INTERPRETIVE VALUE
II. Papyri, Epigraphy,
Social-Scientific Criticism, Social World
Ever since the Renaissance, the remains of Greek writing have suffered from increasingly unscientific classification. An artifical distinction developed between so-called classical writings and other Greek and Latin productions.
The title of Herbert Jennings Rose’s sketch of authors and their works, A Hand- book of Greek Literature from Homer to the Age of Lucian, indicates the chronological span, but the contents display the pervading elective factor.37 As Rose states in the preface, “the vast Christian and the considerable Jewish literature written in Greek have been wholly omitted, not that they lack importance, but that they represent a different spirit from that of the Greeks themselves, and are best handled in separate works.” Translation: there is a great divide between the literature of Hellenic polytheists and their imitators and the works of Jewish and Christian writers. In reply one can point out that the spirit of Lucian is quite different from that of Homer and Plato. In short, ideology rather than scientific classification accounts for the omission.
Unfortunately, the demarcation also led to an artificial distinction between
“literary” and “documentary” production, without sufficient consideration
35 Cuneiform Texts, 40.
36 Cuneiform Texts, 42. For further comparison-and contrast-of Ugaritic and biblical faith and culture see, for example, the type of study done by Norman C. Habel, Yahweh versus Baal:
A Conflict of Religious Cultures: A Study in the Relevance of Ugaritic Materials for the Early Faith of Israel, Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Graduate Study 6 (New York: Bookman Associates, 1964).
37 The first edition of Rose’s book appeared in 1934 (London: Methuen); 4th ed. rev., 1951;
reprint with minor corrections, 1956.
250 Multipurpose Tools for Bible Study Contextuality 253
accorded the varieties of expression and content in inscriptions and papyri.
From 1839 on there was some publication of texts of ancient authors, but classicists lost interest when texts did not come forth in great number. Among the discoveries were some from Herculaneum that added to our knowledge of Epicurus; then came Hyperides, followed in 1891 by Herodas (Herondas), and Aristotle’s Constitution of Athens; and in 1897 Bacchylides, with profound implications for the history of Hellenistic poetry. These latter finds aroused immediate interest, as did the fragments of many ancient writings that either filled in missing lines or offered variants of a known text. But after the initial excitement died down, the documents drawn up on papyrus in political bureaus, on the counters of industry, or in busy thoroughfares by illiterates seeking the assistance of local scribes, were left in the hands of papyrologists, as were fragments of pottery called ostraca. Those that were inscribed on stone, metal, or decorated pottery were generally recognized as the province of epigra- phists. To numismatists was left the study of legends on coins.
In itself such allocation of data was not reprehensible. The damaging feature was the lack of communication that developed between the various groups of specialists. Hence it came to pass that the same phenomenon observable in “biblical archaeology,” with its narrow interest in illumination of the bib- lical text, befell “classical” study, which lost sight of the broader scene of’
Hellenic influence. One of the casualties, the New Testament, a Greek classic of the ages, had long before found its place at the bottom of the literary scale in the minds of those who were devoted to the nuanced cadences of Plato and Demosthenes, and any attempts at demonstrating the association of its text with the nonliterary papyri inadvertently succeeded in confirming opinions about its alleged banality. Basil Lanneau Gildersleeve, a classicist for whom the Bible was a second language, commented with tongue in cheek in an essay on translators’ improvements of their source documents: “How much fewer fastidious souls would have been saved, if the Greek of the New Testament had not been transposed into the organ notes of the Authorized Version. Only the robuster sort can forgive t&v with the indicative and associate with the riffraff of worse than plebeian names that figure in the last chapter of the Epistle to the Romans.” Indeed, could the New Testament be at all considered within any linguistic mainstream? According to G. H. R. Horsley, “one classicist of international reputation indicated” at a conference held in America in 1985
“that by ‘koine’ he meant only the New Testament.“38
Disdain for barbarisms in the writing of the unwashed masses had manifested itself as early as the second century in the broadsides of anti-Christian champions of Hellas. But not until the Renaissance did the debate on the quality of New Testament Greek reach the flowering stage. At the polar points 38 G. H. R. Horsley, N~KJ Documents Illustrating Early Christianity. Vol. 5: Linguistic Essays (N.S.W., Australia: Macquarrie University, 1989), 41.
were the purists, who endeavored to defend New Testament usage in terms of Attic usage, and the Hebraists, who insisted on its Semitic character.39
By the end of the eighteenth century the Hebraists appeared to have won the exchange, and the laurels went to them for most of the nineteenth century.
It is not suprising, therefore, that when Adolf Deissmann (see chap. 8) con- fronted Aufkliirungsland with his exposition of biblical texts in the light of the papyri and epigraphs, many were the called, but few the chosen. Among the grammarians who saw the light were James Hope Moulton and Archibald T. Robertson (for their grammars see chap. 7).40 But resistance in favor of a special kind of biblical Greek with heavy Semitic accent was not easily dismissed, and even the massive array of evidence so ponderously piled up by Robertson could not stay the tide. Not many years were to pass before the four-volume grammar begun by Moulton lost its Hellenic soul in the third and fourth volumes produced by Nigel Turner, who explicitly affirmed that
“Bibl. Greek is a unique language with a unity and character of its own:)41 and even raised the specter of a “Holy Ghost language.“42 Others could be forgiven for not seeing the light that dawned from the East, but Turner erred against Deissmann’s better knowledge by reducing New Testament linguistic complexities to “Christian Greek.”
Unfortunately, some biblical scholars lack a first-hand acquaintance with papyri, and to many of them inscriptions are a closed book; and so the hazard of overemphasis on Semitic features continues to imperil a balanced under- standing of New Testament Greek. The major hope for diversion of the debate into more productive channels probably lies in the recognition of the phenom- enon of bilingualism. That is, bilingualists are able to make use of two languages, but some of their expressions may deviate from the norm of either language as a result of their familiarity with more than one language.
Reference was made in chap. 7 to some of the principal grammatical and lexical resources for exploration of papyri and inscriptions. In what follows we concentrate on a background sketch of these two media and directions for locating collections of papyri.
39 Horsley, New Documents, 5:38-39). Adolf Deissmands article “Papyri” in Encyclopaedia biblica (above, chap. 9), 3:3556-63 states well the case for the future.
4o A. T. Robertson, A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research, 4th ed. rev. (New York: George H. Doran, 1923), 76-77; on “The Fiction of Jewish Greek,’
see Horsley, New Documents, 5:5-40.
41 Nigel Turner, A Grammar of New Testament Greek by James Hope Moulton, vol. 3: Syntax (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1963), 4.
42 Turner, Grammar, 9.
2 5 2 Multipurpose Tools for Bible Study Contextuality 2 5 3
PAPY ~143
Papyrus (Cyperus Papyrus), derived from a marsh plant in the Nile valley, was the writing material most used in the ancient world. As Eldon J. Epp noted in a captivating contribution to a volume in honor of Joseph Fitzmyer, papyrus is remarkably durable. Thor Hyerdahl constructed his second ship, the Ra II, out of eight tons of papyrus and sailed from Morocco to Barbados in fifty- seven days, a journey of 3,270 miles. 44 Most of the documents written on this material come from ruined buildings and rubbish heaps. Others have been found in tombs, and some have been taken from mummy wrappings. Long ago, the poet Wordsworth expressed a poignant longing:
0 ye, who patiently explore The wreck of Herculanean lore, What rapture! could ye seize Some Theban fragment, or unroll One precious, tender-hearted, scroll Of pure Simonides.
That were, indeed, a genuine birth Of poesy; a bursting forth
Of genius from the dust:
What Horace gloried to behold, What Maro loved, shall we enfold?
Can haughty Time be just?
Wordsworth alludes to a discovery that took place in 1752 at Herculaenum, Italy, where a library of Epicurean writings, including especially Philodemus,
43 Albert Thumb, Die griechische Sprache im Zeitalter des Hellenismus (Strassburg: Karl J.
Triibner, 1901), 181-83, notes the significant role played by Gustav Adolf Deissmann (see above, chap. 7) in appreciation of papyri and inscriptions for interpretation of the Greek Bible. For entry into the world of papyrology, see 0. Montevecchi, La Papirologia (Turin, 1973); E. G. Turner, Greek Papyri: An Introduction, rev. ed. (Oxford, 1980); F. Danker, A Century of Graeco-Roman Philology (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988), 115-28, hereafter cited as Century. For information on the “Duke Data Bank of Documentary Papyri,’ see John J. Hughes, Bits, Bytes & Biblical Studies (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1987), 579-80. C. K. Barrett, ed., New Testament Background:
Selected Documents (London: SPCK, 1957), includes, among other items that have a bearing on New Testament topics, Pliny’s description (Natural History 13.68-83) of the preparation and use of papyri.
44 E. J. Epp, “The New Testament Papyrus Manuscripts in Historical Perspective,” in To Touch the Text: Biblical and Related Studies in Honor of Joseph A. Fitzmyer, S.J.. ed. Maurya P. Horgan and Paul J. K&l&i (New York: Crossroad, 1989), 261-88, with frequent reference to the excellent study by E. G. Turner, Greek Papyri: An Introduction (Oxford, 1968). Epp points out that papyrus texts of the New Testament were for many decades snubbed in favor of the great parchment uncials.
was unearthed. The poet’s prayer was answered in a different way, as prayers often are. In 1896 there were unearthed at Al-Kussiyah fourteen epinician odes and six dithyrambs authored by Bacchylides. Bishop Joseph Barber Lightfoot (1828-1889), “one of the first to vindicate the Greek of the New Testament as the genuine lingua franca of the Graeco-Roman world of that day,“45 in 1863 echoed Wordsworth’s thought: “if we could only recover letters that ordi- nary people wrote to each other without any thought of being literary, we should have the greatest possible help for the understanding of the language of the NT generally.“46 Had he lived a bit longer, he could have celebrated the recovery of such and other kinds of everyday communication at numerous sites in Egypt.
As the abbreviation lists in the major lexicons indicate, the number of published papyri is staggering, and only a few notable sites and corpora can here be mentioned. Some of the early Christian documents cited in BAGD were found in an ancient rubbish heap at Behnesa, located about 120 miles south of Cairo. This was the site of the ancient Oxyrhynchus, capital of the nome that bore its name. There, in 1897, Bernard Pyne Grenfell and Arthur Surridge Hunt found Roman office records that had been put to the torch, but the sands moved in, put out the fire, and preserved the fragments for all time, some in the very baskets in which they were carried out to be burned.
Ever since 1898 texts from this treasure of retrieval have been transcribed, translated, and annotated in volumes that appear with gratifying regularity.
Since the texts in the series, The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, are entered under a continuous numbering system, it is customary to cite only the number of a specific papyrus, not the volume of the series.
In 1933 John Garrett Winter called attention to the University of Michigan’s outstanding collection, an inventory of more than five thousand items, in a time-defying account titled Life and Letters in the Papyri (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1933). Among the papyri in the Michigan collection are statements of account from the Zenon archive (I? Mich. l=P. Mich. Zen.), found in 1915 at Philadelphia in the Fayum, on the edge of the desert. This archive takes its name from the confidential business manager of Apollonius, a minister of finance under Ptolemy II. Zenon was meticulous in maintaining his files and fortunately did not believe in shredding. When he transferred his office to Philadelphia, he took with him his mass of correspondence, which remained intact, like the “dead files” of Tell el-Amarna, for more than two millennia. Other shares of the Zenon hoard went to Columbia University and
45 George R. Eden and F. C. MacDonald, eds., Lightfoot of Durham: Memories and Appre- ciations (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1932), 8.
46 James Hope Moulton, A Grammar of New Testament Greek, vol. 1: Prolegomena, 3d ed.
(Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1908), 242.
254 Multipurpose Tools for Bible Study Contextuality 2 5 5 the British Museum. Columbia’s share began to be published in 1934 in
P. Col. Zen. I.47
Many of the papyri consist of occasional letters, and they are frequently made the basis of comparison for study of New Testament letters. It is true that papyrus letters reflect some of the basic epistolary conventions, but for detailed analysis of rhetorical structures in the Pauline and most other New Testament correspondence one must examine the structures of more formal literary texts. More attention therefore needs to be paid to the more formal type of letter preserved in texts other than papyri, including especially Rudolf Hercher’s epistolary collection.48 Another resource that is almost totally neglected in New Testament study is the multitude of letters inscribed on stone (see below).
A notable collection of papyri relating to Jewish economic and social life, customs, institutions, and political experience is available in Co@us Papyrorum Judaicarum (CPJ), ed. Victor A. Tcherikover (d. 1958) and Alexander Fuks, 3 ~01s. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960). Of special historical importance in this collection are nos. 153 (“The Letter of Claudius to the Alexandrians,” a reprint of P. Lond. 1912, which is frequently cited in BAGD) and 154-59 (“Acts of Alexandrian Martyrs”), in volume 2.
A wealth of material from the Bar Kokhba (Cochba) period sheds light not only on political circumstances but on linguistic interchange in the second century. A detailed report on discoveries that included correspondence of the resistance leader is given by Joseph A. Fitzmyer, Essays on the Semitic Back- ground of the New Testament (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1971), 305-54.
Since the publication of Fitzmyer’s report, Naphtali Lewis edited the bulk of the so-called Babatha archive, discovered at Nahal Hever, about four and a half km. south of Engedi. These documents, dating from the time of the Bar Kokhba revolution (A.D. 132), belonged to Babatha the daughter of Simeon and her family and deal with matters of property and lawsuits involving Babatha.4g
George Milligan’s Here 6 There Among the Papyri (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1922) has long served as a popular introduction to the papyri for
47 On Zenon, see Willy Clarysse and Katelijn Vandorpe, Zenon: Een Grieks Manager in de Schaduw van de Piramiden (Leuven, 1990); available from the authors in Leuven. These letters in Greek may be profitably compared with the Egyptian letters in Edward Wente’s collection from various periods in Egyptian history, Letters from Ancient Egypt, ed. Edmund S. Meltzer, SBL Writings from the Ancient World 1 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1990).
48 R. Hercher, Epistolographi Graeci (1873). The literature on ancient epistolary forms and New Testament letters is extensive: see “Letters: Greek and Latin Letters,” ABD, 4:290-93, bibl.);
John L. White, Light from Ancient Letters (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986), bibl. 221-24.
49 The Document% from the Bar Kokhba Period in the Cave of Letters, Greek Papyri; ed. Naphtali Lewis. Aramaic and Nabataen Signatures and Subscriptions, ed. Yigael Yadin (d. 1984) and Jonas C. Greenfield (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1989).
students of the New Testament and at the same time has stimulated appetites for more information of the type found in Winter’s book (see above). Beginners on the road to further papyrological adventure will also find the first two volumes of Arthur Surridge Hunt and Campbell Cowan Edgar, Select Papyri
(Loeb Classical Library), an encouragement to further inquiry.sO
For setting up shop on one’s own, A Greek Papyrus Reader (Chicago: Univer- sity of Chicago Press, 1935), by Edgar J. Goodspeed and Ernest Cadman Colwell, has proved to be a helpful and interesting medium. The Greek vocabulary at the back of the book offers sufficient guidance to decipher the texts, which afford glimpses into numerous facets of ancient Egyptian life, bureaucratic and private.51 Humorless reviewers, who equate a dash of levity as poison to the well of learning, are ever with us. In a review of this work, in The Classical Journal 32 (1936-37), 303-4, the reviewer observed that the introductions were “sometimes rather facetious,” and he suggested that “playful references” to contemporary experience like the depression and the machine age “might well have been replaced [he does not say, ‘accompanied by’] a little more information about the documents.” The fact is that the “playful” items consist of only a few words. The reviewer probably was unacquainted with Goodspeed’s lighter side, which adds sparkle to his autobiography, As I Remember (New York: Harper, 1953). As for Colwell, his reputation for wit requires no recital.
For those who can learn without the benefit of Attic salt we recommend the far more thorough guide by l? W. Pestman, The New Papyrological Primer, being the Fifth Edition of David and Van Groningen’s Papyrological Primer
(Leiden: Brill, 1990). In the late 1930s the legal historian Martin David and the Greek philologist Bernard Abraham van Groningen, no majors in paroch- ialism, conceived the idea of a “Papyrological Primer.” Their four editions provided many students with an authoritative base for entry into papyrology.
This fifth edition is, in Pestman’s words, a “new and modernized version.
Papyrology being constantly on the move, an entirely new primer is the result.
I have tried to write it in the spirit of my teachers, intending to show how fascinating Greek Papyrology really is, and why?2 The eighty-one Greek texts, preceded by an introduction worthy of its name, are arranged in chronological order and illustrate various aspects of life in Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzan- tine Egypt. A brief commentary and explanatory notes accompany each text.
5o Volume 1 contains “Non-Literary Papyri: Private Affairs”; vol. 2, “Non-Literary Papyri: Public Documents.” The 3d vol., ed. D. L. Page, contains “Literary Papyri: Poetry.”
51 The second impression, 1936, includes corrections submitted by F. Wilbur Gingrich. Some of Goodspeed’s knowledge of the papyri is distilled in his solution of di5culties faced by translators, Problems of New Testament Translation (1945), frequently cited in BAGD.
Q The 1st ed. was titled Papyrologisch Leerboek (1940), which was translated into English for a 2d ed., Papyrological Primer (1946; 3d ed., 1952; 4th ed., 1965). If Pestman’s Primer is not available, consult Eric Gardner Turner, Greek Papyri: An Introduction, rev. ed. (Oxford, 1980).
256 Multipurpose Tools for Bible Study Contextuality 257
A glossary of Greek words assists the student in the interpretation of texts.
After spending time with the Goodspeed-Colwell Reader or Pestman’s Primer, students might well try their hand at decipherment of script in one of the biblical documents published in the series Bodmer Papyri.
Pestman’s Primer is also of value for making acquaintance with the prin- cipal works, primary and secondary, relating to papyrology. The standard list for identification of papyrus publications is Checklist of Editions of Greek Papyri and Ostraca, ed. John F. Oates, et al., 3d ed. (Chico, Calif.: Scholars Press, 1985). Since decipherments of many papyrus texts appear in periodicals, some of them frequently unavailable to scholars, a warehouse for gathering such texts was developed, beginning in 1915: Sammelbuch Griechischer Urkunden aus ;igypten, successively published by Friedrich Preisigke, Friedrich Bilabel, Emil Kiessling, and H.-A. Rupprecht. Scholars frequently offer corrections of texts that have been’ published, and these are collected in Berichtigungsliste der griechischen Papyrusurkunden aus iigypten, ed. F.
Preisigke, et al. (1922-).53 Detailed access to the latter is made possible by Willy Clarysse, et al., Konkordanz und Supplement zu Berichtigungsliste, ~01s.
l-7 (Leuven, 1989). An anthology of papyri frequently cited in BAGD is Grund- ziige und Chrestomathie der Papyruskunde. Ulrich Wilcken was responsible for vol. 1: Historischer Teil(l912); Ludwig Mitteis for vol. 2: Juristischer Teil (1920). The collection by F. G. Kenyon, et al., Greek Papyri in the British Museum, 5 ~01s. (London, 1893-1917) also receives repeated mention in BAGD.
Although publications of newly discovered papyri, as well as better readings of some that were previously published, make updating of standard works a necessity, the names of Friedrich Preisigke and Edwin Mayser still spell glory for Germany. Wtjrterbuch der griechischen Papyrusurkunden mit Einschluss dergriechischen Inschriften, Aufschriften, Ostraka, Mumienschilder usw. aus iigypten, 3 ~01s. (Berlin, 1925-31), begun by Friedrich Preisigke (d. 1924) and continued by Emil Kiessling, deals exclusively with the papyri. Two supple- ments have been published, and a fourth volume, undertaken in 1944, was completed in 1992. To fill some gaps, Winfried Riibsam published S u p p l e - ment I (Amsterdam, 1969-71; Supplement II was published in 1992.
Anxious to unpack the grammatical world of the papyri, Stanislaus Wit- kowski published his Prodromus grammaticae papyrorum graecarum aetatis Lugidarum, Abh. der Phil. klass. der Akademie zu Krakau (1897), 196-260, but it was in Edwin Mayser’s work that awareness of the evolution of the Greek language reached a high point. Scholars have long been dependent on his incomplete Grammatik der griechischen Papyri aus der Ptolemiierzeit: Mit Einschluss der gleichzeitigen Ostraka und der in iigypten verfassten Inschtiften for analysis of Koine material relating to the Septuagint and New Testament.
53 Work on vol. 9 is to be completed with the help of a computer.
The title indicates the breadth of its data base: papyri, potsherds, and stone monuments.
Despite Mayser’s achievement, the flood of Egyptian data and developments in linguistics invite new appraisal of old conclusions. A total of 32,284 ancient documents, including papyri, mummy labels, ostraca, and inscriptions, can lay some claim to responsibility for conclusions reached in Francis Thomas Gignac, A Grammar of the Greek Papyri of the Roman and Byzantine Periods:
I, Phonology (Milan: Istituto Editoriale Cisalpino - La Goliardica, 1976); II, Morphology (1981). Analysis of syntax, the real test of a grammarian’s feel for language, is scheduled for the third and fourth volumes. When completed, Gignac’s work will certainly supersede much that is in Mayser.
Long holding the field for concentration on use of the papyri for exposition of the New Testament is The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament: Illustrated from the Papyri and Other Non-Literary Sources, by James Hope Moulton and George Milligan (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1914-29; one-volume edition, 1930), cited as MM. At the twentieth International Congress of Papyrologists (Copenhagen, August 23-29, 1992), Prof. G. H. R. Horsley called attention to a proposal made to Moulton by Gustav Adolf Deissmann, in a letter dated January 12, 1907. Declining a request by Moulton to collaborate on a lexicon, Deissmann apparently thought of producing one with strong emphasis on epigraphic material and therefore encouraged Moulton to concentrate on papyri. Sidetracked by various academic tasks and other projects, Deissmann never produced his opus vitae. But Moulton, heeding Deissmann’s counsel, teamed up with Milligan and produced a work that has long serviced New Testament scholars. Unfortunately, there was a liability in Deissmann’s suggestion: because of the preponderance of papyrus references in MM, students concluded, as Horsley points out, that epigraphic material was relatively less important for New Testament study.
Among specialized studies, Theodor Nsgeli’s Der Wortschatz des Apostels Paulus: Beitrag ZUT sprachgeschichtlichen Erforschung des Neuen Testaments (G6ttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1905) is of abiding interest for students of the New Testament. NHgeli saw the significance of Adolf Deissmann’s researches, and in this classic little work he made a penetrating search of Pauline writings to determine the linguistic range in his diction. Much of Paul’s usage, Nggele found, corresponds to expressions in papyri and epigraphs. Six decades later Lars Rydbeck concentrated on grammatical phenomena in a study titled Fachprosa, vermeintliche Volkssprache und Neues Testament zur Beurteilung der sprachlichen Niveauunterschiede im nachklassischen Griechisch (Uppsala, 1967). In this book Rydbeck demonstrates that certain expressions in docu- mentary papyri and the New Testament that have at times been deemed to be colloquial or Semitic are found in the early imperial period in writers of technical prose, including, for example, Pedanius Dioscurides (pharmacologist),