Discoveries and Manuscripts NT-1000 NT · PDF fileDiscoveries and Manuscripts NT-1000 NT Introduction ... Discoveries and Manuscripts NT-1000 NT Introduction ... Zostrianos The Letter

NT-1000 NT IntroductionDiscoveries and Manuscripts

1. Writing materials A. Parchment (Pergament)


Targum 11th century IraqLindisfarne Gospel, 8th century

1. Writing materials A. Parchment (Pergament)


City of

Pergamon

Model at

Pergamon

Museum

Berlin

1. Writing materials A. The Making of Parchment


Recipe Schedula diversarium artium. Theophilus Presbyter. Early twelfth century

Take goatskins ( 1 ) and stand them in water for a day and a night.

Take them and wash them till the water runs clear ( 2 ).

Take an entirely new bath and place therein old lime (calcem non

recentem) and water mixing well together to for a thick cloudy

liquor. Place the skins into this, folding them on the flesh side. Move

them with a pole two or three times each day, leaving them for

eight days (and twice as long in winter) ( 3 ).

Next you must withdraw the skins and unhair them ( 4 ).

Pour off the contents of the bath and repeat the process using the same quantities, placing the skins in the lime

liquor, and moving them once each day over eight days as before ( 5 ).

Then take them out and wash them well until the water runs quite clean ( 6 ).

Place them in another bath with clean water and leave them for two days ( 7 ).

Then take them out, attach the cords and tie them to the circular frame ( 8 ).

Dry, then shave them with a sharp knife, after which, leave for two days out of the sun…( 9 )

moisten with water and rub the flesh side with powdered pumice ( 10 ).

After two days wet it again by sprinkling with a little water and fully clean the flesh side with pumice so as to make it

quite wet again ( 11 ).

Then tighten up the cords, equalise the tension so that the sheet will become permanent. Once the sheets are dry,

nothing further remains to be done ( 12 ). Britisch Museum MS. Harley 3915, fol. 128r

1. Writing materials A. Parchment

Prachment production


A parchment-seller’s

shop, illustrated in a

15th-century Italian

chronicle.

One man is trimming

the sheets into

rectangles, the other is

rubbing them down

with chalk in

preparation for writing.

The stock for sale on

the shelves includes

both rolls and packets

of ready-folded sheets


Prachment production



Def: a thin material made from calfskin, sheepskin or goatskin.


Parchment manuscript - Part of Isaiah scroll from Qumran

1. Writing materials B. Parchment – Examples from Antiquity





Dieter Mitternacht

1. Writing materials C. Papyrus


1. Writing materials B. PapyrusPapyrus paper production – Modern illustration


1. Writing materials B. PapyrusPapyrus texture


Papyrus find

1. Writing materials B. Papyrus - Examples


P 115, POxy56.4499

3rd/4th century, Rev 6

POxy 3522, 1st century CE

Job42-11-12 (LXX)

1. Writing materials B. Papyrus – Examples from Antiquity


2. DiscoveriesA. Papyrus finds in the

Desert sand of Egypt

(Oxyrhynchus)


Satellite image of Egypt


The Nile River near Aswan


Garbage dump

in the desert sandOxyrhynchusVillage


Excavation site 23




2. DiscoveriesB. Manuscript finds in Nag Hammadi

The Nag Hammadi library is a collection of early Christian Gnostic texts.

In December of 1945 two Egyptian brothers found several papyri in a large earthenware vessel. They were

digging for fertilizer around limestone caves. At first, the brothers tried to sell the individually at intervals.

In 1946, the brothers became involved in a feud, and left the manuscripts with a Coptic priest, whose brother-in-law in October that year sold a codex to the Coptic

Museum in Old Cairo (this tract is today numbered Codex III in the collection). The resident Coptologist and religious historian Jean Dorese, realizing the significance of the artifact, published the first reference to it in 1948.

During the years many tried to make money with the

manuscripts. Finally the papyri were brought together in

Cairo in the 1970s.

Of the 1945 find, eleven complete books and fragments of two others, 'amounting to well over 1000 written

pages are preserved there.


2. DiscoveriesB. Manuscript finds in Nag Hammadi, List of codices found

Codex I (Jung Foundation Codex):

The Prayer of the Apostle Paul

The Apocryphon of James (also

known as the Secret Book of James)

The Gospel of Truth

The Treatise on the Resurrection

The Tripartite Tractate

Codex II:

The Apocryphon of John

The Gospel of Thomas a sayings

gospel

The Gospel of Philip

The Hypostasis of the Archons

On the Origin of the World

The Exegesis on the Soul

The Book of Thomas the Contender

Codex III:


The Gospel of the Egyptians

Eugnostos the Blessed

The Sophia of Jesus Christ

The Dialogue of the Saviour

Codex IV:


The Gospel of the Egyptians

Codex V:

Eugnostos the Blessed

The Apocalypse of Paul

The First Apocalypse of James

The Second Apocalypse of James

The Apocalypse of Adam

Codex VI:

The Acts of Peter and the Twelve Apostles

The Thunder, Perfect Mind

Authoritative Teaching

The Concept of Our Great Power

Republic by Plato - The original is not

gnostic, but the Nag Hammadi library

version is heavily modified with then-

current gnostic concepts.

The Discourse on the Eighth and Ninth - a

Hermetic treatise

The Prayer of Thanksgiving (with a hand-

written note) - a Hermetic prayer

Asclepius 21-29 - another Hermetic

treatise

Codex VII:

The Paraphrase of Shem

The Second Treatise of the Great Seth

Gnostic Apocalypse of Peter

The Teachings of Silvanus

The Three Steles of Seth

Codex VIII:

Zostrianos

The Letter of Peter to Philip

Codex IX:

Melchizedek

The Thought of Norea

The Testimony of truth

Codex X:

Marsanes

Codex XI:

The Interpretation of Knowledge

A Valentinian Exposition, On the

Anointing, On Baptism (A and B)

and On the Eucharist (A and B)

Allogenes

Hypsiphrone

Codex XII:

The Sentences of Sextus

The Gospel of Truth

Fragments

Codex XIII:

Trimorphic Protennoia

On the Origin of the World


2. DiscoveriesC. Manuscripts from the Dead Sea (Qumran texts)

Grotto 4 in Qumran


Jars from the

Qumran Caves


Fragment from

the book of Leviticus


Isaiah scroll from Qumran


The Copper scroll • discovered in 1952 in Cave 3Q

• almost eight feet (2.44 m) in length

• unique both in construction and content

• written on the purest copper

• not a book but an inventory and guide to fabulous caches

of gold and silver

Some experts believe

that the text describes

hidden treasures from

Salomon’s Temple in

Jerusalem (including

the Jeweled Breast

Plate of Judgment and

the legendary Ark of the

Covenant.

Some even claim that

the Copper Scroll might

be linked to the Holy

Grail.


2. DiscoveriesD. Manuscript finds in the Kairo Geniza

In the late 1800s a

9th century

synagogue was

discovered in Kairo.

In the geniza more

than 200 000

papyrus fragments

with over 100 000

pages of religious

and other Hebrew

texts were found.


A geniza is a storage space in a synagogue, where (גניזה)

outworn scriptures are kept until they are “buried”

according to a ritual for religious texts.

Solomon Schechter (1847-1915)

Surrounded by papyrus fragments from the Kairo Geniza, c. 1895


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Discoveries and Manuscripts NT-1000 NT · PDF fileDiscoveries and Manuscripts NT-1000 NT Introduction ... Discoveries and Manuscripts NT-1000 NT Introduction ... Zostrianos The Letter