The discovery of Christian Egypt: From manuscript hunters toward an archaeology of Late Antiquity (2014) (original) (raw)
Related papers
"Christian Papyri and the Ancient Church." Bibliotheca Sacra 173 (April–June 2016): 182–202.
Modern scholarship and popular media outlets often depict the earliest Christians as holding wildly divergent beliefs about Jesus and reading and writing secret gospels that never made it into the New Testament. This view fails to take into consideration the material remains of early Christian manuscripts from the second and third centuries that have been discovered in Egypt. These manuscripts mainly consist of New Testament writings and contain certain para-linguistic and formatting features that highlight unique socio-culture aspects of the early Christians that stand in stark contrast to these modern theories of Christian origins.
"Archaeology of Early Christianity in Egypt"
in The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Archaeology, eds. David K. Pettegrew; William R. Caraher, and Thomas W. Davis, 2019
An overview of the archaeological remains for Christian communities in Egypt in the late Roman and late antique periods. Chapter discusses the early scholarship on Christian Egypt (or lack thereof) and the excavation of churches, pilgrimage centers, and monasteries. The chapter concludes with a broad overview of remains of daily life that could be ascribed to Christian households.
Digging into lives: Christians and Christianity in the Greek papyri from Egypt
In die Skriflig/In Luce Verbi
Greek papyri recovered from the sands of Egypt represent a precious source of data for early Christianity. Egypt is the land of the earliest Greek translation of books from the Hebrew Bible. The Greek Old Testament or Septuagint was undertaken within the Jewish community of Alexandria from near the middle of the 3rd to the 2nd century BC. Alexandria became the first centre of Christianity in Egypt. Then, the Christian doctrine spread to the villages of the Egyptian chora. Christian papyri mirror this historical context. The earliest Christian papyri are biblical and literary. Besides these, documentary texts offer unique insights into the everyday life and society of Christians in Egypt. Private letters, in particular, reveal the activities and worries of laymen and women, monks and church officials. Papyrological evidence also enlightens the relationship of Christianity with local religious practices. After an overview of the contribution of papyri to our knowledge of early Christi...
Novum Testamentum, 2010
This slender volume, written by an unrivalled authority on Egypt in Greek, Roman and Byzantine times, treats several much-discussed and controversial subjects. Every word in the title signals an issue in debate. Early: The question is how early? Bagnall challenges the widely accepted early dating of Christian papyri. Many scholars accept the Leuven Database of Ancient Books (LDAB) dates in the tradition of C.H. Roberts and others. Bagnall argues for the later dates proposed by E.G. Turner and suggested earlier by Grenfell and Hunt. On this reckoning, P Ryl. III 457 (P 52), usually dated to the early second century, should be dated a good deal later in the century. He notes a virtual absence of Christianity in Egypt before the episcopate of Demetrius (189-231 CE). Bagnall reacts against "the struggle to push the dates of manuscripts back into the second century or even into the first," (23) and calls for an "alertness to agendas, stated or unstated." (26). His second chapter offers two case studies, one concerning the irresponsible and "tedious" (39) affair of the late Carsten Peter Thiede, the other regarding "good, even excellent scholarship and real, rather than phony, problems," (40), involved in the early dating of fragments of the Shepherd of Hermas. Bagnall notes the difficulty of dating literary manuscripts of the ancient world. Many have no date, as do some documentary papyri, and "everything rests on fallible paleographic dating" (10). On these grounds it seems best, while being on guard against our own agendas, to continue to rely on the widely accepted LDAB dates unless clear evidence calls for revision. Christian: Many of the theological papyri are clearly Christian texts. Among these we may confidently count fragments of the New Testament and other early Christian writings, and texts of the LXX etc. that employ Nomina Sacra. But some fragments may be either Christian or Jewish. The use of the codex by Christians, in contrast to the Jewish use of rolls, is commonly thought to be a reliable guide. But Bagnall points out that P. Oxy LXV 4443, containing three columns of Esther, and dated to the first or second century CE, is not clearly Christian. He remarks, "There is nothing to prevent it from being Jewish" (75). Perhaps the clear distinction between "Christian" and "Jewish" in Egypt does not emerge until the end of the second century. This may help to explain the meager evidence for Christianity in Egypt for most of the century. Christians, being Jews, would have suffered in the wake of the war that raged from
Christian Manuscripts from Egypt to the Times of Constantine
Das Neue Testament und sein Text im 2. Jahrhundert, Hrsg. von J. Heilmann und M. Klinghardt , 2018
Our study of Christian book production before Christianity was officially recognised by Constantine includes the third and early fourth centuries, because in our opinion only a handful of papyri can be attributed to the second century, the theme of this conference. Luxury books like the codices Vaticanus, Alexandrinus or Sinaiticus clearly belong to the period of the victorious church (after AD 324). Our interest is in the preceding period.
A Brief History of Christian Archaeology between 1860 and 1930.
REVEALING CHRISTIAN HERITAGE The rediscovery of Christian archaeology between 1860 and 1930. Volume I, 2022
This introductory text is intended to be a useful tool for anyone interested in the history of Christian archaeology between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The main discoveries and publications of Christian archaeology are presented in the various areas of the European continent and the Mediterranean basin, with a special focus on the main scholars of the discipline from that period.
Church History, 1998
book reviews729 ume closes with the scientific discoveries and theory of evolution which undermined faith in Genesis in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Although a tour de force by a meticulous researcher at the height of his powers, History of Paradise is not without flaws. Attempting to cover his topic's every aspect, Delumeau seesaws between centuries, often repeating himseU. There are a wealth of endnotes (953 individual citations on pp. 237-270), with full bibUographical information in initial citations, but no bibliography.This makes checking references annoyingly tedious, and Delumeau frequently returns to sources, often in widely separated chapters, as he jumps back and forth in time. The index, which Usts only persons cited, is of limited value and (as spot checks demonstrated) incomplete. Lastly, as might be expected in such a wide-ranging work, some sections, particularly the discussions of medieval cartography and travel literature, are quite superficial.These reservations stated, the patient reader wUl derive a wealth of interesting information and stimulation from History ofParadise.