Egerton Papyrus 2

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Verso of fragment 1 of the Egerton 2 papyrus, British Museum

The Egerton Papyrus 2 is a four fragments of existing ancient papyrus from the mid to late second century codex form. The tiny fourth fragment shows only a single letter and is useless for the reconstruction. It is under the signature P.London.Christ. 1 in the British Museum . The writing contains four to five episodes from an otherwise unknown apocryphal gospel or a collection of Jesus stories.

Origin and dating

The papyrus was found in Egypt and published for the first time in 1935 by the papyrologist Harold Idris Bell (1879-1967) and the librarian Theodore Cressy Skeat (1907-2003). The papyrus fragment Papyrus Köln VI 255 is part of the same manuscript and complements the first fragment of the Egerton papyrus. It enabled a better understanding and an improved translation of the texts handed down on the fragments.

The location does not necessarily indicate that the text must have been written in Egypt. In general, due to the climatic conditions, papyri in Egypt have been preserved much better than in other regions of the Roman Empire , but they may have been written in other places or copied from other sources. Overall, however, the Egyptian papyri finds show that Egypt was a focal point for the production of apocryphal gospels and gospel harmonies in the 2nd century AD .

The papyrus is mostly dated to the middle to the end of the 2nd century. John Dominic Crossan, who represents an early and original development, takes the year 120 as the latest drafting date. Klaus Berger and Kurt Erlemann represent a very early date of approx. 75 AD. Michael Gronewald, who published the supplementary Cologne fragment, dates the entire manuscript to the 3rd century AD due to the characteristics of the font; Brent Nongbri also assumes writing in the late 2nd or early 3rd century. The address of Jesus with the word "Rabbi" used in the tax question, which was customary in Judaism at the earliest in the last decades of the 1st century and became known to Christians, limits the horizon of development downwards. C. H. Dodd thought this address was already conceivable with the destruction of Jerusalem in 70. The papyrus is definitely one of the oldest known early Christian manuscripts.

The papyrus contains nouns sacra , which are typical of biblical manuscripts and theological literature from this period. In terms of language and content, the first episode , according to C. H. Dodd and Ernst Haenchen , resembles the style of John's Gospel , an assessment that many later researchers adopted, but which has also been contested. But it also contains synoptic features. Papyri finds show that the Gospel of John was received much earlier in Egypt than in other Christian communities. The second fragment shows parallels with synoptic tradition . Some phrases in the story about the cure for leprosy reveal that the author did not come from Palestine or was not familiar with the conditions there. It is believed to be in what was then Syria , Asia Minor or Egypt .

content

The first two fragments contain fragments of four texts:

  • an argument with lawyers and rulers of the Jewish people about an alleged violation of the law by Jesus. It ends with an unsuccessful attempt to stone him .
  • the healing of a leper .
  • the attempt to provoke Jesus with the tax question (cf. Mk 12: 13-17  EU ).
  • a miracle of Jesus at the Jordan , which is nowhere else recorded. Here the fragment is badly damaged so that the text can hardly be reconstructed.

The third, very small fragment contains only a few isolated words and does not allow text reconstruction.

Literary judgment

The text of the papyrus shows similarities in certain respects with John and with the Synoptic Gospels. The scholars disagree about his relationship to the canonical gospels and are roughly divided into three groups. Some consider the text to be literarily dependent on New Testament sources; others believe it is an independent, competing tradition that may have coexisted with the New Testament sources; and a third group estimates the fragment to be older and considers it possible that parts of it were used as a source in the creation of John's Gospel.

  • CH Dodd ( A New Gospel , in New Testament Studies , Manchester 1953) considered the first pericope to be literarily dependent on the Gospel of John, while the remaining passages came from an oral tradition independent of the NT.
  • Joachim Jeremias ( New Testament Apocrypha , Tübingen 1987, pp. 82–85) believed that the author knew all four Gospels and quoted them freely from memory. It could be an excerpt from a complete work concluded with a passion story.
  • John Dominic Crossan ( Four other Gospels , Minneapolis 1985, pp. 65–87), on the other hand, takes the view that at least the pericope on the tax question is older than the parallel Mk 12: 13-17. The fragment was therefore created independently of the synoptic tradition and proves that there were other oral and written traditions of Jesus at the same time.
  • John P. Meier sees indications for dependent education in the wording of the tax question ( A Marginal Jew , New York 1991, pp. 119–120). The Markinian formulation of the question whether it is permissible to “pay Caesar poll tax” ( Mk 13,14  EU ) corresponds in the Egerton parallel: “to pay the kings what belongs to the rulers”. This abstracting generalization of the question addressed to Jesus, whose specific seat in life seems to be eliminated here, points to a later background. Meier considers Dodd's explanation of the other pieces to be conceivable in principle, but ultimately not to be proven. Whether it is an independent Jesus tradition or a free retelling of the synoptic material cannot be clarified with sufficient certainty. Freely constructed additions, as they are known from other apocryphal writings, could also be imagined.

literature

Editions and translations

  • Harold Idris Bell, Theodore Cressy Skeat: Fragments of an Unknown Gospel. London 1935.
  • Joachim Jeremias, Wilhelm Schneemelcher : Papyrus Egerton 2. In: Wilhelm Schneemelcher (Hrsg.): New Testament Apocrypha I: Gospels. 6th edition, Tübingen 1987, pp. 82-85 (German translation and introduction).
  • Klaus Berger , Christiane Nord: The New Testament and early Christian writings. Frankfurt 1999, pp. 671-672 (German translation and commentary).
  • Stanley E. Porter: The Egerton 2 Papyrus (P.Egerton 2 / P.Lond.Christ 1). In: Christoph Markschies , Jens Schröter (Hrsg.): Ancient Christian Apocrypha in German Translation , Volume 1: Gospels and Related. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2012, pp. 360–365.
  • Stanley E. Porter: The Papyrus Cologne VI 255 (P. Cologne VI 355). In: Christoph Markschies, Jens Schröter (Hrsg.): Ancient Christian Apocrypha in German Translation , Volume 1: Gospels and Related. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2012, pp. 366–367.

Secondary literature

  • Michael Gronewald: Unknown Gospel or Gospel Harmony (fragment from the 'Evangelium Egerton'). In: ders. U. a. (Ed.): Kölner Papyri Volume 6 (= Papyrologica Coloniensia Vol. 7). Westdeutscher Verlag, Leverkusen 1987, ISBN 3-531-09923-X , pp. 136-145.
  • Jon B. Daniels: The Egerton Gospel: Its Place in Early Christianity. Dissertation, The Claremont Graduate School, California. UMI, Ann Arbor 1989.
  • Frederick F. Bruce : Egerton Papyrus 2 , in: Extra-biblical testimonies about Jesus and early Christianity. 3rd edition, Brunnen Verlag, Gießen 1993, pp. 146-149.
  • Kurt Erlemann: Papyrus Egerton 2: “Missing Link” between synoptic and Johannine tradition , in: New Testament Studies 42 (1996), pp. 12–34.
  • Johannes B. Bauer: “The seed on the water is growing” - PEgerton 2 fr. 2 verso (Bell / Skeat) , in: Journal for New Testament Science 97 (2006), pp. 280–282.
  • Petr Pokorný , Ulrich Heckel: Introduction to the New Testament. An overview of his literature and theology. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2007, pp. 359-361. ISBN 978-3-16-148011-9
  • Tobias Nicklas: Papyrus Egerton 2 , in: Paul Foster (Ed.): The Non-Canonical Gospels. T&T Clark, London 2008, pp. 139-149.

Remarks

  1. ↑ Michael Gronewald: Unknown Gospel or Gospel Harmony (fragment from the 'Evangelium Egerton'). Leverkusen 1987.
  2. ^ A b John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew , New York 1991, p. 150.
  3. ↑ Stanley E. Porter: The Papyrus Egerton 2 (P.Egerton 2 / P.Lond.Christ 1). In: Christoph Markschies, Jens Schröter (Hrsg.): Ancient Christian Apocrypha in German Translation , Volume 1: Gospels and Related. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2012, p. 361.
  4. ^ John Dominic Crossan: Four other Gospels: Shadows on the Contours of Canon. Minneapolis 1985, p. 69 (reported by John P. Meier, p. 149).
  5. ↑ Klaus Berger , Christiane Nord: The New Testament and early Christian writings. Frankfurt 1999, p. 671.
  6. ↑ Stanley E.Porter: Recent Efforts to Reconstruct Early Christianity on the basis of its Papyrological Evidence. In: same with Andrew Pitts (ed.): Christian Origins and Greco-Roman Culture: Social and Literary Contexts for the New Testament. Brill, Leiden / Boston 2013, p. 74.
  7. ↑ John P. Meier, p. 148.
  8. ↑ Stanley E. Porter: The Papyrus Egerton 2 (P.Egerton 2 / P.Lond.Christ 1). In: Christoph Markschies, Jens Schröter (Hrsg.): Ancient Christian Apocrypha in German Translation , Volume 1: Gospels and Related. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2012, p. 362.

Web links

  • [1] , Early Christian Writings (English translation, Greek text, links and literature)