Mon Feb 17 05:33:57 1997

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From: "Professor L.W. Hurtado" 
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J. Kilmon wrote:

> 	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.

N.B.  Christians didn't "invent" the codex; it had been used 
for some time, but primarily for non-formal writing, such as 
notes, etc.  Earliest was the bundle of wax tablets, 
thereafter parchment codices.  Martial even refers to 
experiments with the codex for publication of literary works 
but suggests this didn't catch on.  Christians appropriated 
the codex-format and seem to have *used* it programmatically 
far earlier than any other group.  WhY?
Various possibile scenarios have been suggested.  They fall basically 
into 2 types:  (1) The Christians may have intended some 
socially/religiously defining significance--Torah is to be written on 
scrolls, so the Christian writings were put in anothe format to 
distinguish them, either as Christian or as something other than 
"scripture"?  (2) Christians appropriated the codex for practical 
reasons, such as the one Kilmon sketched.  But remember that scrolls 
can be prepared with more than one book (e.g., the "book of the 12", 
the "minor Prophetes" are written on one scroll in ancient times).  
Codices did come to be made that could handle a larger amount of 
texts and more writings than is practical for scrolls, but the 
earliest Christian codices are quite a bit smaller and more modest 
than the grand 4th cent ones!
THose interested really could start with the C.H. Roberts, T.C Skeat 
volume, _THe Birth of the Codex_.

L. W. Hurtado
University of Edinburgh,
New College
Mound Place 
Edinburgh, Scotland EH1 2LX
Phone: 0131-650-8920
Fax: 0131-650-6579
E-mail:  L.Hurtado@ed.ac.uk

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