Regardless of the debate over Tischendorf's discovery of Sinaiticus, there is an interesting paper that will be read at the Society of Biblical Literature
(SBL) this November in Boston:
AnneMarie Luijendijk: A Dirty Little Secret: Sacred Scriptures as Trash
From her abstract:
"Papyrologists found numerous fragments of sacred scriptures thrown away at garbage heaps of ancient cities. While perhaps not a secret in the sense that scholars haves known that most of the earliest Christian manuscripts derive from ancient trash, this surprising fact has never received proper scholarly examination. Taking a down and dirty approach to fragments of New Testament and other early Christian writings, my paper offers a beginning at the discussion of the disuse of ancient manuscripts. I explore the implications of this practice posing social-historical questions about the owners and users of these texts and also about issues of sacredness and canonicity. In doing so, this paper nuances our understanding of early Christian usage of scriptural manuscripts."
This certainly should make one wonder and perhaps reconsider the value of such evidence when so many supposedly "important" and significant papyri derive from what are merely Egyptian rubbish heaps (a term used even by Deissmann). Food for thought.
AnneMarie Luijendijk: A Dirty Little Secret: Sacred Scriptures as Trash
From her abstract:
"Papyrologists found numerous fragments of sacred scriptures thrown away at garbage heaps of ancient cities. While perhaps not a secret in the sense that scholars haves known that most of the earliest Christian manuscripts derive from ancient trash, this surprising fact has never received proper scholarly examination. Taking a down and dirty approach to fragments of New Testament and other early Christian writings, my paper offers a beginning at the discussion of the disuse of ancient manuscripts. I explore the implications of this practice posing social-historical questions about the owners and users of these texts and also about issues of sacredness and canonicity. In doing so, this paper nuances our understanding of early Christian usage of scriptural manuscripts."
This certainly should make one wonder and perhaps reconsider the value of such evidence when so many supposedly "important" and significant papyri derive from what are merely Egyptian rubbish heaps (a term used even by Deissmann). Food for thought.
