Fri Feb 14 13:48:22 1997

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Date: Fri, 14 Feb 1997 12:48:16 -0600
From: Jack Kilmon 
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Subject: Re: Parchment & papyrus
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Professor L.W. Hurtado wrote:
> 
> Ron Minton wrote:
> 
> >  My studies indicate that the early Christians
> > invented the codex or at least were the first to widely use it.  It is of
> > course difficult to prove a negative like this.
> 
>  See, e.g., C.H. Roberts, _The Birth of the Codex_.
> 
> > As I recall, the only NT manuscripts that are not codices are P12, P13,
> > P18, P22, and majuscule 0212; and the oldest NT papyrus is P41, an
> > eighth century Greek and Coptic diglott fragment of Acts 17:22.
> 
> "So wholeheartedly did they [Christians] embrace it [the codex] that
> only three or possibly five of the more than 150 surviving biblical
> MSS in Greek of the pre-400 date produced by Christians are not
> codices" [footnote 43 lists Stud. Pal. 15.234 (Psalms) and PAlex.
> inv. 203 (Isaiah), plus P98 and perhaps P93 and P97].  G.H.R.
> Horsley, "Classical Manuscripts in australia & New Zealand, and the
> Early History of the Codex," _Antichthon:  Journal of the Australian
> Society for Classical studies_ 27(1995): 60-85 [quote from p. 78].


	Somewhere near the turn of the 2nd century, Christians in either
Antioch or Ephesus gathered copies of the NT writings that had been
circulating among the churches to "collate" them.  Apparently concerned
that some would be lost (as some were) by individual circulation, I
wonder
if the "invention" of the codex was not a device to keep the collection
together.  The "deutero-pauline" book of Ephesians, a revised
Colossians,
may have been a "cover letter" to that collection.

Thoughts?

Jack Kilmon
JPMan@accesscomm.net

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