{"id":3005,"date":"2011-04-01T12:10:50","date_gmt":"2011-04-01T20:10:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/?p=3005"},"modified":"2011-04-01T12:10:50","modified_gmt":"2011-04-01T20:10:50","slug":"one-of-the-most-revolutionary-thoughts-i-have-read","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2011\/04\/01\/one-of-the-most-revolutionary-thoughts-i-have-read","title":{"rendered":"One Of The Most Revolutionary Thoughts I Have Read"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Papyrus<\/a>It does\u00adn\u2019t hap\u00adpen too often, but every once in a while I become aware of some new piece of data that explodes what I think I know about some area I\u2019m inter\u00adest\u00aded in. New Tes\u00adta\u00adment schol\u00adar (and fel\u00adlow Pen\u00adte\u00adcostal) Lar\u00adry Hur\u00adta\u00addo just dropped a bomb on me. <\/p>\n

In his blog post How Long Were Man\u00adu\u00adscripts Used?<\/a> he men\u00adtions some\u00adthing that had nev\u00ader occurred to me before. Not even a lit\u00adtle bit.<\/p>\n

\nOne mat\u00adter Hous\u00adton address\u00ades is how long man\u00adu\u00adscripts appear to have been in use. On the basis of man\u00adu\u00adscripts from Oxyrhynchus and from Her\u00adcu\u00adla\u00adneum in par\u00adtic\u00adu\u00adlar, Hous\u00adton notes numer\u00adous exam\u00adples of man\u00adu\u00adscripts dis\u00adcard\u00aded when they were ca. 2\u20133 cen\u00adturies old. Over\u00adall, he judges that the evi\u00addence indi\u00adcates \u201ca use\u00adful life of between one hun\u00addred and two hun\u00addred years for a major\u00adi\u00adty of the vol\u00adumes, with a sig\u00adnif\u00adi\u00adcant minor\u00adi\u00adty last\u00ading two hun\u00addred years or more\u201d (p. 251). And, as he notes, the evi\u00addence from Qum\u00adran leads to a sim\u00adi\u00adlar view.<\/p>\n

This is of poten\u00adtial rel\u00ade\u00advance for ques\u00adtions about the trans\u00admis\u00adsion of ear\u00adly Chris\u00adt\u00adian texts, espe\u00adcial\u00adly those that became part of the NT. If ear\u00adly copies were intact for some\u00adthing approach\u00ading a cen\u00adtu\u00adry or more, then this could be a fac\u00adtor against notions that these texts were high\u00adly unsta\u00adble and sus\u00adcep\u00adti\u00adble to major revi\u00adsion in the course of trans\u00admis\u00adsion. But we might adjust our think\u00ading to allow for an ear\u00adli\u00ader wear\u00ading-out of NT man\u00adu\u00adscripts through greater fre\u00adquen\u00adcy of usage. OK. Let\u2019s sup\u00adpose that ear\u00adly man\u00adu\u00adscripts of NT writ\u00adings typ\u00adi\u00adcal\u00adly wore out soon\u00ader: twice as fast (ca. 50\u201375 years)? That still means that the man\u00adu\u00adscripts from which copies were made remained avail\u00adable for poten\u00adtial check\u00ading for a fair peri\u00adod of time.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This prob\u00ada\u00adbly means noth\u00ading to most of you, but this is huge if you\u2019re inter\u00adest\u00aded in the tex\u00adtu\u00adal reli\u00ada\u00adbil\u00adi\u00adty of the New Tes\u00adta\u00adment. This is sur\u00adpris\u00ading and strong evi\u00addence in the \u201cBible is reli\u00adable\u201d col\u00adumn. Check out his com\u00adments sec\u00adtion<\/a> where Dr. Hur\u00adta\u00addo unpacks this a bit more.<\/p>\n

Some\u00adthing Dr. Hur\u00adta\u00addo does not men\u00adtion is that this makes it plau\u00adsi\u00adble that our ear\u00adli\u00adest papyrus frag\u00adments (such as P52<\/a> or one of the hand\u00adful of oth\u00aders from the mid-sec\u00adond cen\u00adtu\u00adry) might actu\u00adal\u00adly be direct copies from the auto\u00adgraph or only one gen\u00ader\u00ada\u00adtion removed. It\u2019s impos\u00adsi\u00adble to know, of course. But the mere fact that we can even think it plau\u00adsi\u00adble is mind-bog\u00adgling.<\/p>\n

Dr. Hur\u00adta\u00addo got this data from UNC\u2019s George W. Hous\u00adton in his arti\u00adcle \u201cPapy\u00adro\u00adlog\u00adi\u00adcal Evi\u00addence for Book Col\u00adlec\u00adtions and Libraries in the Roman Empire<\/a>,\u201d in Ancient Lit\u00adera\u00adcies: The Cul\u00adture of Read\u00ading in Greece and Rome, ed. William A. John\u00adson and Holt N. Park\u00ader (Oxford\/New York: Oxford Uni\u00adver\u00adsi\u00adty Press, 2009), 233\u201367.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It does\u00adn\u2019t hap\u00adpen too often, but every once in a while I become aware of some new piece of data that explodes what I think I know about some area I\u2019m inter\u00adest\u00aded in. New Tes\u00adta\u00adment schol\u00adar (and fel\u00adlow Pen\u00adte\u00adcostal) Lar\u00adry Hur\u00adta\u00addo just dropped a bomb on me. In his blog post How Long Were Man\u00adu\u00adscripts \u2026 Con\u00adtin\u00adue read\u00ading \u201cOne Of The Most Rev\u00ado\u00adlu\u00adtion\u00adary Thoughts I Have Read\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[21,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reasonable-answers-to-honest-questions","category-resources-reviews"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Ded-Mt","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3005"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3005\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3018,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3005\/revisions\/3018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}