![]() ![]() Head ("The Date of the Magdalen Papyrus of Matthew (P. Thiede published his findings in an article titled "Papyrus Magdalen Greek 17 (Gregory-Aland P64): A Reappraisal," TynB 46 (1995) 29-42, though Thiede’s article was originally published in ZPE 105 (1995) 13-20, and a book followed: Der Jesus- Papyrus, by Thiede and Matthew D'Ancona.Īccording to Peter M. ![]() The papyrus contained a couple verses from the gospel of Matthew, and Thiede identified it as coming from a codex, an ancient form of book, with writing on both sides of the papyrus.Īs with most "discoveries," Thiede's findings were and are contested. ![]() With technologically sophisticated measurements he dated the fragment to the first century AD. Thiede took a "second look" at the Magdalen papyrus which was housed at Magdalen College in the UK. More often than not, passages of scriptures are found on papyrus fragments, fragments of codices, palimpsests, and the occasional scroll. Generally speaking, manuscripts will occasionally comprise a complete "book" (or almost a complete book, as in the "Great Isaiah Scroll" from the cave at Qumran near the Dead Sea), but other than that, the oldest complete copy of the Old Testament came over a thousand years after the Dead Sea Scrolls (see ). This fragment shows this blessing, at very least, was in its current form, no later than 600 BC, although some scholars insist that generalizing the blessing to the entire book would be an over-interpretation.Ĭomplete manuscripts of the scriptures are very rare, and the ones we do have are quite "late" in archeological terms. JEPD traditionally held that the Scriptures were composed over various authors between 1000 BC and 600 BC. The primary significance of the fragment is to put a "latest date" of composition on the Torah. In 2004, the scroll was unrolled and discovered to contain what is probably the oldest scripture we have - from 600 BC. (Personally, I favor the Qumran-as-an-Essene-community 200 BC interpretation.) It's text is essentially unchanged from what we have today, matching both the Masoretic Text and the Dead Sea Scrolls, which have been dated anywhere from 418 BC to 318 AD. To wit, it is a traditional blessing still used today: In 1979, Gabriel Barkay (or more properly his 13 year old assistant), unearthed the Ketef Hinnom, a small silver scroll containing the blessing in Numbers 6: 24 - 26. The Ketef Hinnom is typically dated to 600BC - prior even to the fall of Jerusalem. ![]()
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