Βίβλος or, βιβλίον was the term most widely used by the Greeks for book or volume. The usual derivation is from βύβλος the Egyptian papyrus. Comp. Lat. liber "the inner bark of a tree," also " book." Pliny (Nat. Hist. xiii. 11) says that the pith of the papyrus plant was cut in slices and laid in rows, over which other rows were laid crosswise, and the whole was massed by pressure. The name for the blank papyrus sheets was χάρτης (charta) paper. See on 2 John 1:12. Timothy is here requested to bring some papyrus documents which are distinguished from the vellum manuscripts.
Parchments (μεμβράνας)
N.T.o. Manuscripts written on parchment or vellum. Strictly speaking, vellum was made from the skins of young calves and the common parchment from those of sheep, goats, or antelopes. It was a more durable material than papyrus and more expensive. The Latin name was membrana, and also pergamena or pergamina, from Pergamum in Mysia where it was extensively manufactured, and from which it was introduced into Greece. As to the character and contents of these documents which Timothy is requested to bring, we are of course entirely ignorant."
Access to literature, and scribes, and things like that are part of the recent arguments (for example from Robyn Walsh) that the NT authors were from the elite. This is not something I have looked into extensively, but I do find myself skeptical, we have evidence of non-elite village scribes (the likely produces of Q), so I'm not sure why the existence of parchments and the such would rule out non-elite authors. If a house church did have, for example, a Q collection, a version of Mark, (early Church fathers talk about the memoirs of the Apostles being read at churches) or perhaps something from Isaiah, Deuteronomy or the psalms, it may have very well been copied (from a traveling overseer or a synagogue) by a non-elite scribe on behalf of the community.
BTW, the fact that almost ALL our literary evidence comes from the elite is not surprising to anyone who thinks about it for two seconds, and has nothing to say about whether or not there was (however limited) non-elite literary production.
Roman, here is a review of the Walsh book: https://www.academia.edu/114312052/Review_of_Robyn_Faith_Walsh_The_Origins_of_Early_Christian_Literature_Contextualizing_the_New_Testament_within_Greco_Roman_Literary_Culture_Cambridge_Cambridge_University_Press_2021_
Brent Nongbri also wrote a review of the book. Appreciate your thoughts.
"Although we know that the earliest NT documents were written on scrolls, the earliest manuscript we currently have (𝔓52, the John Rylands papyrus, Fig. 3.2 on p. 41) is a page from a codex."
Porter, Stanley E.; Pitts, Andrew W.. Fundamentals of New Testament Textual Criticism (p. 46). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.. Kindle Edition.
"In the making of books, Jews used scrolls, while Christians used codices—at least, Christians from the end of the first century and thereafter. The first-generation Christians, who were mostly Jews, probably read the Old Testament from scrolls. The founder of the Christian church, Jesus, is said to have read a passage in Isaiah from 'a scroll' (Luke 4:17). Saul of Tarsus, in his Jewish training, would have used scrolls; later on, he likely switched to the codex format (this is discussed below)."
Comfort, Phillip. Encountering the Manuscripts: An Introduction to New Testament Paleography and Textual Criticism (Kindle Locations 850-854). B&H Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
"A tax collector such as Matthew, accustomed to using such a codex for business notes, could have used such a wooden codex for taking notes on Jesus’ speech. Mark could have done the same with Peter's speech. Writers also used another kind of notebook, called membranae in Latin and membranas in Greek (a Latin loanword). The Greeks did not invent any other word to describe a codex. Thus, membranas was the universal Greek term for the codex. In its earliest form, the codex was a notebook with parchments which allowed for erasing (see Martial's Epistle 14.7.184). These were used in much the same way as the wooden tablets: for making notes or rough drafts. They were very popular among lawyers and writers. Both of these codices were precursors to the full-formed papyrus codex."
Comfort, Phillip. Encountering the Manuscripts: An Introduction to New Testament Paleography and Textual Criticism (Kindle Locations 874-880). B&H Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Please see the "Critical Reception" section here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Origins_of_Early_Christian_Literature#cite_note-Becker-2
I think it will one day become abundantly clear that the "literary trope" suggestion or elitism for NT scribal activity is a huge fiction. It still perplexes me how anyone who's read Homer in Greek thinks Mark mirrors the poet in his Gospel.
Duncan, the evidence for Q comes from the problems with all the alternatives, Kloppenborg is, to my mind, one of the best contemporary defenders of the 2 source hypothesis, although I actually think Casey's view is more plausible.
The idea that Q came from village scribes is comes from a lot of good work done on Q, from Mack, Robinson, Kloppenborg, Arnal, Bazzana, and others.
This scholarship is pretty mainstream and has stood the test of time, the evidence is in the document itself, as well as evidence that there were non-elite rural scribes from other ancient literature.
I think her claim that "German Romanticism" has infected NT scholarship is wayyyy overblown, German romanticism hasn't been intellectually prominent since before the first world war.
In the article by Carrier, his point about "differences" and "similarities" entirely miss the point that the critique is often intended to make. It's not just how much difference there is between a literary form, but whether the similarities are merely incidental or indicative of mimesis, or whether the differences are actually indicative that the literature is of a different type and drawing from different sources.
As others have pointed out, when you get actual mimesis in Greek literature, the parallels are explicit, not broad conceptual parallels which are much better explained by just general literary enculturation.
I mean it's not like when the NT authors draw on other literature, such as the Hebrew Bible, they are coy about it, they are pretty explicit. (Btw, I'm not ruling out allusions, I think, for example, in John, there are places where the author/editor may have intended a jab at the Dionysius cult, this, in and of itself, does not imply direct reliance on Euripides for example).
About orality, in Q and Mark signs of oral tradition have been well documented, and not just by the form critics, this does not mean that we are not presented with literary creations, of course we are, and no one is denying that Matthew and Luke (especially Luke) show signs of a higher class education, but to argue that this means the sources come from them is just wrong.
Foster, I personally find Casey's (and others) suggestion that Q may have literally started out as Matthew's notes, extremely plausible, this practice was not unknown in Jewish culture of the time, Q itself has tons of signs of being pre-easter, or at least so early that little post-easter theologizing was done (there are allusions to Jesus's death, which can easily be interpreted as a martyr's death, and only very slight, if any, allusions to resurrection, and the message itself seems to be very much ).
The reconstructions given, all look like a kind of collection of sayings following Jesus's ministry, and with almost no post-easter theologizing, and all more or less reflecting a prophetic declaration of the Kingdom of God, a call for repentance and a focus on ethical and social justice aspects of the torah, and a coming judgement, it also basically presupposes the audience are torah keeping.
The same with Mark, it shows evidence of being an oral performance, it does show signs of post-easter theology, but not much, I agree with Crossley that it assumes it's audience is torah keeping, and it is not really a refined piece of literature at all (which is why Matthew and Luke keep trying to improve it).
The traditional view that Matthew wrote the Logia (I take to be Q) and Mark basically wrote down Peter's preaching fits the evidence pretty well.
We need not take the early Church tradition as gospel, but there's no reason to be apriori suspicious either, especially if the evidence fits.
Roman, I'm probably not going to say much about Q, but I've never seen good evidence for Quelle. I think John Meier issued the reminder that Q is a hypothetical document. Maybe ancient writers alluded to Q, as you say, but no ancient writer explicit mentions it and we have no archeological fragments of Q yet. I don't know. The highly speculative nature of Q has long stood out to me.
This article examines both sides of the Q debate: https://michaeljkruger.com/what-should-we-make-of-the-hypothetical-q-source/#:~:text=If%20Q%20existed%20(and%20can,so%20interested%20in%20this%20question.
I deleted the Carrier material about Quelle. While I agree with much of what he says about Q, I find his approach less than scholarly and his language is abhorrent to me.
For now, I will point out that the documents in 2 Timothy 4:13 are likely Jewish scriptures. One scholar suggested that biblos and membranas potentially refer to the same thing.
Duncan, where does Kloppenborg say it's 50/50? As far as I have seen he sees it as the most plausible option.
Foster, you're right it's speculative, but any synoptic problem solution is speculative, and the speculation isn't based on nothing, it's posited like any other theory, as best explaining the evidence (just like any other synoptic solution), of course we can't be 100% sure, but with ancient history can one ever really be?
Roman, you're correct that history is not 100%, but I'd feel better about Q if we had an actual fragment or explicit testimony from one of the fathers or Jerome. However, it's not a big issue for me. 🙂
To say that the conclusions are being destroyed is an overstatement. What evidence is there for Marcionite priority besides hypotheses and assertions? There is certainly no textual or corroborating evidence.
Foster, I would say that Papias's Mathew just is a reference to Q :).
Duncan, does he ever say that in writing? I mean he has in writing argued for the 2 source being the best solution, I find that strange if he really thought it was only 50/50.
I haven't researched much on the Marcionite priority material, however just to through it out there, it being shorter is not evidence that it's earlier at all, almost every pericope from Mark is shorter in Matthew and Luke, that's not evidence that Matthew and Luke's versions are earlier.
btw, I know it's common that people repeat that very few people were literate in the greco-roman near east (I actually think these literacy studies are very much drawing a lot from generalizations, so one cannot really put too much weight on them. But here is an important qualification from Kloppenborg, which should make one immediately suspicious when someone claims it's impossible that the gospel documents came from lower class and rural sources:
"It is not simply that large sectors of the population knew about written communication. Recent studies of literacy in the Roman world suggest that literacies, although admittedly restricted numerically, were not segregated into discrete sectors by language, function and social register. On the contrary, various levels of literacy below full scribal literacy are attested. . . . It would be absurd, however, to imagine that Galileans who needed loan documents, or tax receipts or divorce document, routinely travelled to Jerusalem to obtain these, any more than that peasants, artisans and tenants in the Fayum or the Oxyrhynchite nome travelled to Alexandria each time they needed a loan! The development of writing practices was not autochthonic in rural areas but was the result of the power that the city exerted on the countryside. This power created the need for financial reporting and record-keeping, which in turn created the need for a scribal sector which could accommodate those needs. The common refrain in Graeco-Egyptian legal instruments, “x wrote this because y is illiterate”49, is testimony to the presence in towns and villages of such scribes. . . . The scribes whose existence we must posit to render our data intelligible are other literate (or semi-literate) persons, perhaps one or two in a village, who could be approached to prepare tax, loan, and lease documents, for a small charge51. Archival copies of these documents could then be filed with the κωμογραμματεύς.
The evidence for the Synoptics preceding is stronger than the Marcionite hypothesis/reconstruction: https://www.academia.edu/41107356/MARCION_AND_NEW_TESTAMENT_CANON
We can play this game all day, but I think you're mistaken. Here's a quote that I could replicate:
As a revision of Luke (majority view) This still appears to be the view of most scholars today. According to this view, Marcion eliminated the first two chapters of Luke concerning the nativity, and began his gospel at Capernaum making modifications to the remainder suitable to Marcionism.
Marcionite Priority is still a minority position and I am pretty confident that the upcoming fruitage of Patristica will not substantiate the hypothesis that he came before the Synoptics. It's pretty difficult to posit that Marcion wrote before the Gospels when everything we know about Marcion comes from the hands of others. There are no fragments made by his own hand. And again, we get in the weeds when this thread had nothing to do with Marcion.
64 comments:
Vincent's Word Studies:
"The books (βιβλία)
Βίβλος or, βιβλίον was the term most widely used by the Greeks for book or volume. The usual derivation is from βύβλος the Egyptian papyrus. Comp. Lat. liber "the inner bark of a tree," also " book." Pliny (Nat. Hist. xiii. 11) says that the pith of the papyrus plant was cut in slices and laid in rows, over which other rows were laid crosswise, and the whole was massed by pressure. The name for the blank papyrus sheets was χάρτης (charta) paper. See on 2 John 1:12. Timothy is here requested to bring some papyrus documents which are distinguished from the vellum manuscripts.
Parchments (μεμβράνας)
N.T.o. Manuscripts written on parchment or vellum. Strictly speaking, vellum was made from the skins of young calves and the common parchment from those of sheep, goats, or antelopes. It was a more durable material than papyrus and more expensive. The Latin name was membrana, and also pergamena or pergamina, from Pergamum in Mysia where it was extensively manufactured, and from which it was introduced into Greece. As to the character and contents of these documents which Timothy is requested to bring, we are of course entirely ignorant."
Access to literature, and scribes, and things like that are part of the recent arguments (for example from Robyn Walsh) that the NT authors were from the elite. This is not something I have looked into extensively, but I do find myself skeptical, we have evidence of non-elite village scribes (the likely produces of Q), so I'm not sure why the existence of parchments and the such would rule out non-elite authors. If a house church did have, for example, a Q collection, a version of Mark, (early Church fathers talk about the memoirs of the Apostles being read at churches) or perhaps something from Isaiah, Deuteronomy or the psalms, it may have very well been copied (from a traveling overseer or a synagogue) by a non-elite scribe on behalf of the community.
BTW, the fact that almost ALL our literary evidence comes from the elite is not surprising to anyone who thinks about it for two seconds, and has nothing to say about whether or not there was (however limited) non-elite literary production.
Thanks, Terence. Good stuff and I appreciate the last thing that Vincent wrote in those comments.
Roman, here is a review of the Walsh book: https://www.academia.edu/114312052/Review_of_Robyn_Faith_Walsh_The_Origins_of_Early_Christian_Literature_Contextualizing_the_New_Testament_within_Greco_Roman_Literary_Culture_Cambridge_Cambridge_University_Press_2021_
Brent Nongbri also wrote a review of the book. Appreciate your thoughts.
"Although we know that the earliest NT documents were written on scrolls, the earliest manuscript we currently have (𝔓52, the John Rylands papyrus, Fig. 3.2 on p. 41) is a page from a codex."
Porter, Stanley E.; Pitts, Andrew W.. Fundamentals of New Testament Textual Criticism (p. 46). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.. Kindle Edition.
"In the making of books, Jews used scrolls, while Christians used codices—at least, Christians from the end of the first century and thereafter. The first-generation Christians, who were mostly Jews, probably read the Old Testament from scrolls. The founder of the Christian church, Jesus, is said to have read a passage in Isaiah from 'a scroll' (Luke 4:17). Saul of Tarsus, in his Jewish training, would have used scrolls; later on, he likely switched to the codex format (this is discussed below)."
Comfort, Phillip. Encountering the Manuscripts: An Introduction to New Testament Paleography and Textual Criticism (Kindle Locations 850-854). B&H Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
"A tax collector such as Matthew, accustomed to using such a codex for business notes, could have used such a wooden codex for taking notes on Jesus’ speech. Mark could have done the same with Peter's speech. Writers also used another kind of notebook, called membranae in Latin and membranas in Greek (a Latin loanword). The Greeks did not invent any other word to describe a codex. Thus, membranas was the universal Greek term for the codex. In its earliest form, the codex was a notebook with parchments which allowed for erasing (see Martial's Epistle 14.7.184). These were used in much the same way as the wooden tablets: for making notes or rough drafts. They were very popular among lawyers and writers. Both of these codices were precursors to the full-formed papyrus codex."
Comfort, Phillip. Encountering the Manuscripts: An Introduction to New Testament Paleography and Textual Criticism (Kindle Locations 874-880). B&H Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Please see the "Critical Reception" section here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Origins_of_Early_Christian_Literature#cite_note-Becker-2
I think it will one day become abundantly clear that the "literary trope" suggestion or elitism for NT scribal activity is a huge fiction. It still perplexes me how anyone who's read Homer in Greek thinks Mark mirrors the poet in his Gospel.
Duncan, the evidence for Q comes from the problems with all the alternatives, Kloppenborg is, to my mind, one of the best contemporary defenders of the 2 source hypothesis, although I actually think Casey's view is more plausible.
The idea that Q came from village scribes is comes from a lot of good work done on Q, from Mack, Robinson, Kloppenborg, Arnal, Bazzana, and others.
This scholarship is pretty mainstream and has stood the test of time, the evidence is in the document itself, as well as evidence that there were non-elite rural scribes from other ancient literature.
I think her claim that "German Romanticism" has infected NT scholarship is wayyyy overblown, German romanticism hasn't been intellectually prominent since before the first world war.
In the article by Carrier, his point about "differences" and "similarities" entirely miss the point that the critique is often intended to make. It's not just how much difference there is between a literary form, but whether the similarities are merely incidental or indicative of mimesis, or whether the differences are actually indicative that the literature is of a different type and drawing from different sources.
As others have pointed out, when you get actual mimesis in Greek literature, the parallels are explicit, not broad conceptual parallels which are much better explained by just general literary enculturation.
I mean it's not like when the NT authors draw on other literature, such as the Hebrew Bible, they are coy about it, they are pretty explicit. (Btw, I'm not ruling out allusions, I think, for example, in John, there are places where the author/editor may have intended a jab at the Dionysius cult, this, in and of itself, does not imply direct reliance on Euripides for example).
About orality, in Q and Mark signs of oral tradition have been well documented, and not just by the form critics, this does not mean that we are not presented with literary creations, of course we are, and no one is denying that Matthew and Luke (especially Luke) show signs of a higher class education, but to argue that this means the sources come from them is just wrong.
Foster, I personally find Casey's (and others) suggestion that Q may have literally started out as Matthew's notes, extremely plausible, this practice was not unknown in Jewish culture of the time, Q itself has tons of signs of being pre-easter, or at least so early that little post-easter theologizing was done (there are allusions to Jesus's death, which can easily be interpreted as a martyr's death, and only very slight, if any, allusions to resurrection, and the message itself seems to be very much ).
The reconstructions given, all look like a kind of collection of sayings following Jesus's ministry, and with almost no post-easter theologizing, and all more or less reflecting a prophetic declaration of the Kingdom of God, a call for repentance and a focus on ethical and social justice aspects of the torah, and a coming judgement, it also basically presupposes the audience are torah keeping.
The same with Mark, it shows evidence of being an oral performance, it does show signs of post-easter theology, but not much, I agree with Crossley that it assumes it's audience is torah keeping, and it is not really a refined piece of literature at all (which is why Matthew and Luke keep trying to improve it).
The traditional view that Matthew wrote the Logia (I take to be Q) and Mark basically wrote down Peter's preaching fits the evidence pretty well.
We need not take the early Church tradition as gospel, but there's no reason to be apriori suspicious either, especially if the evidence fits.
Roman, I'm probably not going to say much about Q, but I've never seen good evidence for Quelle. I think John Meier issued the reminder that Q is a hypothetical document. Maybe ancient writers alluded to Q, as you say, but no ancient writer explicit mentions it and we have no archeological fragments of Q yet. I don't know. The highly speculative nature of Q has long stood out to me.
This article examines both sides of the Q debate: https://michaeljkruger.com/what-should-we-make-of-the-hypothetical-q-source/#:~:text=If%20Q%20existed%20(and%20can,so%20interested%20in%20this%20question.
I deleted the Carrier material about Quelle. While I agree with much of what he says about Q, I find his approach less than scholarly and his language is abhorrent to me.
Additionally, this thread was supposed to be about codicies, papyri, and the Pastorals, etc.
Not exactly correct, Duncan: https://www.historyofinformation.com/detail.php?id=11
https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Codex
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/380846149_%27me_manus_una_capit%27_Martial_and_the_Codex
For now, I will point out that the documents in 2 Timothy 4:13 are likely Jewish scriptures. One scholar suggested that biblos and membranas potentially refer to the same thing.
Duncan, where does Kloppenborg say it's 50/50? As far as I have seen he sees it as the most plausible option.
Foster, you're right it's speculative, but any synoptic problem solution is speculative, and the speculation isn't based on nothing, it's posited like any other theory, as best explaining the evidence (just like any other synoptic solution), of course we can't be 100% sure, but with ancient history can one ever really be?
https://global.oup.com/us/companion.websites/9780190491949/resources/ans/app1/
Roman, you're correct that history is not 100%, but I'd feel better about Q if we had an actual fragment or explicit testimony from one of the fathers or Jerome. However, it's not a big issue for me. 🙂
https://www.academia.edu/81046131/Marcion_s_Gospel_and_the_History_of_Early_Christianity_The_Devil_is_in_the_Reconstructed_Details
https://jbtc.org/v27/TC-2022-Klinghardt-Roth.pdf
To say that the conclusions are being destroyed is an overstatement. What evidence is there for Marcionite priority besides hypotheses and assertions? There is certainly no textual or corroborating evidence.
Foster, I would say that Papias's Mathew just is a reference to Q :).
Duncan, does he ever say that in writing? I mean he has in writing argued for the 2 source being the best solution, I find that strange if he really thought it was only 50/50.
I haven't researched much on the Marcionite priority material, however just to through it out there, it being shorter is not evidence that it's earlier at all, almost every pericope from Mark is shorter in Matthew and Luke, that's not evidence that Matthew and Luke's versions are earlier.
Okay Roman :-)
Here's something that might help with the Kloppenborg question: https://repository.up.ac.za/bitstream/handle/2263/23913/02chapter2.pdf?sequence=3
btw, I know it's common that people repeat that very few people were literate in the greco-roman near east (I actually think these literacy studies are very much drawing a lot from generalizations, so one cannot really put too much weight on them. But here is an important qualification from Kloppenborg, which should make one immediately suspicious when someone claims it's impossible that the gospel documents came from lower class and rural sources:
"It is not simply that large sectors of the population knew about written communication. Recent studies of literacy in the Roman world suggest that literacies, although admittedly restricted numerically, were not segregated into discrete sectors by language, function and social register. On the contrary, various levels of literacy below full scribal literacy are attested.
. . .
It would be absurd, however, to imagine that Galileans who needed loan documents, or tax receipts or divorce document, routinely travelled to Jerusalem to obtain these, any more than that peasants, artisans and tenants in the Fayum or the Oxyrhynchite nome travelled to Alexandria each time they needed a loan! The development of writing practices was not autochthonic in rural areas but was the result of the power that the city exerted on the countryside. This power created the need for financial reporting and record-keeping, which in turn created the need for a scribal sector which could accommodate those needs. The common refrain in Graeco-Egyptian legal instruments, “x wrote this because y is illiterate”49, is testimony to the presence in towns and villages of such scribes.
. . .
The scribes whose existence we must posit to render our data intelligible are other literate (or semi-literate) persons, perhaps one or two in a village, who could be approached to prepare tax, loan, and lease documents, for a small charge51. Archival copies of these documents could then be filed with the κωμογραμματεύς.
https://www.academia.edu/38356011/_Oral_and_Literate_Contexts_for_the_Sayings_Gospel_Q_
The evidence for the Synoptics preceding is stronger than the Marcionite hypothesis/reconstruction: https://www.academia.edu/41107356/MARCION_AND_NEW_TESTAMENT_CANON
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00145246211017544?icid=int.sj-abstract.similar-articles.5#:~:text=Marcion%20and%20the%20Canonical%20Gospels%20%2D%20Paul%20Foster%2C%202021
We can play this game all day, but I think you're mistaken. Here's a quote that I could replicate:
As a revision of Luke (majority view)
This still appears to be the view of most scholars today. According to this view, Marcion eliminated the first two chapters of Luke concerning the nativity, and began his gospel at Capernaum making modifications to the remainder suitable to Marcionism.
While we're at it, I think Vinzent's work is garbage, being rife with unsupported hypotheses. He does have a good imagination.
Marcionite Priority is still a minority position and I am pretty confident that the upcoming fruitage of Patristica will not substantiate the hypothesis that he came before the Synoptics. It's pretty difficult to posit that Marcion wrote before the Gospels when everything we know about Marcion comes from the hands of others. There are no fragments made by his own hand. And again, we get in the weeds when this thread had nothing to do with Marcion.
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevin-deyoung/marcion-getting-unhitched-old-testament/
If there's nothing else to be said about 2 Timothy 4:13, I will close the thread. Thank you.
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