Thursday, September 21, 2006

Picture of earliest ms of 1 Peter

4
The earliest known manuscript of 1 Peter is in Coptic. I think Roberts considered a late C2 date, but a C3 date has prevailed. Anyway, a picture is now available here. Click to enlarge.

4 comments

  1. In the description of the MS (following the link to the image) it is said:

    "The present 1 Peter is copied from a Greek exemplar written before 2 Peter existed, i.e. ca. 60-130 AD. "

    It may be the case that the copyist worked from an exemplar without 2 Peter. One should note (see the larger image), that the title of 1 Peter is without the ordinal number ("first").

    On the other hand, the MS is a miscellany where the books are organized around a theme.

    In any case, the statement is a bit speculative in my taste.

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  2. I agree that this cited comment is nonsense since a Coptic text cannot be "copied from a Greek exemplar". Someone needs to translate it! It is also clear that 1 Peter was known independently of 2 Peter well beyond 130, so the designation as 'the epistle of Peter' is no indication that it comes from a copy prior to the existence of 2 Peter (whenever that is dated).

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  3. This ms cannot be either copied or translated from a Greek exemplar of 1 Peter before 2 Peter existed (unless that Greek ms were already quite old).

    I know of at least one first century work that copies from 2 Peter. Although this work is not extant in any manuscripts that predate this Coptic one, its antiquity is highly probable since its internal claim of authorship by "Jude, servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James" does not bear the marks of a pseudonymity. See Zahn for further details.

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  4. "The present 1 Peter is copied from a Greek exemplar written before 2 Peter existed, i.e. ca. 60-130 AD. "

    It is unlikely that anthing was copied in what we now describe as Coptic during this period. We have earlier examples of OC (Old Coptic) which this is not.

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