A Work of Origen Was Copied and Used by Jews

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stephan happy huller
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A Work of Origen Was Copied and Used by Jews

Post by stephan happy huller »

http://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-TS-00012-00182/1

I know we can look at this and say 'so what' but when you couple this with the other story of the Hexapla being found in a public library in Tyre the implications again is that Christian works weren't exclusively Christian. They were part of a philosophical/religious culture which weren't entirely exclusive. The development of the Yosippon from Josephus is another example of this at a later date.
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andrewcriddle
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Re: A Work of Origen Was Copied and Used by Jews

Post by andrewcriddle »

stephan happy huller wrote:http://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-TS-00012-00182/1

I know we can look at this and say 'so what' but when you couple this with the other story of the Hexapla being found in a public library in Tyre the implications again is that Christian works weren't exclusively Christian. They were part of a philosophical/religious culture which weren't entirely exclusive. The development of the Yosippon from Josephus is another example of this at a later date.
It is fascinating, but I'm not sure that using Origen as a palimpsest necessarily implies that the text was highly valued.

This text of the Hexapla is apparently 7th century which could mean a date before the Islamic conquests. I wonder if this text was originally written in the library at Caesarea.

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avi
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Re: A Work of Origen Was Copied and Used by Jews

Post by avi »

Thanks for that comment Andrew, perceptive, as always, on your part.

I had wondered the same thing about that palimpset, and in particular, whether or not one could distinguish something written by Origen in Caesarea versus Alexandria, given that he lived in both places.

Here is an article on genetic variance of papyrus, it is written in Portugese, but the techniques are identical to those used in all modern genetics laboratories, so: isolate DNA, PCR amplification, gel electrophoresis, analysis of variance:
http://www.scielo.br/pdf/rbb/v33n2/a10v33n2.pdf

It should be possible to perform that study on this document as well, however, what would one conclude, upon recovering the data, comparing it with papyrus from Oxyrhynchus for example? Even if it were determined that the Papyrus were closer in genetic makeup to samples known to be from regions proximate to Caesarea, how would we know that THIS particular papyrus had not been written by Origen in Alexandria, rather than Caesarea?

When he fled Alexandria, did Origen not transport, with him, his Hexapla, bringing it to Caesarea? Upon his death, were not his valuable documents dispersed, throughout the Greek /Christian universe, including Alexandria? How would we know whether this particular palimpset had been written by Origen himself, or copied, after his death?

I doubt that it would be especially instructive, to know the geographic locale of the papyrus' origin, for, weren't the distribution of this writing material tightly controlled and regulated in the third century CE?
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MrMacSon
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Re: A Work of Origen Was Copied and Used by Jews

Post by MrMacSon »

stephan happy huller wrote:http://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-TS-00012-00182/1

I know we can look at this and say 'so what' but, when you couple this with the other story of the Hexapla being found in a public library in Tyre, the implications again is that [early] Christian works weren't exclusively Christian. They were part of a philosophical/religious culture which weren't entirely exclusive. The development of the Yosippon from Josephus is another example of this at a later date.
I think this is a really good point: in learning about theology of the times - say, 500BC/BCE to, say, 500AD/CE it seems a lot was quite fluid in both Judaism and, then AD/CE, developing of Christianity.
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