Subject: Re: Mss and Christian origins (fwd)

From: "James R. Adair" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 16 Feb 1996 10:55:51 -0500 (EST)

This message follows up a previous post concerning the use of the 
information garnered from the study of NT mss in areas other than textual 
criticism proper.

Jimmy Adair
Manager of Information Technology Services, Scholars Press
    and
Managing Editor of TELA, the Scholars Press World Wide Web Site
---------------> http://scholar.cc.emory.edu <-----------------

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 16 Feb 1996 10:39:39 EST
From: Larry W. Hurtado <[email-masked]>
To: Multiple recipients of list <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Mss and Christian origins

On Thu, 15 Feb 1996, Ian Hutchesson wrote:

> It's natural that one can get more information from the original mss, but
> one at least needs high quality photo reproductions of the pages of the
> manuscript to do so. We mere mortals who haven't got access to this sort of
> resource have to be content with that which we can access and use that the
> best we can.

Well, yes, to make the actual measurements of ms margins, and to date the 
scribal hand, etc., one does need either the actual ms or *good* photos, 
true.  But I'm not asking NT scholars to do this.  I'm wondering why more 
of us don't read and use this information, much of which has already been 
compiled and published in the critical editions of important mss.  Victor 
Martin's edition of P66, for example, has been out since 1956/1958.  P75 
was published not long afterward.  The Beatty Papyri have been in the 
public domain published since the mid-30s. 
	I'm not asking for NT scholars to be experts in paleography or 
codicology (I'm not), but I'm remarking how strange it is for scholars in 
a field to be quite so indifferent to the most readily available "realia" 
of the early Christians we purport to want to speak about.  We get all 
excited about this or that archaeological artefact, all the while not 
realizing that these early mss are major archaeological artefacts with 
*lots* of valuable info that can be analyzed and from which inferences 
can be made.

Larry Hurtado, Religion, Univ. of Manitoba