Thu Feb 13 12:51:13 1997

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Date: Thu, 13 Feb 1997 11:43:11 -0700
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From: "Robert B. Waltz" 
Subject: Re: Parchment & papyrus
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On Thu, 13 Feb 1997, "Perry L. Stepp"  wrote:

>Robert Waltz said:
>
>> To say that parchment replaced papyrus at any given date is massively
>> oversimplified. If you check any of the lists of papyri and uncials,
>> you will see that papyri have been found from the second to the
>> seventh/eighth centuries. The first parchment manuscripts are found
>> in the third century, and of course continued to be used exclusively
>> till about the twelfth century, and occasionally thereafter.
>
>Robert, I think your statement might be misunderstood.  Parchments were in
>use far earlier than the date you give, *possibly* even for mss of the New
>Testament--although that's clearly not what you were talking about.  Note 2
>Tim 4.13, where the canonical Paul (to use Jim Oxford's term) asks for his
>books, especially TAS MEMBRANAS--this from 1st-2nd century, depending on
>which argument you buy.  (MEMBRANAS is the Greek transliteration of the
>Latin for parchments.)
>
>You're right to assign the date of the extant parchment mss of the New
>Testament to a later period--which was, of course, your intent.

Exactly. I was speaking of *recovered* items. Chances are that most
of the original NT documents were written on papyri (probably
on scrolls, in fact). So there were first century papyri.

By the second century, in all likelihood, the documents were being copied
on parchment in at least some places. And, of course, as the documents
came to be more and more highly venerated, they would be more and more
likely to be copied in elaborate form on parchment.

Copies on papyrus probably continued to be made for a very long time --
*after* the date of our last papyrus manuscript. But they were made
outside Egypt, and so have not survived.

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

                            Robert B. Waltz
                         waltzmn@skypoint.com

Want more loudmouthed opinions about textual criticism?
Try my web page: http://www.skypoint.com/~waltzmn
(A very rough draft of part of the Encyclopedia of NT Textual Criticism)

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