Michael Trotter and Dr. Thomas Wayment, Ancient Scripture
The purpose of my project has been to reevaluate the current dating of P. Oxy. LXIV 4405, which is currently dated to the late II or early III century. This papyrus fragment preserves a section of Matthew 23: 30–39, and its original dating by Peter Parsons, and later support by J. D. Thomas, was based solely on paleography, or handwriting analysis. Although paleography is frequently used to date literary papyri, it is unfortunately an imprecise method of dating and is ideally used when all other methods are exhausted. However, P. Oxy. LXIV 4405 has some previously unidentified markings that I contend provides a more sure method of dating the text.
In P.Oxy. LXIV 4405, the scribe has made a horizontal line similar to those used to indicate nomina sacra over the first three letters in lines 6 and 10 of the reverse. Additionally, the scribe has inserted a mid-point used for punctuation that also coincides with the ending of a verse. Also, on the side of the papyrus where the fibers run horizontally, the scribe intentionally left a large blank area, roughly equivalent to two lines of text, between the ending of Matthew 23:21 and the beginning of Matthew 23:22. My original hypothesis was that these section divisions represented Eusebian canons, a section division system developed by Eusebius of Caesarea in the IV century.
To pursue this hypothesis, I attacked the issue on two fronts. First, I reexamined the paleography of P. Oxy. LXIV 4405 in order to determine what dates could be supported by the scribe’s handwriting. After much research and guidance from my faculty mentor, we were able to find handwriting parallels in P.Oxy. VIII 1082 (II century), P.Oxy. LXXII 4844 (IV century), and P.Oxy. LXVI 4499 (III/early IV century). I found that the paleography of P. Oxy. LXIV 4405 cannot provide a date as precise as the II century, but rather it provides a date range that spans from II to the IV century. Secondly, I analyzed every known section division system of the New Testament used in the first five centuries of the Christian era, and compared them to the marks found in P. Oxy. LXIV 4405. I found that the marks did not match the section division systems used in codex Vaticanus, the old Greek divisions, the division system in codex Bezae, and the division system in the Freer gospels. On the other hand, the marks in P. Oxy. LXIV 4405 matched the Eusebian canon system exactly. Since P. Oxy. LXIV 4405 only matched the Eusebian canons, it appears that it could not have been composed prior to the IV century, since the Eusebian canon system was invented in the IV century. Additionally, a IV century date falls within the paleographic date range of the papyrus.
These findings are very valuable for the papyrological community. There is currently a debate among papyrologists that has led some, such as Bagnall and Nongbri, to question whether or not paleographic evidence actually supports the early dating of most Christian biblical papyri.1 The findings of this paper will be able to contribute to this debate by proving that P. Oxy. LXIV 4405 was dated too early and thereby gives support to the group of papyrologists who are arguing that there is a practice of excessive early dating of Christian literary papyri. Textual critics will have to take these findings into account as well, since pushing the date of P. Oxy. LXIV 4405 back 100–200 years will potentially weaken any argument that the papyrus is close to the autograph of the book of Matthew.
Since concluding this project, I have presented my research at the Rocky Mountain – Great Plains Region Regional Society of Biblical Literature Conference, where it was well received. Additionally, my faculty mentor, Dr. Thomas Wayment, and I have co-written an article regarding this research project, which we will submit for publication in Zeitschrifte für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, a tier one journal, at the end of May.
I am very grateful to the Office of Research and Creative Activities for the support and funding that made this project possible.