With thanks to Larry Hurtado and the PhD student who brought this to his attention, I have accessed a recently published article that, as Dr Hurtado himself says, “all concerned with the study of NT manuscripts should read”:
As Hurtado himself points out, “the authors are both professional/trained palaeographers, and Clarysse is the founder of the extremely valuable Leuven Database of Ancient Books (LDAB), which provides data on all published/edited manuscripts from the ancient world, and can be accessed online here.”
The point of the recent article? Again, Hurtado:
The object of the recent article is a critique of the tendencies of a few scholars in NT studies to push for early datings of NT manuscripts, sometimes highly improbably early datings.
Of course the one manscript that is of most popular and controversial interest is P52, that small scrap of text from the Gospel of John. I won’t repeat all the details here since they are widely known and readily available on Wikipedia. The main point of interest of this fragment is that it is generally dated to around 125 CE, and that since it was found in Egypt, this date accordingly is evidence that the Gospel of John, generally thought to have been composed in Asia Minor, must have been some time earlier than 125 CE. And since the Gospel of John is widely considered the latest of the canonical gospels, this fragment can serve as evidence for the traditional dating of the Gospels — the last decades of the first century.
Larry Hurtado does not appear to be particularly interested in P52 since he makes no mention of it in his post, though he does mention around 15 other manuscripts.
So for the benefit of those who are curious, here are the relevant points and conclusion of Pasquale Orsini & Willy Clarysse.
C.P. Thiede has argued for a first century date for P52. (Papyrologists have generally reacted negatively to Thiede’s general arguments for earlier dating of manuscripts.)
B. Jaroš also has assigned dates for manuscripts much earlier than those proposed by Nestle-Aland, but Orsine and Clarysse point out the fragile foundations of these early dates, being dependent as they are upon comparisons with less than absolutely firm dates of related manuscripts. Orsine and Clarysse object that the dates of Jaroš are assigned sometimes on the basis of comparing single letters apart from the general graphic aspect.
Orsine and Clarysse also criticize Jaroš for referring to Comfort-Barrett’s work on manuscript dating (also arguing for early dates) as if it represented a consensus, “thought this is clearly not the case.”
Here is how Orsine and Clarysse classify the famous P52 fragment (with my own formatting):
Two forms of writing originated in bureaucratic and chancery practices.
The first type (comprising a large number of New Testament manuscripts) was used in the main central and peripheral offices in the second and third centuries . . . . it is round, unimodular and looped, and the strokes end in apices (in the lower parts) and small hooks (in the upper parts); sometimes curves and flourishes are added at the end of letters.
Typical examples are
- PSI V 446 (Pap. Flor. XXX, n° 122, pl. CXI; TM 19292),
- an edict of the praefect Marcus Petronius Mamertinus, written 133-137,
- and P. Oxy. LVIII 3917 (P. Oxy. LVIII, pl. 2; TM 27301),
- an early second century letter, sent by the praefect’s office to a strategos.
From this type derives the above-mentioned “Alexandrian stylistic class”, which itself is the origin of the Alexandrian majuscule. The New Testament manuscripts belonging to this type are P32, P46, P52, P66, P85, P87, P90, P104, P116, P118, and 0171.
Back to Jaroš and Comfort-Barrett and their early date for P52:
Jaroš attributes five manuscripts to the late first or early second century AD: P46 (AD 75-100), P52 (AD 80-125), P64+67+4 (AD 75-100), P87 (AD 75-125), P104 (AD 75-125); Comfort–Barrett (with corrections of COMFORT, 2005) attribute only two manuscripts to the early second century AD: P52 (AD 100-125) and P104 (AD 100-150 in the first edition and AD 100-125 in the second edition).
But Orsine and Clarysse object:
The manuscripts P46, P52, P87, P104 belong to a specific type of bureaucratic and chancery script.
P52 can be compared with PSI V 446 (AD 133- 137; TM 19292) and P. Flor. I 1 (AD 153; Pap. Flor. XXX, n° 124, pl. CXIII-CXIV; TM 23525). P52 may be compared with P. Fay. 87 (PARSONS–TURNER, 1987, pl. 48; TM 10930), written in 156 and one of the earliest dated witnesses for some fundamental characteristics of the “Alexandrian stylistic class”.
P104 is very similar, from a graphic point of view, to P52: Comfort–Barrett and Jaroš instead proposed PSI XI 1213 (NORSA, 1929-1946, pl. 9a; LDAB 886) and P. Oxy. LXII 4301 (P. Oxy. LXII, pl. I; LDAB 888) as parallels. These comparisons are inappropriate, however, since both P104 and P52 are written in round majuscule.
In conclusion, Orsine and Clarysse chastise biblical scholars for embracing unsupportably early dates for their manuscripts:
There are no first century New Testament papyri and only very few can be attributed to the second century (P52, P90, P104, probably all the second half of the century) or somewhere between the late second and early third centuries (P30, P64+67+4, 0171, 0212).
Biblical scholars should realise that some of the dates proposed by some of their colleagues are not acceptable to Greek palaeographers and papyrologists.
The article includes a wonderful table of 11 scripts for comparison, as well as cross-references for 91 manuscripts and the dates assigned to them Comfort-Barrett, Jaroš, Nestle-Aland and Orsine and Clarysse.
For P52 we find:
- Comfort-Barrett: 100-125
- Jaroš: 80-125
- Nestle-Aland: 100-150
- Orsine-Clarysse: 125-175
And in case you missed the point, here is the abstract of the article:
ABSTRACT. — The date of the earliest New Testament papyri is nearly always based on palaeographical criteria. A consensus among papyrologists, palaeographers and New Testament scholars is presented in the edition of NESTLE–ALAND, 1994. In the last twenty years several New Testament scholars (THIEDE, COMFORT–BARRETT, 1999, 2001 and JAROŠ, 2006) have argued for an earlier date of most of these texts. The present article analyzes the date of the earliest New Testament papyri on the basis of comparative palaeography and a clear distinction between different types of literary scripts. There are no first-century New Testament papyri and only very few papyri can be attributed to the (second half of the) second century. It is only in the third and fourth centuries that New Testament manuscripts become more common, but here too the dates proposed by COMFORT–BARRETT, 1999, 2001, and JAROŠ, 2006 are often too early.
One gets the impression that if a later date for P52 is thought to be a “new” date, it is so only for biblical scholars. It looks like few paleographers have ever been persuaded by the hopes of many of their New Testament peers.
It would be great if New Testament scholarship would finally catch-up to everybody else for once:
“… The presumed dating of P52 to the first half of the second century has been called “sensational” and seems untenable. One significant argument against the early dating of P52 is that the fragment was part of a codex, or book, rather than a scroll, and there are few examples of such books in existence at such an early date. Moreover, in a fairly recent paleographical study published in the Archiv für Papyrusforschung 35 (1989), German scholar Andreas Schmidt suggested a date for P52 of 170 AD/CE +/- 25 years…”
- Who Was Jesus? Fingerprints of The Christ (2007), page 68/69
Comment by Chip — 2013/03/09 @ 12:58 am |
In my opinion the real explosive conclusion of Orsyne and Clarysse is that the manuscript fragments P46, P52, P87 and P104 have handwriting typical of a bureaucracy or a chancery. We *appear* to have evidence that the state took upon itself to copy and distribute Jesus stories!
Comment by Ed-M — 2013/03/09 @ 4:22 am |
That’s a bit strong. It seems more prudent to suggest that a number of clerks and/or bureaucrats converted to Christianity – then it would be the natural for the task of copying a congregations documents falling to them. (Busman’s holiday an’ all.)
Comment by Jens Knudsen (Sili) — 2013/03/09 @ 7:14 am |
I’m away from my home computer which is my repository for documents/articles etc. so I cannot direct you to a specific link for the whole work ‘cited’ below.
But, if you check out R. Bagnall’s recent book:
http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9059.html
In the blurb it says:
“.. distinguished papyrologist Roger Bagnall shows that a great deal of this discussion and scholarship has been misdirected, biased, and at odds with the realities of the ancient world …..Bagnall explains why papyrus manuscripts have routinely been dated too early, how the role of Christians in the history of the codex has been misrepresented …..Supporting a more conservative approach to dating surviving papyri”
In the book itself Bagnall pays close attention to the problems of P52, gives Brent Nongbri’s work [he urges a more open dating of P52 than the optimistic conservatives] a positive rating and makes a couple of strong statements about current Christian scholarship in this field.
Comment by mcduff — 2013/03/09 @ 8:42 am |
I can understand lay hobbyists ardently defending conservative scholars against any suspicion of bias in their work — these are honorable men, dedicated to pristine, objective Truth who would never allow their personal faith to interfere with their unassailable intellectual integrity — as some of them (e.g. Gakusiedon, Jonathan Burke, Tim O’Neill) do. But we even have scholars themselves (e.g. McGrath, Hurtado, and certain names associated with Nazareth digs) encouraging this Pollyannish scenario that would make biblical scholarship unique in the whole field of arts and humanities. A topic such as this, more particularly the response such as this from experts who stand apart from the ideological interests of biblical scholars generally, would surely be enough to silence all those unrealistic claims of of the intellectual uniqueness of scholars of the New Testament. You’d think so, wouldn’t you.
Comment by Neil Godfrey — 2013/03/09 @ 9:13 am |
http://www.bookreviews.org/pdf/7755_9195.pdf
Here is Hurtado’s review of Bagnall’s book.
“In sum, this slender volume essentially comprises a case for dating the spread of
Christianity in Egypt in the third century (rather than the second) and for preferring
slightly later dating of most if not all of the Christian manuscripts often taken as from the
second century.’
And this is from the review by Allen Kerkeslager.
“Too many scholars have built careers on applying
forms of literary criticism to promote untestable speculation about how early Christian
literature preserves remnants of “oral traditions” and “lost sources” generated by
imaginary “communities.” It is almost routine to assign these imaginative constructs to
dates as early as possible before the actual documents from which they are inferred. As in
the case of Thiede, this habit is typically motivated by a wish to find support for a
preferred view of the origins of Christianity. This motive is not easily resisted because the
intangibility of hypothetical documents invites self-authenticating circularity…”
http://www.bookreviews.org/pdf/7755_8457.pdf
More at the site these links come from.
Comment by mcduff — 2013/03/09 @ 9:24 am |
I knew there were problems with the paleographic dating of P52. Thanks for posting about this study.
Comment by Quixie — 2013/03/10 @ 1:02 am |
[...] Godfrey recently posted on the dating of the famous Rylands fragment “P52″ here. In that posting, he comments: “Larry Hurtado does not appear to be particularly interested [...]
Pingback by On Dating NT Manuscripts and the Codex | Larry Hurtado's Blog — 2013/03/13 @ 8:25 pm |
So, based on:
1. What Foster says re P.Egerton 2 and P52 in his review of Bagnall in the thread above
2.What Hurtado says in his blog viz:
” …. proposing (with a number of us recently) that it [P52] should probably be dated sometime in the later part of the 2nd century”
and then later:
“But I do mention there (n. 2 and n. 20) that the date of P52 “may have to be adjusted downward to ca. 200 CE,”
I reckon we give the ‘new’ date of P52 as – ca 200 at the earliest.
OK?
Comment by mcduff — 2013/03/14 @ 12:55 am |
200 AD! Actually that sounds right. To my untrained eye, the writing of P52 is very much like that of P66. It could even have been done by the same hand.
Comment by Ed-M — 2013/03/14 @ 3:27 am |
As I understand it, the criticisms from Orsini and Clarysse are aimed at those recent scholars (Comfort etc) who have been seeking to establish a date for P52 much earlier than the ‘standard; date of 125CE +/- 25; as stated by Roberts in his original publication of this papyrus. If the arguments of these recent scholars is to be rejected (as does seem plausible on a number of grounds) then Roberts judgements still stands; that P52 can with confidence be dated to the first half of the second century. I note that Nogbri (for example) specifically states that nothing in his comprehensive study of comparators contradicts Roberts assessment. I do not seehow a date of 200 CE would become any more likely.
With reference to the specific point of Orsini and Clarysse, that the hand in P52 corresponds to a chancery hand; I wonder if they have take on board Robert’s observation that the hand of P52 is not that of a professional scribe. In particular, Roberts notes that there are two different styles of letter formation in P52. The predominant letter forms in P52 are greatly over-scaled (this isn’t apparent on photos, you have to look at the papyrus itself); and hence bigger than the writer was used to do in his/her everyday hand. Which is a sign of a non-professional. Furthermore, however, the writer from time to time slips back into their smaller everyday hand – several times with sigma, once with alpha. In some of these instances he/she goes back and inks a big-letterform over the top. But in others – as in the alpha on the fourth line of the recto – they leave the smaller to stand. But ths smaller alpha has none of the characteristics that Orsini and Clarysse identify as establisheing a later date; the comparators that Roberts produces for these are right at the beginning of the second century. If the smaller alpha-form is the writer’s everyday hand; then he/she probably learned to write in the first century – which does not of course preclude P52 being dated to around 150CE (or even later) but ratther rules 200 CE out.
Comment by TomHennell — 2013/04/29 @ 7:01 am |