[b-greek] Re: Original NT in Greek?

From: Jack Kilmon (jkilmon@historian.net)
Date: Mon Apr 23 2001 - 16:03:00 EDT


----- Original Message -----
From: "Keith Thompson" <keitht@kneptune.demon.co.uk>
To: "Biblical Greek" <b-greek@franklin.oit.unc.edu>
Sent: Monday, April 23, 2001 8:02 AM
Subject: [b-greek] Original NT in Greek?

> Hi!
> Sorry I can't remember what the original subject name was.
> I read somewhere on the Internet that there was a fragment of Matthew's
> gospel from the middle of the first century, I think it said it was in a
> British museum. This is alleged to be from the actual original book of
> Matthew (written in Greek), does anybody know if there's any truth in
> this claim?

In 1901 Charles Huleat bought 3 papyrus fragments from an antiquities dealer
in Luxor, Egypt and donated them to Magdalen College at Oxford where they
remained
mostly unnoticed until C.H. Roberts published on them in 1953.

C. H. Roberts, "An Early Papyrus of the First Gospel" Harvard Theological
Review 46,
(1953) 233-237.

They were designated P64 and dated to the 2nd century CE. The three
fragments
contain (recto and verso) segments of Mt 26.

Roberts also published on P67 (Barcelona), 2 fragments containing segments
of
Mt 3 and 5 from the same scribe and codex. Another portion of this same
codex is P4 in
Paris, also obtained in Luxor.

Carston Thiede and a sensationalist journalist, Matthew d'Ancona published a
book
in 1996 titled "Eyewitness to Jesus" claiming that these papyrus fragments
date to
the mid 1st century based on their speculative dating of the zierstil
biblical uncial
script. An online review can be found at:


http://www.bowness.demon.co.uk/thiede.htm

..and Bruce Metzger gives a scathing review in the August 1996 issue of
Bible Review.

I consider the Thiede/d'Ancona "theory" to be "National Enquirer"
scholarship.



> Also someone mentioned there was 'Greek word play' which is not
> possible in Hebrew or Aramaic in Matthew 16 and John 21, what exactly is
> this?

Which verses? Mark 16 is unfinished or lost from 16:9 on and appended
with a non-Markan ending (several versions). John 21 is also an appendix
not part of the original.

Jack


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