You really don't understand, do you? It is almost universally accepted, for example, that gMark is earlier than gJohn. But the earliest written evidence of any gospel is a fragment of gJohn, Rylands P52.
You really don't understand, do you? It is almost universally accepted, for example, that gMark is earlier than gJohn. But the earliest written evidence of any gospel is a fragment of gJohn, Rylands P52.
"Although Rylands 52 is generally accepted as the earliest extant record of a canonical New Testament text, the dating of the papyrus is by no means the subject of consensus among scholars. The style of the script is Hadrianic, which would suggest a most probable date somewhere between 117 CE and 138 CE. But the difficulty of fixing the date of a fragment based solely on paleographic evidence allows a much wider range, potentially extending from before 100 CE past 150 CE. [4]"
wiki.
And here we have a prime example of why one should
not site wiki
The [4] above is in reference to Nongbri, p. 46. Problem is that is NOT what Nongbri says.
Here are Nongbri's actual words on the matter:
"What I have done is to show that any serious consideration of the window of possible dates for P52 must include dates
in the later second and early third centuries."
The closest thing regarding a before 100 CE date on that page is in a footnote that says
"Schmidt's argument falters on this ground just as much as the arguments of those who want an overly specific early date for the papyrus. Schmidt claims ("Zwei Anmerkungen," 11) that paléographie similarity between p52 and P. Chester Beatty X and III (each paleographically dated to the third century) would exclude a date of 125 C.E. for p52. This claim is untrue. Nor would paléographie similarities to documents from 40 C.E. in any way rule out
a third-century date for p52.
Such examples would simply increase the range of possible dates for p52 and confirm my thesis that we should avoid building arguments on unrealistically specific dates proposed for papyri
Earlier in the article (pg 27) it is said "Andreas Schmidt has proposed that the similarities between P52 and P. Chester Beatty X and ΙΠ might suggest
a considerably later date of around 170 CE. for p52."
So the reference is in regard to the "arguments of those who want an overly specific early date for the papyrus." pointing out that any
hypothetical paléographie similarities match with documents from 40 C.E. would still not rule out a third-century date.
In short the reference cited does NOT support what it is being used for and is therefore being used in a
fraudulent manner. The actual range for P52 (as I have pointed out before) should be 125-225 CE.
with regards to Paleography itself:
"Paleography is a
last resort for dating" and "for book hands,
a period of 50 years is the least acceptable spread of time"[4][5] with it being suggested that "the "rule of thumb" should probably be to avoid dating a hand more precisely than
a range of at least seventy or eighty years."[6]
In an 2005 e-mail addendum to his 1996 "The Paleographical Dating of P-46" paper Bruce W. Griffin stated "Until more rigorous methodologies are developed,
it is difficult to construct a 95% confidence interval for NT manuscripts without allowing a century for an assigned date."[7]
William M Schniedewind went even further in the abstract to his 2005 paper "Problems of Paleographic Dating of Inscriptions" and stated that "The so-called science of paleography often relies on circular reasoning because
there is insufficient data to draw precise conclusion about dating. Scholars also tend to oversimplify diachronic development, assuming models of simplicity rather than complexity".[8]
References:
Turner, Eric G. (1987), Greek Manuscripts of the Ancient World (2d rev. ed.; London: Institute of Classical Studies
Nongbr, Brent (2005) "The Use and Abuse of P52: Papyrological Pitfalls in the Dating of the Fourth Gospel." Harvard Theological Review 98:24.
Nongbr, Brent (2005) "The Use and Abuse of P52: Papyrological Pitfalls in the Dating of the Fourth Gospel." Harvard Theological Review 98:24.
Griffin, Bruce W. (1996), "The Paleographical Dating of P-46"
Schniedewind, William M. (2005) "Problems of Paleographic Dating of Inscriptions" in Thomas Levy, Thomas Higham (ed) (2014) The Bible and Radiocarbon Dating: Archaeology, Text and Science Routledge.
