Peter Kirby wrote: ↑Sun Jul 15, 2018 4:05 am
It’s a fragment of Against Heresies.
I realise that. I would like to know if it has been specifically dated and, if so, on what basis. I have recently been wondering if paleography of early Christian texts such as P Oxy 405 is a biased methodology b/c it is both self-referencing and based on assumed or likely dates.
It is said to have been the earliest witness to the text of the New Testament when it was discovered [2006
interview with Dan Wallace (about textual criticism and in which he discussed the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts he started in 2002)].
In that interview, Wallace says -
.. scholars [have been urged] to take a closer look at the minuscules. Of course, they are so inaccessible that the trumpet sound hardly causes a stir ...
... much work needs to be done on the lectionaries. Every once in a while, scholars will speak of the value of the lectionaries, but they still are hardly getting looked at.
Other tasks remain, such as making a more careful distinction between a patristic commentary and a minuscule text with commentary. Sometimes the difference between classifying a manuscript as a father or a minuscule with commentary is very slight. Kurt Aland reversed his own decisions on such matters more than once. But since minuscules are considered far more important than fathers, the very label can be the death knell of an otherwise important manuscript.
As well, there are several other kinds of witnesses to the text of the New Testament that have been ruled out of court. No one considers them any more, but they should be given their due. For example, P.Oxy 405, if I recall, is a late second century/early third century papyrus that includes a quotation from Matt 3. At the time of its discovery, it was the oldest manuscript to witness to the text of the New Testament. But it doesn’t get mentioned because there is no classification for it.
Unfortunately, we are very much in the dark regarding versions. There are probably thousands of versional witnesses to the New Testament that have not been catalogued ...
.
.
DBW: .. There is a widening chasm between the church and the academy over biblical studies in general and textual criticism in particular. When the Jesus Seminar produced The Five Gospels it rattled people because they had no context in which to place the discussion, no sense that these scholars were for the most part too liberal for most liberals, and no knowledge that conservative scholarly treatments of the life of Jesus existed ... More recently and more relevant for textual criticism, Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus has shaken up a lot of people. But if we tell people that they don’t need to worry about such tomes, that everything is under control, we simply confirm them in their prejudices
Peter Head made a comment at the bottom of that webpage
... POxy 405 is a ms of Irenaeus; and Irenaeus is cited at Matt 3.17 certainly in dependence on this manuscript [different from Irlat cited in v16].
I don't understand what what Head wrote means, eg. how can Irenaeus be "cited at Matt 3.17" ?? or how is that premise related to "certainly in dependence on this manuscript" ??
Head had written a little about
P.Oroxy 405 in in 1995 relation to it being used to date P64 -
Peter M. Head (1995) 'The Date of the Magdalen Papyrus of Matthew (
P. Magd. Gr. 17 = P64): a response to C.P. Thiede'
Tydndale Bulletin, 46(2); 251-285.
Available as an immediately downloaded Word.doc ie. when on clicks on the link
http://tyndalehouse.com/tynbul/library/ ... rusMat.DOC
There is also
Andreas Scemidt (1991) Der Mögliche Text Von P. Oxy. III 405, Z. 39–45
New Testament Studies 37(1), p. 160
Extract
Die Entstehung des P. Oxy. III 405 ‘is not later than the first half of the third century, and might be as old as the latter part of the second.’ Er umfaßt sieben Fragmente und zeigt unter anderem eine Parallele zu Mt 3. 16 f. Ich befasse mich mit den Zeilen 39–45 ['It includes seven fragments and shows, among other things, a 'parallel' to Mt 3. 16 f. I will deal with lines 39-45'].
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals ... 66825C2B5C
John Bartram has a webpage dedicated to
P. Oxy 405:
https://sites.google.com/site/originsof ... ynchus-405
He refers to Scemidt's paper, but has
Abstract: Grenfell and Hunt's reconstruction of the text of P. Oxy. III 405, lines 39-45, is based on J. A. Robinson's identification of it as a fragment of Irenaeus,
Contra Haereses. The papayrus text is too short, however. A clearly visible abbreviation sign leads instead to the conclusion that the text preserves a variant of Matt 1:22-25, and
represents a Christianization of the LXX citation made there. (German) (c) Religious and Theological Abstracts
So that's three separate passages of gMatthew mentioned in relation to
P. Oxy 405:
Matt 1:22-25; 3:16; 3:17,
Head's 1995 paper has footnote 76 which is -
OxyPap III (1903) 10-11 and plate 1 (P. Oxy 405 = Cambridge University Library MS Add. 4413). Grenfell & Hunt edited it, as an unidentified theological work; the manuscript was subsequently identified as Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. iii.9 by J.A. Robinson in Athenaeum (Oct. 24, 1903), noted and re-edited in OxyPap IV (1904) 264-65.
and fn 77 -
For a recent brief discussion of the date of the work [P.Oxy 405], see D.J. Unger & J.J. Dillon, St. Irenaeus of Lyons Against the Heresies (Ancient Christian Writers No. 55; NY: Paulist, 1992) 3-4. Cf. Roberts’ later comment that the treatise must have reached Oxyrhynchus ‘not long after the ink was dry on the author’s manuscript’, C.H. Roberts, Manuscript, 53; see also his ‘Early Christianity in Egypt: Three Notes’, Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 40 (1952) 94
Previously, fn 63 says -
... Roca-Puig appealed to P. Oxy 1179, P.Oxy 661, P. Dura 2, P. Oxy 405 [to date P64].