Friday, April 05, 2024

Nongbri on the Crosby-Schøyen Codex

VARIANT READINGS: The Upcoming Sale of the Crosby-Schøyen Codex (Just How Old is this Book?).

In my recent post on the upcoming sale of the Coptic Crosby-Schøyen Codex, which contains 1 Peter and Jonah, I noted that it was "dated to 300 CE ±50 years (and such dating may still be overly precise)." In this post Brent Nongbri mentions that it has also be subjected to radiocarbon dating and that some evidence points to date being at the late end of that range. So this may be an unusual case when we can narrow the range of an undated ancient manuscript to within a couple of decades.

The articles on the sale claim that this codex contains the earliest copies of the two biblical books. Maybe so for Coptic translations. But I pointed out that there are earlier fragments of the original Hebrew of Jonah among the Dead Sea Scrolls (4QXIIa, 4QXIIf, and 4QXIIg).

Add to those Murabba‛at 88, which includes fragments of the Hebrew text of Jonah, and the Nahal Hever Scroll, which contains a Greek translation of the Minor Prophets, including part of Jonah. More of the latter scroll was found a few years ago in the Cave of Horror.

Now Brent notes that P.Bodmer 8 is arguably an older copy of 1 Peter in the original Greek.

He has many other observations about the codex, as well as photos, so do have a look at his post.

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