,

Paleographic assessment has always been regarded as a secondary and supporting mechanism by which other forms of chronological analysis has been undertaken. As a secondary mechanism for calibrating between various proposed chronologies it is an excellent independent tool which 'on the face of it' functions well within its own domains.

However to my knowledge it has never been asserted that it is to perform as a primary chronological determinant, so to use it as one, without any other supporting evidence seems to be stretching its domain; and especially in regard to the assessment of "early christian writings" when we have not one other skerrick of evidence by which these paleographic assessments may be independently corroborated. By this I mean inscriptions and securely dated documents, and other archaeological evidence.

There are a number of other reasons why I consider paelographical assessment of chronology alone should not necessarily be a guideline to how we are to analyse the chronology of "the epoch of early christianity".

While it may not be subjective, we must recognise that it has its bounds and limits as to what it can tell us and what it cannot tell us. If a fourth century forger sets out, whether or not maliciously, and writes the new testament in an ancient script, for example the Hadrian script (perhaps under orders) for the sake of making the propaganda look old, how is a paleographer 16 centuries removed going to tell it was not written in the epoch of Hadrian?


Most papyri have been liberated from the public rubbish dumps in and around Oxyrhynchus. Ancient history is clear that there was a population explosion of this city well documented in the mid fourth century. It appears that the christian papyri got into the tip early while it was yet a holy ghost town.

The demographics of Oxyrhynchus make a huge leap into the stratosphere in the mid-fourth century. I wonder why? And I wonder why none of the academics who are touting for their tenure the excellent posterity of the Oxyrhynchus "christian fragments" do not elaborate on this single most important historical certainty. You do not get massive rubbish tips until you have massive populations. The sites at which the papry fragments have been found, and then asserted to belong to the first and/or second and/or third centuries did not have massive populations until the mid-fourth century.

Best wishes,


Pete

spin

What I'd be interested in is why apparently no early non-christian papyrus from Oxyrhynchus has been carbon dated, but I'd guess that it had to do with palaeography.


spin

Roger Pearse

There are a number of factors. Firstly these papyri have been available since the early 20th century. C14 dating was not available until after WW2. Secondly, in its infancy, C14 testing required the destruction of an area larger than many of the papyri. It is still a destructive technique. Thirdly the dating of the papyri from archaeology as well as paleography gives a narrower range of dates than C14 does.

All the best,

Roger Pearse