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Loading...I have been discussing documents from early Christianity that I would very much like to have see with my own eyes. In my last post I mentioned the fact that documents that *do* tend to be discovered are either copies of books we already have (the Gospel of John, the book of Revelation, etc.) or of books that we did not previously know existed (the Letter of Diognetus, or most of the writings in the Nag Hammadi library). Here is a related question from a reader of the blog.
QUESTION: Are there researchers who systematically attempt to find these ancient documents or when documents come to light is it pretty much by chance?
ANSWER: Well, not so much, not these days. For a simple reason: how does one go about trying to discover a manuscript? Do you fly to Egypt, hire a taxi to take you out to the desert, and start digging?
There were basically two ways that past researchers tried to discover manuscripts. Sometimes they were spectacularly successful. But one of these ways is no longer very productive (by comparison with earlier days) and the other, for reasons I don’t know, is not often pursued (at least to my knowledge).
When scholars began to value ancient manuscripts and started wanting to find the oldest ones they could get their paws on, especially back in the nineteenth century, they took a very sensible approach to the business. They realized where such manuscripts would be. They would be in
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Are you surprised that sources like Q were not preserved by early Christians like the gospels?
Not really — most things were preserved. I’m just regretful….
Most things were preserved?! It seems like the earliest sayings of Jesus would’ve been the most important to preserve
Sorry. Scribal error. Should be “weren’t”
I’m an archaeologist and started just today at my new job in a beautiful Greek island, Skiathos. The excavation is basically a large trench just by a Byzantine church. If I find any fragments of papyri from the New Testament, you’ll be the first to know, I promise, Mr. Ehrman!! 😂
(My fantasy discovery would be to find a Christian text from the 30s that would contain pre-pauline, early Christian poems and hymns! Or… a fat chest with golden coins, I’m good with either 🤣)
Go for it!!
I suppose one other place might be ancient graves, if someone valued a manuscript enough to be buried with it but the ethical objections are obvious– no grave robbing or tomb raiding.
Please allow me to comment on your feelings on the earlier post:-
“ …. I don’t think you can provide “proof” for anything that resides outside our world. It’s a matter of faith, not proof.”
Religion is the most important faculty in UNC because the other faculties need religion for guidance. Evidently, God created the entire universe and beyond. He has literally proven with concrete evidences that He knows all these from Arithmetic to Astrophysics, Geology, Biology, Embryology, Cosmology, Physics, History, Astronomy, Zoology, Meteorology, Chemistry, Botany and more.
God bestows mankind with brain. Surely we need convincing proofs about God or else it will be blind faith which is an unacceptable excuse on the Day of Judgement. You had emphasized the use of intelligence instead of faith. Have you abandoned your ardent stand “God gives you a brain, use your brain. God gives you a brain to think, apply reasons.”
As a prominent leader in a research university, will you consider taking up an intellectual assignment – to conduct research on the existence of God. For a start, google “Miracles of Quran” for the many scientific proofs from GOD ALMIGHTY WHO KNOWS EVERYTHING.
God is not a subject of academic research in a research university.
Bart (June 15, 2021 at 5:28 pm), I strongly disagree with you on this one. God is a subject of academic research in research university philosophy departments. Do you still stand by that statement?
God himself is not an object of research. Philosophy and religion departments can certainly disucss such things as the traditional “proofs” for the existence of God, etc. But they do not engage in theological discussions of the nature of God and his activities.
Hi Bart, per ( June 16, 2021 at 3:14 pm), No, the nature of God is also discussed among some philosophers employed by research universities. From what I read in your blog recently, I interpret that you have read philosophy that debated the existence versus nonexistence of God while you agree with atheism. And perhaps you don’t bother to read other philosophical theology because it appears irrelevant to you.
Yes, I do read philosophical theology on occasion, though it is not one of my passions. The university philosophy departments I know of do indeed talk about issues related to discourse about God; but they do not delve into what God is “really” like, in the sense theologians do. That is doing religion, and at least in state schools there is to be a separation of religion and state.
Qumran is actually in the West Bank.
In early Islamic history, manuscripts are found in attics in Yemen.
Nineteenth century exploration has some of the best stories of discovering hidden ancient history artifacts. Looking forward to your piece on Tischendorf.
I think some papyri were discovered by British and Italian archaeological teams at Antinoopolis, the city founded by the emperor Hadrian in memory of his lover Antinous. Antinoopolis is reasonably close to Oxyrhynchus. But I too am surprised that similar excavations at other sites haven’t been made. Perhaps with Egypt the temptation is always to go down the Tutankhamun rather than the Nag Hammadi route.
PS. The biggest Greek city in Egypt (and source of papyri) was Alexandria but that is now completely built over by the modern city. Other, more accessible sites are few and far between and presumably thoroughly excavated by now.
So why don’t archaeologists try to replicate this feat. I really don’t know. Is it too expensive to try? Too unlikely to succeed? I need to ask my archaeologist friends!
I am an archaeologist. It’s hard to reply to this in a short space. First, modern archaeologists don’t just dig in search of ‘treasure’. Archaeology is inherently destructive. Once you remove an object from its context, it is gone forever. Excavation is destruction. Ethically speaking, one should only excavate to answer specific well-defined questions, and only if you are able to record things to modern professional standards.
That can be very expensive. Even a moderately large modern excavation can run into 7 or 8 figures. You need to hire specialists, need to arrange storage, and it takes years. You also need permits from the country you are excavating in. Those are generally sparingly issued. A dig like that at Oxyrhynchus is essentially impossible today, for good reasons.
One more thing: Illicit excavation is endemic around the world. People know that manuscripts are valuable. It is likely that any ‘known’ dumps have already been visited by illegal diggers. Such actions destroy context and any archaeological value the site has.
Maybe go back to the libraries then; I am not sure it is accurate to say that this approach “is no longer very productive”, but it is certainly a long slog.
Many ancient manuscripts – even those in swish research libraries – may have not have been systemeatically read in centuries. Manuscripts are not like printed books; where if you have read one copy of an edition, you can expect all other copies to be the same. A library (or monastery, or church) may know that it possesses a medieaval bible manuscript; but only when someone takes the effort to undertake a careful line-by-line collation of all the books it contains, may they realise that one book (perhaps) does not present the standard text; but something much more special. As, where one Gospel is not in the standard Vulgate version, but in the older Vetus Latina, preserving many readings and variants from the 4th century or earlier.
There are more than five thousand Bible manuscripts in Greek; more than ten thousand in Latin; probably more than twenty thousand in Ethiopic. Rare texts can readily hide amongst them in plain sight.
If I may ask a question of the two archaeologists here or Bart, if he knows. Is there any new technology that could vastly help in these endeavors? I know that Lidar is being used in jungles to find ancient cities and pyramids…are trash heaps, old burial sites, old large buildings able to be discover this way! Thanks.
I”ve heard of similar things being used for biblical archaeology, but am not abreast of the technology being used.
Perhaps mundane, but a database of the locations of known or suspected garbage dumps from antiquity might provide future researchers a set of places to go digging. Designation, latitude, longitude in an Excel spreadsheet, with notes and available pictures. Probably need a more respectable name than “garbage dumps.”
Now that it’s come up, why limit it to antiquity? Where did Ben Franklin’s Boston dump its garbage and what might be found in it?
Which text that we do not have today do you wish we had the MOST?
Probably Q. Then Papias’s five-volume commentary on the teachings of Jesus. ANd/or more of Paul’s letters.
What are the main alternatives to Q in solving the synoptic problem?
The most popular one is that Matthew used Mark and that Luke used them both. The arguments for Q have to show why that is less likely than that both Matthew and Luke got their shared material from an independent and now lost source. Most investigators think that it is indeed less likely, based on a series of argumentsthat are typically laid out (look up Q on teh blog and you’ll see my explanations of some of the arguments)
I have been to the British Library and seen the Codex Sinaiticus (CS) displayed. The description below it talks about the Codex containing the Old and New Testaments in Greek so I guess the Hebrew was to translated to Greek. I just find that strange, but who am I? I would provide an image of it but this chat will not allow it. Below is the text in the description.
“01
Codex Sinaiticus
Mid-4th century
Copied possibly in Palestine about 1700 years ago, this is the earliest surviving manuscript to contain the complete New Testament and the oldest and best witness for some of the books of the Greek version of the Old Testament. The Codex originally contained the entire Bible (both the Old and the New Testaments) in Greek. Its name (‘the book from Sinai’) refers to the monastery of St Catherine at the foot of Mount Sinai where it was preserved until the middle of the 19th century”
Anyway my real question is: How much of the KJV is based on the CS. I am sure you are fully acquainted with the CS but I provide a link for others that might be interested.
https://codexsinaiticus.org/en/
Yes, it’s a magnificent manuscript, and the display in the Library is terrific. Most Jews and CHrsitains in the Roman world read the OT in Greek, so there were lots of manuscripts of it around. THis is an unusually important one. But no, the KJV was based on the Hebrew text, not on the “Septuagint” (the usual name for the Greek translation fo the OT)
The British Library also has the Codex Alexdrandrinus displayed near the Codex Siniaticus. I am really interested in tie ins to the current KJV and would also like to know if you have a list of all the 5700 ‘copies’ of the NT or bible and location information for them or where that information can be found. I am a new member of the blog so please forgive me if I am asking a question you have already addressed but I could not find it.
I am sure I am not the first one to ask for this information.
Thanks again
Yes, there are lists of the mss. You can probably find a list pretty easily just by googling it. IT would, of course, be a long list, and most of the mss are of limited importance in the overall scheme of things. Not like these early great ones!
Bart Ehrman
“In at least one famous instance, his best known “discovery,” he may well have absconded with one (the famous Codex Sinaiticus from St. Catherine’s Monastery on Mount Sinai).”
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That problem actually applies to both his 1844 and 1859 extractions.
In 1844 Tischendorf took out five full intact quires from the existing codex and part of an adjacent sixth quire, a total of 43 leaves. 5 quires was 40 leaves. Nobody knew what he had taken, and when in 1845 Porfiry Uspensky was at St. Catherine’s that section was gone. Uspensky wrote up his visits, published in 1856 and 1857. The was all deposited in Leipzig as the Codex-Friderico-Augustanus. Tischendorf resisted any public acknowledgement that this was Sinaiticus until years after the 1859 extraction.
The 1859 extraction of the (almost) full remaining Sinaiticus also has strong indications of theft. There is an interesting write-up in 1892, The still life of the Middle Temple by William George Thorpe (1828-1902) that describes the 1859 theft. Followed by Bernard Janin Sage (P. C. Sense) 1821-1902 in A critical and historical enquiry into the origin of the third gospel in 1901.
Steven Avery
Dutchess County, NY USA
Off Topic: When did early Christians begin do believe that the writings, which became the Bible, were inerrant or inspired?
This seems to be a cornerstone of many of your debate partner’s arguments, yet it seems unlikely that when Paul or “Mark” first wrote one of their monographs and handed it to a friend for review that their response was “Wow! This is perfect. You really captured God’s thoughts in this one!” It seems more likely they simply said “nice job” or debated some of the points. Similarly when the Church founders debated which books should be followed or kept, were their measure of appropriateness for inclusion the percentage of the words that must have been transcribed from God or were they selecting stories that simply described the tenants of the religion or how to be a Christian?
Thanks and Take Care
The modern doctrine of inerrancy developed in the late 19th century (look up Niagara Conferences on the Internet) in response to the claims of science (evolution; age of the earth), and also on the rise of historical criticism of the Bible (which found contradictions and forgeries). Thus there developed a splite betewwn “modernists” and “fundamentalists” (who both invented and embraced the name)