Jewish and Christian Scripture as Artifact and Canon
August 18th, 2009 by Andrew Bernhard under Oxyrhynchus Parchment 840. No Comments.
I’m always a fan of books on manuscripts related to the study of early Christianity, and a new one from my favorite publisher (NOTE: they published my book) looks outstanding:
Evans, Craig A, and H. Daniel Zacharias, eds. Jewish and Christian Scripture as Artifact and Canon. London: T & T Clark, 2009.
The publisher’s website offers the following summary:
Jewish and Christian Scripture as Artifact and Canon constitutes a collection of studies that reflect and contribute to the growing scholarly interest in manuscripts as artifacts and witnesses to early stages in Jewish and Christian understanding of sacred scripture.
Scholars and textual critics have in recent years rightly recognized the contribution that ancient manuscripts make to our understanding of the development of canon in its broadest and most inclusive sense. The studies included in this volume shed significant light on the most important questions touching the emergence of canon consciousness and written communication in the early centuries of the Christian church. The concern here is not in recovering a theoretical “original text” or early “recognized canon,” but in analysis of and appreciation for texts as they actually circulated and were preserved through time. Some of the essays in this collection explore the interface between canon as theological concept, on the one hand, and canon as reflected in the physical/artifactual evidence, on the other. Other essays explore what the artifacts tell us about life and belief in early communities of faith. Still other studies investigate the visual dimension and artistic expressions of faith, including theology and biblical interpretation communicated through the medium of art and icon in manuscripts. The volume also includes scientific studies concerned with the physical properties of particular manuscripts. These studies will stimulate new discussion in this important area of research and will point students and scholars in new directions for future work.
The table of contents is listed as:
- Introduction — C. A. Evans and H. D. Zacharias
- John P. Flanagan, “Papyrus 967 and the Text of Ezekiel: Parablepsis or an Original Text?”
- Gregg Schwendner, “A Fragmentary Psalter from Karanis and its Context”
- Thomas Kraus, “‘He that dwelleth in the help of the Highest’: Septuagint Psalm 90 and the Iconographic Program on Byzantine Armbands”
- Don Barker, “Another Look at Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 1353?”
- Scott D. Charlesworth, “Public and Private — Second and Third-Century Gospel Manuscripts”
- Pamela Shellberg, “A Johannine Reading of Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 840”
- Peter Arzt-Grabner, “‘I was intending to visit you, but . . .’: Clauses Explaining Delayed Visits and their Importance in Papyrus Letters and in Paul”
- Annette Bourland Huizenga, “Advice to the Bride: Moral Exhortation for Young Wives in Two Ancient Letters”
- Marianne Schleicher, “Transitions between Artifactual and Hermeneutical Use of Scripture”
- Larry Hurtado, “Early Christian Manuscripts of Biblical Texts as Artifacts”
- Stephen Reed, “Physical and Visual Features of Dead Sea Scrolls Scriptural Texts”
- Eduard Iricinschi, “‘A thousand books will be saved’: Manichean Manuscripts and Religious Propaganda in the Roman Empire”
- Kirsten Nielsen, “The Danish Hymnbook: Artifact and Text”
- David Chalcraft, “Some Biblical Artifacts in Search of a Sociological Theory”
- Dorina Miller Parmenter, “The Bible as Icon: Myths of the Divine Origin of Scripture”
- Peter M. Head, “Letter Carriers in the Ancient Jewish Epistolary Material”
- Juan Hernández, “The Apocalypse in Codex Sinaiticus”
The whole volume looks fascinating and there are a number of different essays that I am eager to read. However, the one that initially caught my attention (perhaps, because it is directly relevant to this blog) was:
Shellberg, Pamela. “A Johannine Reading of Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 840.” In Jewish and Christian Scripture as Artifact and Canon. Edited by Craig A Evans and H. Daniel Zacharias. London: T & T Clark, 2009.
A Johannine Reading of Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 840? That is a new one, to me at least. The manuscript fragment (which is actually parchment) preserves a part of an early Christian gospel that describes a dispute about purity between Jesus and a Pharisee. Jesus asserts that purity is not to be obtained through external rituals or cleansings but through internal purification of the heart. Jesus’s statement to the Pharisee in P.Oxy. 840,
Woe, blind people who do not see! You have bathed in the very same gushing waters dogs lie night and day. And you have washed and cleansed the outer layer of skin – this is the layer that prostitutes and flute-girls anoint, bathe, cleanse and adorn to arouse the lust of men, even though they are filled with scorpions and every kind of wickedness on the inside
has often been seen as similiar to his statement in Matthew 23:25-26
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean” (cf. Luke 11:39-40).
I’m not exactly sure what a “Johannine reading” of P.Oxy. 840 would be . . . but I’m eager to find out!
