Greek Scribal Culture in Early Jewish and Early Christian Settings: Continuities and Discontinuities

for the conference on The Early Christian Book at the Catholic University of America, 7 June 2002

Early Christian groups and practices did not develop in a vacuum. Judaism, in its various forms, provided the immediate background for much that we call "early Christianity." We often hear and say such things, but do not always pursue the implications. With reference to the adoption and development of "book culture" in early Christian circles, questions about Jewish influences are seldom explored in any depth with regard to the extant physical remains. This presentation is part of an ongoing effort to look more closely at what has been preserved from pre-Christian Jewish Greek writings in an attempt to ascertain the extent to which continuities as well as discontinuities with early Christian materials are likely.

The evidence under discussion is contained in my evolving electronic collection of ancient fragments and modern claims (several versions appear below), which is already too extensive to receive complete and detailed attention here. Thus I have chosen to focus on the following aspects for this presentation:

1. For the most part, the Greek Jewish materials available to us are of very "professional" quality, reflecting highly developed scribal traditions in an established book-conscious segment of the Greco-Roman populace. We do not seem to be dealing with something relatively new or amateurish in Jewish Greek circles (the evidence is from Palestine and Egypt). In the early Roman period (as early Christianity developed), literary scripts in general tended to be less ornamented and more simple, which is probably important to note when attempting to compare the early Jewish hands with somewhat later and less formal Christian and/or Jewish examples.

2. Within these Greek Jewish scribal materials, certain unusual features (relative to other attested Greco-Roman literary practices) are present -- such as the use of spacing and other physical indicators between some phrases or even words -- that appear also in some early Christian Greek texts but more rarely in non-Jewish and non-Christian literary texts. Might this indicate some sort of continuity of scribal practice from Judaism into early Christianity? Note that there is also variety in such practice within the Jewish materials -- we are not positing a homogeneous Jewish scribal culture by any means, whatever its level of sophistication.

3. Another feature that occurs frequently in the early Jewish materials (including Semitic fragments!) concerns the special treatment of words or names denoting deity (especially the "tetragrammaton," YHWH) -- and this did not go unnoticed among the practitioners of what we often classify as "magic." Whether and to what extent such attitudes may be seen as the background of the development in Christian scribal circles of the "nomina sacra" is worth exploring as another possible aspect of continuities. Again, this evidence fortifies the impression that Jewish scribal practice was quite varied, but also indicates a widespread, shared concern for the special nature of certain types of expression.

4. This brings us to the transition from scroll to codex, something known to be taking place in parts of the Greco-Roman world already in the first century of the common era, and also well publicized as a practice that quickly became somewhat "normal" in many early Christian circles. While hard evidence has not yet surfaced to connect this as well to Greek Judaism, the possible patterns of continuity between Greek Jewish scribal practices and early Christian texts suggests that the possibility should not be ignored that codex technology was also part of the heritage early Christian copyists adapted from their Jewish predecessors.

Concluding Observations

As we attempt to learn more about early Judaism in its varieties, and the relationship between those Jewish varieties and early Christian developments, we should not ignore this type of evidence, which can also make significant contributions to the continually emerging "overall picture." My impression, at this point, is that early Christian scribal practice owed a huge debt to earlier Jewish developments, probably including the use of such aids to reading as spacing (and similar markers) and the impetus for special treatment of special names and words, and possibly even the interest in the new codex technology. Such things didn't happen in a vacuum. And Judaism, in its various forms, provides the most obvious and most available seedbed for early Christian development.

---[another version of the same]

Selected Issues and Features of Early Greek Scriptural MSS

for the "History of Material Texts" Presentation at UPenn on 18 February 2002

My presentation will look at Greek Jewish and early Christian examples of scriptures up to the fifth century, including the move from scrolls to codices, and the scribal cultures that produced them. Color pictures from the internet will be a part of the presentation. Attention will be paid to continuities and discontinuities in the transmission of biblical texts between Judaism and Christianity.

Continuities from Greek Judaism to Early Christianity:

Content -- Jewish scriptures (plural!), somewhat loosely defined.
Language -- by definition of the topic, we are dealing with Greek materials.
Material -- papyri and parchment/leather
General Style of Letter Formation -- uncial (majuscule) writing

Discontinuities? or perhaps simply Transitions?

The Argument (oversimplified): early Christians quickly adopted the codex format (why? convenience, costs, distinctiveness, lowclass) and developed writing features more akin to "documentary" habits (see Rylands G.John, Bodmer G.Luke-G.John and Chester Beatty G.John MSS from ca 200 ce) than to developed Greek literary usage (why? social & cultural levels). As time went on, and clearly by mid 4th century, Christian scribal practice developed its own sopisticated characteristic features (e.g. "Biblical Unical" style, multi volumed mega-codices such as Vaticanus (also here), Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus (also here), and Washingtonensis).

Scroll to Codex (format) --
   What is the earliest example of a Jewish scriptural codex?
   Are there examples of early Christian scriptural scrolls?

Levels of stylistic sophistication in letter formation (paleography) --
   When do early Christian scriptural texts display highly developed style?
   Do Jewish Greek scriptural texts ever display "coarser" styles?
   Is the tendency to cursive forms and ligatures unusually present in early Christian texts?

Tetragrammaton -- in various forms in Greek MSS (paleo-Hebrew, square script, transliteration, etc.)
   Did Jewish scriptural texts use Greek "Lord" (KURIOS)?
   Did early Christian scriptural texts use Tetragrammaton (YHWH -- see Greek PIPI [PIPI] texts)?
   Whence did "magic" practioners derive their versions?

Nomina sacra (special terms) --  
   Are these practices related to the development of "nomina sacra" shorthand?
   Do Jewish Greek scriptural texts exhibit any use of "nomina sacra"?

Abbreviated numbers and common words (condensation) --
   Did Jewish scriptural texts ever use abbreviated numbers (letters as numbers)?
   Did early Christian scriptural texts ever use spelled-out numbers?

Scriptio continua, marginal breaks, diacritics, etc.--
   Was the use of spacing between phrases, words, etc., standard Jewish practice?
   To what extent do early Christian scriptural copies use unspaced Greek?
   How do Christian texts use line formatting, maginal marks, enlarged letters, etc.?
   How extensive was use of marginal markings in non-Christian (Jewish & other) texts?
   What is the evidence for the early use of diacritics (breathings, accents, dieresis)?

Conclusions:

A large part of the problem is inability to identify clearly the evidence (what is "Jewish," what is "Christian"?). It is reasonable to suppose that early Christian copyists learned from Jewish Greek predecessors from whom they also received scriptural and other texts and/or that some professional Jewish copyists may have joined the early Christian groups (as also some non Jewish professional copyists). Another part of the problem is our desire to simplify, despite our recognition that life then, as now, was not simple. Some people, scholars included, sometimes also feel the need to priviledge some streams of history over others -- in this case, it is important to some theorists that Christianity make its unique contribution to the developments. My own take on it is that most of the developments cited as evidence are either general tendencies in the Greco-Roman world of that time, or are most easily understood as developments from the practice of some Jewish scribal groups that somehow influenced early Christian practice. The evidence is still indecisive, but there is enough of it to call into question the older simplifications.

//end of this summary presentation//

Format Features in the Earliest Jewish Greek Literary Papyri and Related Materials

BRIEF PRESENTATION VERSION:

The larger context. --

The setting in scholarly discussion. --

The Jewish evidence. --

Summary of the findings. --

2. There is occasional use on the left margin of "paragraph" markers ("paragraphoi") and enlarged letters ("ekthesis"), and even of more elaborate marginal markings (like the "coronis"), again similar to what is witnessed in other Greek manuscripts from the same period.

3. Some of the Jewish manuscripts even exhibit such special scribal features as the use of iota adscript, employment of the trema/dieresis, marks to identify proper names and to separate adjacent hard consonants in them, and the like -- again, generally in step with the literary world around them.

4. At obvious variance with the general trends in that surrounding literary world as it is represented to us in scholarly presentations, however, is the virtually universal practice in the Jewish manuscripts of the use of spacing (blank spaces within the writing block) to separate sections, word groups, and in one case, separation of even the individual words themselves. That is, the non-use (or at best, inconsistent use) of "scriptio continua" (uninterrupted flow of letters). My friend and colleage, Emanuel Tov, has looked carefully at this phenomenon in the Jewish and Christian biblical materials through the 4th century and suggests a close correlation with features of the Hebrew text from which the Greek was translated. Interestingly, even Jewish texts not (yet) identified as biblical (or as translated from Semitic) also seem to attest this spacing practice. While it is true that some (many?) documents (non-literary examples) in this period make use of sense divisions, and even word divisions, it is no longer satisfactory simply to attribute the phenomenon in the Jewish materials to "documentary" influence. Whatever its origins, it seems to come to us as part of a widespread and refined literary tradition represented strongly by these Jewish texts.

5. Does the preponderance of evidence, then, encourage us to posit a relatively homogeneous "Jewish" approach to such features of literary production -- relatively fixed "Jewish features" throughout the represented world? Another related factor causes serious hesitation: where these Jewish materials preserve relevant passages, they invariably give special treatment to the deity's special Hebrew designation, the so-called tetragrammaton (Hebrew YHWH) -- but the treatments differ! At least on this point, no universal rule among the Jewish scribes and copyists can be detected, not even in the texts found together in the Judean Desert, where the situation is similarly varied in the Hebrew and Aramaic manuscripts. We do not know enough about what people actually spoke when they encountered a form of the tetragrammaton, although it became traditional in Hebrew to say ADONAI ("Lord"), and in Greek KURIOS ("Lord"). Was this also the practice of Greek readers who encountered the Greek letters IAW? We cannot tell. It is likely that less traditionally aware or informed users of such traditions, such as in "magical" formulae and perhaps in onomastic compilations, would have tried to pronounce the Greek letters, but this does not guarantee that those who were more familiar with the system and its significance would have done so.

6. But I digress. With the exception of the rendering of the tetragrammaton, these earliest Jewish materials show no tendency to contraction, abbreviation, or the like, or of representing numbers by letter symbols. More of this later.

7. Finally, all of the uncontested Jewish texts are written on scrolls (or possibly, sometimes, on smaller sheets written on one side only, as with amulets) made of papyrus or parchment. This occasions no surprise, since the emergence of the codex as a viable option only begins at the end of the period from which these Jewish materials come, at the time when Christianity also is emerging and complicating the picture in certain ways.

In sum, the uncontested Jewish Greek materials in some ways reflect the general features of Greco-Roman literary production in the pre-Christian period, but also have some unusual features of their own, and enough variety in those characteristically "Jewish" features that we cannot assume a firmly fixed "Jewish scribal tradition" as such in the period represented.

The "Christian" Factor. --

The general approach, however, has been that if something is in codex form and contains contractions for the divine name(s), it must be Christian, even if it is a fragment of Jewish scriptures. Furthermore, to the extent that "Christian" materials employ spacing to divide text into units, and gradually even employ punctuation and associated signs in addition, not to mention letter-numbers and "cursive" features in the formation and sequence (ligatures) of letters, the explanation of "documentary influence" also comes strongly into play. Without denying that such influences must have existed at various levels, I would like to call for reexamination of all these criteria in the context of the Jewish evidence.

1. In the Greco-Roman world at large, which for our purposes means mainly what we can tell of it from Egypt, the 2nd and 3rd centuries ce seem to attest a general "degeneration" in the use of the sorts of ornamented formal scripts that we found represented also in the earlier Jewish materials. There is a "revival" of sorts with the emergence of a very attractive "round formal" style in the 3rd century and beyond, which is well illustrated by the "biblical uncial/majuscule" of the great biblical codices of the 4th century. But it is not limited to clearly Christian texts, and at least one possibly Jewish text represents this style. Whether Jewish or Christian professionals in that period might also have been involved in the copying of classical/pagan texts, and vice-versa, is impossible to answer at this point. But it is probably fair to say that there is no compelling evidence that would permit us to trace continuities from the earlier Jewish "style" into the Christian period (for Jews or for Christians) -- that is, the evidence from the 2nd-3rd centuries does not exhibit either Jewish or Christian materials of the ornamental type -- or to deny that there may have been some coincidental simultaneous development or even interaction during that period -- as with the less ornamental hands. That is to say, the "style" criteria are inconclusive in themselves.

2. Nor is the codex criterion helpful. It is clear that Christians came to prefer this new format very early, almost from as early as we can see anyone using it. But could they have arrived at this situation by imitating Jewish techniques? That is certainly not impossible, given the highly ambiguous state of the evidence and the Jewish origins of early Christianity.

3. The use of spacing in both early Jewish and early Christian materials is more promising as possible evidence of continuity. In the period of modern scholarship before substantial evidence from Judaism was available, this was often explained as a "documentary" influence in early Christian writing conventions. This explanation no longer seems compelling.

4. We have already noted that Jewish practices regarding the tetragrammaton were known to Christians (and presumably others, such as "magic" practitioners), and may have been imitated at some levels (as in onomastica traditions). Is it possible that the roots of the "nomina sacra" developments in Christianity may also be found here (as, indeed, L. Traube argued a century ago when he published his collection of such materials)? More recent scholars have tended to resist this conclusion, but without carefully considering all of the evidence. Some Jewish treatments of the tetragrammaton are certainly moving in the direction further traveled in the nomina sacra phenomenon, and there is even some reason to think that the Greek substitution term, KURIOS ("Lord"), may have also received parallel treatment (abbreviation by suspension and/or contraction) at Jewish hands. To put it more directly, I would suggest that pre-Christian Greek Jews used the KURIOS substitution in writing as well as in speaking, that the impetus to "abbreviate" in writing was applied to that term as well -- and probably to the closely related word QEOS ("God") -- and it is this trajectory that took hold and was expanded further in Christian circles.

5. With regard to the literary use of numbers-letters, punctuation, diacritics, etc., the evidence is at best inconclusive. It has been argued that the occurrence of the letter-number "318" in PYale 1 (a codex fragment of Genesis dated variously to late 1st or more likely mid 2nd ce) is a Christian feature, but the reasoning is rather circular (Christians make codices, this is a codex, thus ...). We do not have sufficient evidence to judge. Indeed, does the developent of the codex format itself, with the encouragement to put numbers on the pages, open the door to further uses of number-letters? Regarding the other matters of textual supplementation (diacritics, etc.), these features are not unique to "Christian" texts in the period, and are unlikely to represent anything uniquely developed in Christian or Jewish scribal circles.

Summary and Conclusions

LONGER PREPARED VERSION:

The larger context. -- [as above]

The setting in scholarly discussion. -- [as above]

The Jewish evidence. -- [as above]

Summary of the findings. -- [as above]

The "Christian" Factor. -- [as above]

The Situation

Greek speaking (and reading) Jews existed for centuries within the Greco-Roman world and through the Byzantine period. We have a great deal of secondary evidence for them, from references by outsiders [show Stern, title page] and insiders, to copies (often made by Christians) of actual literary productions (Aristeas, Philo, Josephus, Paul, etc.). Primary evidence in the form of inscriptions, archaelogical remains, and the like is also abundant, especially from ancient Palestine.

Probably the most easily recognized literary activity of Greek Jews in antiquity relates to their translations and transmission of "scriptures," although that category of writings is somewhat loosely defined in the earliest periods [LXX/OG title page?]. In addition to later references to and copies of these scriptures and related materials, we now have a significant body of actual fragments that almost certainly were produced, or at least commissioned and used, in Jewish circles. A more detailed treatment of these materials is available in my electronic report on "The 'Textual Mechanics' of Early Jewish LXX/OG Papyri and Fragments" from which most of what follows has been extracted and adapted.

As Christianity developed into its own trajectories separate from Judaism, it adopted and adapted Jewish sources to its own needs, especially Greek Jewish scriptures and related materials. How much of Christian scribal activity was derived from its Jewish predecessors (and contemporaries) is difficult to determine with confidence, and has sometimes been dealt with rather carelessly in modern discussions.

The goal of the present study is to identify and analyze the extant physical evidence from Jewish contexts, in hopes of being able thereby to understand more clearly its continuities and discontinuities with the development of selfconsciously Christian literature.

The Problem: How to identify unambiguous remnants of Jewish Greek literary activity?

1. The least problematic approach is to proceed by date and location to identify basically pre- and non-Christian materials -- most notably the Greek fragments among the Dead Sea Scrolls from Qumran, but also some other early Greek materials, documentary as well as literary. According to Emanuel Tov, the Judean Desert discoveries (not only those from Qumran) have yielded more than 155 Greek documentary texts, most of which are presumed to be Jewish in origin (almost certainly not Christian), and some 34 fragmentary literary texts (mostly from Qumran) [show his chart]. A few other literary texts from Egypt that are dated paleographically to pre-Christian times round out this corpus as a starting point for the investigation. Here is the current list of scriptural and related materials predating the end of the first century of the common era (omitting some of the rather small unidentified scraps from Qumran).

01. Qumran cave 4 LXXDeut 11 (2nd bce, parchment roll)
02. PRyl458 of Deut (2nd bce, papyrus roll),
03. Qumran cave7 Exod 28 (2nd/1st bce, papyrus roll),
04. Qumran cave4 Lev\a (2nd/1st bce, parchment roll),
05. Qumran cave7 EpJer (2nd/1st bce, papyrus roll),
05+. Qumran cave7 frgs 4, 8, 12 [Epistle of Enoch? = "1 Enoch" 103] (1st bce[?], papyrus roll) -- see also reconstruction notes and frg 8 alone
05+. Qumran cave 7 frg 5 (unidentified controversial "Mark" frg, turn of the era[?], papyrus roll),
06. PFouad266a [942] Gen (1st bce, papyrus roll),
07. Qumran cave4 Lev\b (1st bce, papyrus roll; tetragrammaton = IAW),
08. PFouad266b [848] Deut (1st bce, papyrus roll; Hebrew/Aramaic tetragrammaton),
09. PFouad266c [847] Deut (late 1st bce, papyrus roll),
10. Qumran cave4 paraphrase of Exod(?) (late 1st bce, papyrus roll),
11. Qumran cave4 unidentified Greek (late 1st bce, parchment roll),
12. Qumran cave4 Num 3-4 (turn of the era, parchment roll),
13. Nahal Hever Minor Prophets (hand A), with example of paleo-Hebrew tetragrammaton and hand B (turn of the era, parchment roll),
14. POxy3522 of Job 42 (1st ce, papyrus roll; paleo-Hebrew tetragrammaton),
15. POxy4443 of Esther (1st/2nd ce, papyrus roll),
16. PFouad 203 prayer/amulet? (1st/2nd ce, papyrus roll) [no image yet]

2. More difficult is the attempt to identify Jewish productions that are contemporaneous with developing Christianity by isolating characteristic features. Is it possible to derive from careful analysis of the relatively firm body of ancient Jewish texts guidelines for further identification of later, possibly Jewish materials? On the other hand, does Christian scribal practice develop its own identifiable characteristics that differ significantly from Jewish conventions? As we shall see, a variety of claims have been made along those lines. Some appear to be inadequately founded. Of course, to the extent that Jews or Christians may not actually have produced their own texts and conventions, but used general resources available in their worlds (copy shops, etc.), such a quest will be all the more difficult if not impossible.

Here is a list of most of the debated materials from the early period (and a few later pieces as well):

17. PYale1 of Gen 14, recto, and verso (2nd ce, papyrus codex; number 318 abbreviated),
18. PBodl5 of Pss 48-49 (2nd ce, parchment codex),
19. POxy656 of Gen (2nd/3rd ce, papyrus codex, problematic tetragrammaton),
20. Goettingen # 967 Ezekiel-Daniel-Esther (about 200 ce, papyrus codex); subscriptio and end of Daniel/Susanna (PKoeln Theol 37v, p.196)
21. POxy4442 Exodus [first side] (early 3rd ce, papyrus codex); [other side]
22. PVindobGr 29828+29456 Jannes and Jambres (early 3rd ce, papyrus roll [reused], nomina sacra uncontracted) [vh1068]
23. PMich 4925 Jannes and Jambres (early 3rd ce, papyrus roll [reused]) [BASP 16 (1979) 114]
24. POxy1007 of Gen with its unusual tetragrammaton representation (3rd ce, parchment codex),
25. POxy1166 of Gen 16 (3rd ce, papyrus roll column),
26. PBerlin 17213 of Gen (3rd ce) [no image yet]
27. POxy1075 of Exod (3rd ce, papyrus roll; end of book),
28. POxy1173+1356+2158++ Philo (3rd ce, papyrus codex) [vh696]
29. PAntin 8 Prov-Wisd-Eccl (3rd ce, papyrus codex) [#928 = vh254]
30. PAntin 9 Prov (3rd ce, papyrus codex) [#987 = vh252]
31. Freer Minor Prophets (late 3rd ce, papyrus codex) [vh284];
32. Berlin Genesis (late 3rd ce, papyrus codex) [#911 = vh004];
33. Cairo ostrakon 215 of Judith (late 3rd ce) [no image yet]
34. PLond Christ 5 (3-5th ce, liturgical codex) [vh921],
35. PLitLond 202 of Gen (3rd/4th ce, papyrus codex)
36. PWien Rainer 18 of Pss (3rd/4th ce, parchment roll; Symmachus?) [no image yet]
37. PAlex 203 of Isa 48 (3rd/4th ce, papyrus roll?),
38. PHarris 31 of Ps 43 (3rd/4th ce, papyrus roll/amulet?),
39. POxy2745 Onomasticon of Hebrew Names (3/4th ce, papyrus roll; IAW represents Hebrew YW/YA names) [vh1158]
39a. PHeid1359 Onomasticon of Hebrew Names (3/4th ce, papyrus roll/sheet; IW and IAW represent Hebrew YW/YA names) [vh1136]
40. POxy1225 of Lev 16 (early 4th ce, papyrus roll),
41. PLitLond 211 of Dan 1 Theodotion (early 4th ce, vellum roll)
42. POxy2068 (4th ce, papyrus liturgical roll) [vh966]
43. PChBeat 16 Jannes and Jambres (4th ce, papyrus codex, odd nomina sacra) [Pietersma]
44. PAntin 10 Ezek (4th ce, papyrus codex) [#988 = vh316]
45. PSorbonne 2250 Jer 17f & 46 (late 4th ce, papyrus codex; aberrent text) [#817 = vh308];
46. PRanier 4.5 Psalm 9 (5th ce, papyrus amulet?) [#2086 = vh105].
47. PBerlin 17035 Gen 36 Symmachus? (5/6th ce, parchment codex) [vh022];
48. PGiessen 13+19+22+26 [side 1] Deut 24-29 (5/6th ce; parchment codex; possibly non-Christian provenance; contracted divine names) [side 2]

for additional images of scriptural and other (mostly Christian) fragments, see Wieland Willkur's links

The Debated Features

1. In the history of scholarship on this subject, probably the primary criterion that has been used to distinguish Jewish from Christian is the use of scroll vs. codex. In the Greco-Roman world at large, clearly the codex technology was more quickly and broadly adopted by Christians than by the general book trade [show CHR chart?]. Christians also continued to produce scrolls, and some non-Christians experimented with codices from quite early on, but a definite preponderance of identifiably Christian works, and especially Christian scriptures, were preserved in codex format. Little attention has been given to the possible use of the codex in Jewish Greek circles in this same period of antiquity. A large part of the problem is the fact that codex technology became generally available about the same time that Christianity was becoming an identifiable movement (2nd and 3rd centuries). All earlier literature, Jewish or not, is in scroll format. How soon and under what conditions Jewish scribes came to use codex technology can only be conjectured, without new discoveries or the development of other criteria for judging. A 2nd or 3rd century scroll can have originated in Jewish, Christian, or other circles; similarly for a codex.

Here are some examples of post 100 ce scrolls containing Jewish scriptures and related materials in Greek:

22. PVindobGr 29828+29456 Jannes and Jambres (early 3rd ce, papyrus roll [reused], nomina sacra uncontracted) [vh1068]
23. PMich 4925 Jannes and Jambres (early 3rd ce, papyrus roll [reused]) [BASP 16 (1979) 114]
25. POxy1166 of Gen 16 (3rd ce, papyrus roll),
27. POxy1075 of Exod (3rd ce, papyrus roll; end of book),
36. PWien Rainer 18 of Pss (3rd/4th ce, parchment roll; Symmachus?) [no image yet]
37. PAlex 203 of Isa 48 (3rd/4th ce, papyrus roll?),
38. PHarris 31 of Ps 43 (3rd/4th ce, papyrus roll/amulet?),
39. POxy2745 Hebrew onomasticon (3/4th ce, papyrus roll) [vh1158]
40. POxy1225 of Lev 16 (early 4th ce, papyrus roll),
41. PLitLond 211 of Dan 1 Theodotion (early 4th ce, vellum roll)
42. POxy2068 (4th ce, papyrus liturgical roll) [vh966]
43. PChBeat 16 Jannes and Jambres (4th ce, papyrus codex, odd nomina sacra) [Pietersma]
46. PRanier 4.5 Psalm 9 (5th ce, papyrus amulet?) [#2086 = vh105].

2. Although it has become increasingly clear that most of the earliest preserved Jewish fragments attest an unusually striking sophistication of writing style (bilinearity, ornamentation, etc.), this has not to my knowledge been used in any consistent fashion to evaluate the later disputed pieces. Nor has much attention been paid yet to the allegedly less traditionally "classical" features of many (most?) of the same manuscripts such as the use of spacing to indicate major and sometimes minor sense or even word breaks, or the presence of other partition indicators (paragraph separators, enlarged letters at the margin, other markings in the margin).

Here are some examples of the ornamental formal style, as well as of other relatively formal styles.

3. With regard to particularly Jewish (and thus potentially Christian) writing conventions, the ways in which references to names for diety and associated terms are treated in the preserved materials has drawn much attention. The tradition of reverence for the special name of God (the tetragrammaton, or four-lettered designation YHWH in Hebrew) in Judaism was well known even before the Dead Sea Scrolls provided ample evidence for a variety of approaches to this problem. But since early Christian commentators, and presumably copyists as well, were also aware of such practices, it is not foolproof to argue that manuscripts that contain the tetragrammaton in non-Greek letters or perhaps in some other unusual form must be Jewish.

Here are some of the earliest known representations in Geeek materials of the Hebrew Tetragrammaton (Hebrew YHWH):

Early Christian authors such as Origen and Jerome were aware of manuscripts that attested this phenomenon -- the famous "PIPI" texts are probably the best known example. It is clear that such phenomena are reflections of earlier (and ongoing?) Jewish practice, even if the actual scribes or copyists who produced a given manuscript may have been Christian. Whether the discovery of codex (not scroll) fragments containing the tetragrammaton in unusual forms may be able to contribute to the question of the use of codices in Jewish circles is worth exploring. Here are some examples of possible scribal confusion where unusual forms of the tetragrammaton may have been encountered.

[new 6/02] Also of interest, and possible significance, is the influence that these special names had on "magic" materials, especially amulets and similar objects. The illustrations in Goodenough's Jewish Symbols provide many examples of various sorts: the simple Greek transliteration IAW, with apparent variations (e.g. AIA, WAWH), is frequent; probably the Greek representation of Hebrew letters as PIPI and of the abbreviated paleo-Hebrew ZZ also occur; and there are even objects that contain the word "TETRAGRAMMATON" itself. ADONAI and variations are also frequent, as is the related divine name SABAWQ (and variants) and the names of certain angels (especially Michael). These materials are notoriouisly difficult to date or to place into any historical context. Philo is already well aware of the mysterious specialness and symbolism of the "tetragrammaton," the name of "the existent one," engraved on the headpiece of the high priest and heard and spoken only by those most pure (Moses 2.114f, 132). A century and a half later, Origen is also quite conscious of the special power provided by knowing the right names of deity [get ref].

4. Closely related to the tetragrammaton phenomenon, and perhaps even derivitive from it, is the representation of divine names (especially KURIOS and QEOS) and associated terms in abbreviated forms [title pages of Traube and/or Paap?]. Because relatively consistent conventions for such abbreviation developed in Christian circles -- the so called "nomina sacra" -- and because shortened forms of the name IHSOUS (and of the title XRISTOS) were included among these special names, it has come to be assumed that the practice of such abbreviation originated in Christian circles and is a valid criterion for identifying Christian fragments! Many examples of such an operating principle from contemporary scholarship can be provided: if there are nomina sacra, the piece must be Christian [examples?]. I think this assumption needs careful reevaluation, despite the confidence with which it is usually stated. There is no reason whatsoever why a Jewish author or copyist accustomed to dealing with the tetragrammaton in special ways (e.g. represented in Hebrew by double yod, or in Greek by IAW, as well as by the substitute term KURIOS) might not also develop similar shorthand techniques for the Greek words for deity.

5. In the Greco-Roman world, names and other common terms are often found in abbreviated forms -- especially on inscriptions, coins, and "documentary" materials, as are numbers and certain symbols [show relevant list]. It is sometimes argued that Christian biblical fragments tend to display more of such "documentary" features as well, as a further criterion for separating Christian from more sophisticated literary activity, and sometimes from Jewish productions as well [show PYale 1].

Interestingly, as we have seen, other features that are sometimes characterized as "documentary," or at least sub-literary, such as the use of spaces or division markers, enlarged letters, tendency to ligature, and the like, sometimes occur in the earliest Jewish examples in combination with other very sophisticated features. To what extent such apparent developments may actually be indicative of general tendencies in the production of literature in the Greco-Roman world, rather than being specific to Judaism or Christianity, is worth further exploration. It is problematic to turn such allegedly "documentary" features into evidence of economic or culturally inferior situations (impoverished Christians, relatively unclutured and/or untrained) without closer analysis.

Conclusions and Prospects

Indeed, a complicating factor is the frequent presence in the early Jewish texts of sense divisions and even word division, in a world in which the norm for literary productions seems to have been "scriptio continua" -- unbroken sequence of letters. There are a few exceptions (see Turner GMAW\2 7 and n 28), but they tend to be sub-literary, or even documentary, unlike our examples. One explanation might be the influence of Hebrew and Aramaic Jewish scribal habits, where word division is normal. In any event we have a situation in which at least this special characteristic deserves note -- an unusual use of spacing in materials otherwise of a very professional literary quality.

Interestingly, many presumably Christian copies seem to employ scriptio continua, again with notable exceptions such as several Chester Beatty manuscripts from the 3rd century and a variety of others on into the 5th century. Further careful research is needed in order to determine whether this phenomenon may be due, at least in part, to the influence of Jewish scribal practice. Emanuel Tov has catalogued this type of information in his "Scribal Features of early Witnesses of Greek Scripture," pp.125-148 of The Old Greek Psalter: Studies in Honour of Albert Pietersma edited by R.J.V.Hiebert, C.Cox and P.J.Gentry (JSOT Supplement Series, Sheffield Academic Press 2001), especially the chart and pp.137-142.

If it could be established that the biblical codices from the 2nd and 3rd centuries ce that employ spacing were Jewish in origin or influenced strongly by Jewish scribal practices, the door would be opened for more careful discussion of the origins of "nomina sacra" practice, since most of these codices employ nom sac for KURIOS and QEOS (at least). Although the clearly Jewish exempla on which this presentation is based provide no examples in clearly scriptual texts of the use of Greek KURIOS for the tetragrammaton, they do show a variety of representations, occasionally bordering on abbreviation. We have also seen some ambiguous cases of abbreviation in the later materials. The suggestion that this practice had Jewish roots should not be rejected without careful further investigation.

Similarly, if these 2nd-3rd century biblical codices reflect a strong Jewish influence, questions of the process by which Christianity became so enamored of the codex may be illuminated somewhat. Jewish scribal practice had already moved in that direction, or was simultaneously moving. This issue is difficult to solve in isolation, since the codex technology was not restricted to any single group, as far as we know, and could have reached its early users by various routes, meeting the expected "conservative" resistance in favor of rolls as it progressed. But the evidence of such resistance in the biblical materials of the 2nd and 3rd centuries ce is not strong. If there had been significant resistance in Greek Jewish circles, shouldn't we expect to have more evidence of it in the surviving materials? Perhaps not. But it is worth further exploration. [add note on Roger Bagnall's discussion of textual variations in Luke 4.17 as possibly "an early reflection of the adoption of the codex as the standard form for Christian scriptures" -- or, I dare to add, perhaps even of an early perception that codices of scriptural writings (here Isaiah is in view) were used in some Jewish synagogues! "Jesus Reads a Book," Journal of Theological Studies 51 (2000), 577-588 (quote is from 588)]

And what can be said about the unambiguously "Christian" literature that we encounter in this period? It gradually becomes relatively standardized with reference to the use of scriptio continua and a nucleus of nomina sacra, with various extensions and adaptations. Letter-numbers also come to be standard in Christian literary texts (as they were in documentary conventions in general -- see Turner GMAW\2 15), but not in Greco-Roman literary productions. How much of this may have had Jewish roots remains to be argued with more care. I hope I have been able here at least to open some of the doors to that discussion.

//end of prepared Vienna presentation (July 2001)//

---[the earliest version(s)]

[Most of the above material is excerpted from my electronic study of "The 'Textual Mechanics' of Early Jewish LXX/OG Papyri and Fragments," which is copied below and is itself a greatly expanded and revised form of a paper first delivered in May 1998 (Hampton Court, Herefordshire England) to the conference on "The Bible as Book: The Transmission of the Greek Text" sponsored by the Van Kampen Foundation and The Scriptorium: Center for Christian Antiquities. A shorter form of that revised essay is scheduled to appear in the volume being prepared from that conference.]

Primary Bibliography & Abbreviations

The main sources cited below are abbreviated as follows:

Aland = Kurt Aland (ed), Repertorium der griechischen christlichen Papyri I: Biblische Papyri ... (Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 1976).

DJD = Discoveries in the Judean Desert, the official publication series for the Dead Sea Scroll materials (Oxford Press).

Roberts (MSB) = Colin H. Roberts Manuscript, Society and Belief in Early Christian Egypt, The Schweich Lectures of the British Academy, 1977 (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1979)

Skeat = C.H.Roberts and T.C.Skeat, The Birth of the Codex (Oxford University Press 1983, 1987)

Tov = his article in the aforementioned volume on The Bible as Book: The Transmission of the Greek Text (forthcoming); otherwise also "Scribal Practices and Physical Aspects of the Dead Sea Scrolls" in The Bible as Book: the Manuscript Tradition, ed by John Sharpe III and Kimberly Van Kampen (British Library 1998) 9-33; The Text-Critical Use of the Septuagint in Biblical Research (Jerusalem: Simor 1997\2); "The Nature of the Greek Texts from the Judean Desert," Novum Testamentum 43 (2001) 1-11; and numerous other pertinent publications on textual issues and scribal practices -- some of these are now conveniently available in The Greek and Hebrew Bible: Collected Essays on the Septuagint, Supplements to Vetus Testamentum 72 (Brill 1999).

Treu = Kurt Treu, "The Significance of Greek for Jews in the Roman Empire," with an excursus on Jewish scriptural manuscripts/fragments, originally published as "Die Bedeutung des Griechischen f&u%;r die Juden im r&o%;mischen Reich," Kairos NF 15, Hft. 1/2 (1973), 123-144; translated by William Adler with Robert Kraft (1991) for Internet access.

Turner = E.G.Turner, Greek Manuscripts of the Ancient World, (Princeton University Press 1971); second edition revised and enlarged edited by P. J. Parsons (Bulletin Supplement 46, London: Institute of Classical Studies 1987).

Turner (Codex) = E.G.Turner, The Typology of the Early Codex (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1977).

vh### = Joseph van Haelst, Catalogue des Papyrus Litte/raires Juifs et Chre/tiens (Paris: Sorbonne 1976).

The standard papyrological designations will be used, as listed also in vh, Aland, and elsewhere.

Goals and Intuitions

My work on this topic in many ways parallels and supplements the research of my colleague, Emanuel Tov, who focuses even more than I have attempted on the significance of various "physical" characteristics (spacing, punctuation, etc.) for the ancient preparers and users of the texts. I also view my efforts as continuations of the suggestive but relatively little known study by the late Kurt Treu, in his essay mentioned below (which is readily available in English through the aforementioned Internet home page). That I am often critical of the conclusions of the late Colin Roberts on these subjects does not detract from my appreciation of and respect for his pioneering efforts as one of the papyrological giants of the 20th century, on whose shoulders we all must stand.

Setting the Scene

Among the 120 or so papyri and other early fragments of Greek Jewish scriptures ("LXX/OG") and related materials dated paleographically from the 4th century and earlier, we find more than a dozen that are clearly of Jewish origin, and another dozen or so for which this identification has also been strongly suggested.\1/ The vast majority of the remainder has been assumed to have been produced by Christian copyists, although the evidence is seldom unambiguously clear. This study attempts to reexamine the situation with a focus especially on details of format and presentation ("textual mechanics"), without any special attention to textcritical content.\2/

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\1/I have not included several manuscripts listed by Treu as ambiguous but worth consideration when his reasons appear to be less "mechanical" than seem appropriate for this study. For example, he points out (142f) that since we have evidence for Jewish presence at such sites as Oxyrhynchos and Antinoopolis, it is not unreasonable to suppose that some of the Jewish Greek scriptural materials from those sites might be of Jewish origin, and he offers some textcritical observations in support (e.g. closer affinities to the surviving Hebrew text, "eccentric text"). From this textual basis, he expands his horizons further; see his notes on PAntin 8, 9, 10 [vh254, 252, 316]; PGiss 13... [vh58]; PSorbonne 2250 [vh308]; PBerlin 17035 [vh022]; Freer Minor Prophets [vh284]; Berlin Genesis [#911 = vh004]; Chester Beatty (etc.) Ezekiel-Daniel-Esther [#967 = vh315]; PRanier 4.5 [#2086 = vh105]. Probably POxy 2745, a Hebrew onomasticon roll [vh1158] mentioned by Treu (144) should be added to my list; see also n.11 below on liturgical materials (e.g. POxy 2068). A fresh look at the evidence from the early papyri (3rd ce) of Philo's works will also be in order at some point.

\2/The textcritical situation seems analogous to what the NT papyri have shown -- that the textual relationships prior to the imagined watershed of recensional activity in the 3rd and early 4th centuries ce are in many ways just as confused and confusing as afterwards. Of course, the materials from this early period, on rolls and early mini-codices, must be examined book by book (and sometimes even in smaller units within "books") rather than in generalized "text types," but even then clear patterns seldom emerge. Did we really expect clear patterns, given what we have learned from the Judean Desert discoveries as well as from other avenues of information about those textually tumultuous early times? For details, consult Emanuel Tov's Text-Critical Use of the Septuagint.

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The basis for scholarly discussion of these materials in the past quarter century was established primarily by the publications of Treu's article and Roberts' Schweich Lectures (MSB). Treu attempted to view the early fragments in the larger framework of how Judaism adapted to, or perhaps reacted to the Greco-Roman world in which it existed and often flourished. While Treu did not ignore textual matters (see n.1 above), he was much more focused on the sorts of "physical" and immediately visible criteria that could reasonably be employed in attempting to identify "Jewish" scriptural materials. The appendix to his 1973 article presents a challenge to previous analyses, and sets the stage for subsequent discussion.

Roberts, in his attempt to extract information from the early papyri for reconstructing the development of Christianity in Egypt, shows sympathy for some of Treu's observations while at the same time defending aspects of the "older" approach, with its tendency to focus on early Christianity.\3/ Perhaps unwittingly, in his quest to identify characteristic "Christian" traits in the early manuscripts and fragments, Roberts actually opens some new lines of investigation applicable to the Jewish materials as well: especially suggestive are his comments about the "documentary" tendencies exhibited in some aspects of the presentation of early Christian materials (use of spacing, punctuation, enlarged letters, etc.), and his attempt to distinguish the resultant paleographical "style(s)" of his "Christian" witnesses from a more "elegant" literary approach in (some of) the clearly Jewish fragments.

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\3/This was not a new interest for Roberts, as his pioneering early article on "The Christian Book and the Greek Papyri" (JTS 50 [1949] 155-68) amply attests. It rewards rereading even now.

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The Main Issues

The older "criteria" to which Treu, especially, reacts, and the new issues introduced into the discussion by Roberts (with further elaboration recently by Lawrence W. Hurtado\4/), may be summarized as follows -- we will want to be especially alert to such matters when we survey the data:

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\4/"The Origin of the Nomina Sacra: A Proposal," JBL 117 (1998) 655-673. Hurtado's primary contribution to the ongoing discussion relates to the graphic marker (overline stroke) used to indicate the significance of IH as both a suspension of the nomen sacrum IHSOUS (the name Jesus) and as the shorthand way of writing the number 18, which number in Hebrew gematria equivalences also is the word for "life" (XY. Perhaps not to be lost in this discussion is the fact that the Hebrew letter-number for 18 is YX, which in most early orthographies would resemble closely the anticipated (if the numbering system were consistent) Hebrew number 15 YH, but in the development of Jewish tradition this numerical representation is not used, but we find instead +W (nine plus six = 15; also +Z or nine plus seven = 16), presumably as protection against careless representation that might be associated with the tetragrammaton and/or its abbreviated forms, but perhaps also to avoid ambiguity. It would be useful to know when, and under what conditions, such a supposed modification in the Hebrew numbering conventions arose.

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1. Scroll or codex format -- as a rule of thumb, and especially when other evidence is lacking, the equation of scroll with Jewish and codex with Christian has tended to prevail. Admittedly, Christians continued to use the roll format well after codices became popular, and clearly codices came to be used among Jews at some point, but there is little clarity or agreement on the history of such developments. In the survey of 30 Jewish and possibly Jewish texts that follows, all but items 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 24 (ostrakon) and 25 are scrolls.

2. Papyrus or parchment material -- it is clear now that early Jewish scriptural copies could be inscribed on either material (see the Dead Sea Scrolls, for example), but in 1973 Treu felt the need to argue against the idea that authentic Jewish copies could only be written on animal skins. Of the unambiguously (by date) Jewish manuscripts listed below, all but items 1, 4, 11, 12, and 13 (see also 20, 24 [ostrakon], 26, 30) are on papyri.

3. Use of "nomina sacra" -- Roberts especially (developed further now by Hurtado) has championed the view that a widely accepted "system" of abbreviation by contraction of certain key words with "sacral" connotations (especially "Jesus," "Christ," "Lord," and "God"; but also several others) developed early in Christian scribal circles, although the modern inventor of the term "nomina sacra" (Ludwig Traube -- at a time when virtually no early Jewish evidence was available) thought that the practice must have had Jewish roots.\5/ No unambiguously Jewish manuscripts with abbreviated nomina sacra in Greek (as opposed to tetragrammaton representations, on which see below) have yet been agreed upon by the debating scholars, but items 19, 21, 23, 27, (and 29?) below (see also n.11 on POxy 2068 and n.1 on PGiess 13) would seem to offer a strong challenge to Roberts' position.

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\5/Traube, Nomina Sacra: Versuch einer Geschichte der christlichen Ku%rzung (Munich: Beck 1907), 26. See also A.H.R.E.Paap, Nomina Sacra in the Greek Papyri of the First Five Centuries (Leiden: Brill 1959), 119ff, for a similar view of origins (but different details of development).

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4. Treatment of the "tetragrammaton" -- the presence in many of the clearly Jewish fragments of a special way of representing the four lettered divine name YHWH, in contrast to the use of the Greek substitute term "LORD" (KURIOS) in most LXX/OG manuscripts, has led to discussions of the origins and history of such practices, including the relationship between this phenomenon and the development of "nomina sacra."\6/ None of the unambiguously (based on date) Jewish manuscripts described below preserves representations of the tetragrammaton with KURIOS, but the evidence from the first hand as well as the corrector/enhancer of item 19 deserves to be noted, along with the contracted forms found in items 21, 23, 27, and 29 (see above; note also the blank in item 22).

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\6/Hurtado's article provides an excellent discussion of these related issues, as well as an extensive (if not exhaustive) bibliography.

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5. Treatment of numbers -- Roberts also argued that Christian copyists tended to use number symbols rather than spelling out the numbers in good Greek literary style. He saw this as another "documentary" influence. (This feature, if accurate, could strengthen Hurtado's theory that the abbreviated use of IH = "Jesus" associated with it's numerical value as "18" reflects an early Christian development; see note 4 above.) The only manuscript discussed below that preserves abbreviated numbers is item 17, of ambiguous origin.

6. Use of "scriptio continua" (continuous writing, without word or sense division) or of spacing and other visual aids for the reader -- Roberts attempted to claim that influences from "documentary" scribal practices may have led early Christian scribes and copyists to abandon the strict literary convention of writing an unbroken string of letters and introduce various sorts of sense divisions and similar indicators (using blank spaces, punctuation, enlarged letters, marginal marks, etc.); similar features also seem to be present in many of the early Jewish texts (as Roberts also noted, rather in passing\7/). Of the unambiguously Jewish manuscripts listed below, only items 3 and 5 show completely unbroken strings of writing in their very limited fragmentary remains. Thus it makes no sense to employ this feature as a sign of "Christian" origin.

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\7/Roberts MSB 18 and n.3: "Documentary practice may not have been the only influence on Christian scribes. In the manuscript of the Minor Prophets found in a cave near Engedi in Judaea [subsequently identified as Nahal Hever] and dated between 50 B.C. and A.D. 50, an enlarged letter, preceded by a small blank space, marks the beginning of a new phrase, while verses are marked off by larger spaces. This may well have been standard Hebrew usage in texts such as this, clearly intended for liturgical reading." The footnote refers to articles by E.J.Revell in BJRL 54 (1971) 214ff and StudPap 15 (1976) 131ff, comparing this situation with Hebrew Masoretic tradition. Roberts then concludes "this might indicate that the method of paragraphing by the initial letter was of Jewish origin." Study of such phenomena in early Jewish and Christian biblical texts is now underway by Emanuel Tov and will make it quite clear that this was no uniquely "Christian" development (in addition to the publications listed above, I have been privileged to see a draft form of his forthcoming "Scribal Features of Early Witnesses to Greek Scripture" [tentative title]).

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7. Assessment of literary style -- Roberts saw in most of the early Jewish materials an "elegance" of writing style distinct from most of the early Christian examples. He noted especially the use of "serifs" (decorative strokes) on certain letters. I have also tried to pay attention to "shading," that is, the relative thickness of horizontal, vertical, and oblique strokes (shading occurs when one type of stroke tends to be thinner than another). The general comments of Eric Turner on these matters in the Greco-Roman world at large deserve attention, since in what follows attempts will be made briefly to describe the various Jewish hands:

Several 'styles' of writing were simultaneously in use [in the Ptolemaic as in the Roman period]. Contemporary with each other, they cross-fertilize and hybridize easily. Study of these reciprocal influences is rewarding, provided only that the investigator is not trying to prove a derivation of one 'style' from another. ...

Then Turner lists some of the "objective considerations" on which his classifications are based, including degree of formality or informality in writing, speed and skill in execution, size, shape, and tilt of the letters, and consistency of spacing between letters and lines (ed 1, p.24 = ed 2, p.20f).

Turner's resulting general categories of classification for literary hands of the first four centuries are: (1) Informal round hands; (2) Formal round hands (with three subdivisions: Round/Square, Biblical Majuscule, Coptic Uncial); (3) Formal mixed hands (20-21). Most of the materials described below will fit into Turner's second category, of formal round/square decorated hands. Indeed, it may help to nuance his "round/square" style by noting the extent of formal decoration present -- "highly decorated" indicates that most non-rounded strokes terminate with full serifs (short perpendicular strokes to both sides) or half serifs (to only one side); "moderately decorated" would include the use of hooks or blobs as well as some serifs; "sporadically/minimally decorated" and "undecorated" complete the scale.\8/

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\8/With such paleographical backgrounding in view, here is my summary checklist of the phenomena that ideally would deserve attention in a complete examination and description of the materials listed below (but for present purposes, a summary treatment will suffice). Note that Aland also tries to follow such a checklist in his descriptions (p.6):

manuscript identification