What About that P52 Manuscript?

Bismillah ir rahman ir raheem,

As salamu 'alikum wr wb (May the Peace, Mercy of Allah and Blessings be upon you).

What About that P52 Manuscript?

Here is an interesting post that gives some food for thought.

Remember how some Christian scholars like to boast the P52 Manuscript being the oldest New Testament document? Well check this out.

Taken from the following: http://unveilingchristianity.wordpress.com/2009/01/17/the-oldest-text-of-the-new-testament/

What’s the Oldest Surviving Text of the New Testament?

by Ibn Anwar

I recall numerous instances of facing Christian detractors who would attempt to undermine Islam by questioning the validity of the primary sources that support it. Specifically, they would question the Hadith. Their main assertion would be that the Hadith is unreliable since it was compiled 200 years after the fact(in reference to Sahih Bukhari). Though this is absolutely false I do not wish to delve into it here. In this article we shall discuss the Christian source material instead. As it happens, the Christians do not have any record or documents that date to the first century CE in support of their New Testament. Most of the documents that make up the New Testament are traced back to either the mid second century or later(many are later) e.g. Chester Beaty Papyrus 1(P45)[3rd Century], Chester Beaty Papyrus II(P46)[A.D.200], Chester Beaty Papyrus III(late 3rd century), Bodmer Papyrus II(P66)[A.D.200] and Bodmer Papyrus XIV-XV(P75)[early 3rd century). In fact, modern scholarship realise that the works attributed to Matthew, Mark, Luke etc. are in reality anonymous(Click here for further details). We have absolutely no idea who wrote them! One of the reasons for this absolute ambiguity and vagueness is due to the fact that NONE of the originals(if there were even any)survives. Scholars say that what they have now are copies of copies of copies of copies of copies made from purported originals. In reality this is nothing more than guess work. We have no idea if there were even originals to begin with since they do not exist any more to substantiate the so called copies and there is absolutely no chain of transmission whatsoever so as to substantiate the authority of those who transmitted the words and messages down to the copyists(whoever they were). As mentioned, the books themselves are totally anonymous. Professor Bart D. Ehrman, the foremost textual critic notes,

"Not only do we not have the originals, we don't have the first copies of the originals. We don't even have copies of the copies of the originals, or copies of the copies of the originals. What we have are copies made later-much later. In most instances, they are copies made many centuries later. And these copies all differ from one another, in many thousands of places." [1]

I am sure you have heard Christians making the claim that the Gospel of John was written several decades after Jesus and so were all the others. Such claims are unsubstantiated by any real textual evidence. As a matter of fact, today we know that the OLDEST text we have is dated more than 100 years after Jesus(125 to 150 CE to be more precise). It is not even a complete text. It is nothing more than a horribly worn out fragment labelled p52.

“The oldest fragment(P52), found in a mummy cartonage, contains a small portion of John 18 and is dated ca. 125.” [2]

“Papyrus Rylands Gk. 457

“A tiny fragment (21/2 by 31/2 inches), containing John 18:31-33, 37-38 and dating to the first half of the second century; the earliest of all manuscripts and fragments of any part of the New Testament.” [3]

I was browsing through some Christian forums and I found this amazing claim made by a Christian concerning P52:

“P52 contains verses from John 18. It reliably transmits John 18.”(link)

Let us have a look at the fragment shall we, and see whether it ‘reliably transmits John 18′.

A B

The fragment is written front and back and is no more than the size of a credit card! Let’s transcribe the fragment so as to better see what we’re dealing with here.

A B

ΙΟΥΔΑΙ ΗΜΙ ΤΟΥΤΟ ΓΕΓΕΝΝΗΜΑΙ

OYΔΕΝΑ ΙΝΑ Ο Λ ΣΜΟΝ ΙΝΑ ΜΑΡΤ

ΠΕΝ ΣΕΜΑΙΝΩ Κ ΤΗΣ ΑΛΗΘΕ

ΘΝΕΣΚΕΙΝ Ε ΕΓΕΙ ΑΥΤΩ

ΡΙΟΝ Ο ΠΙ ΤΟΥΤ

ΚΑΙ ΕΙΠ ΤΟΥΣ Ι

ΙΩ ΜΙ

(Supposed to be John 18:31-33) (Supposed to be John 18:37-38 )

If you know anyone who can read Greek ask the person if he can make sense of the above. Believe me, even if he is a professor in Greek he won’t be able to make sense of the fragment by itself. So, how did the scholars reconstruct the missing words? It’s quite simple. The verses are reconstructed based on LATER texts that are clearer. To say that P52 reliably transmits John 18 is absolutely fallacious. Anyone who can read Greek will agree that the fragment is meaningless without the assistance of later texts. And how do we know those later texts are reliable and have not been changed, altered and added to when that is something very common with Bible texts? God knows! This is how the eminent scholar Helmut Koester who is the John H. Morison Professor of New Testament Studies and Winn Professor of Ecclesiastical History in the Divinity School at Harvard University puts it,

“The fragment of John in P52 is so small that is immaterial as a textual witness.” [4]

David P. Barret has this to say,

“Though the amount of the text in P52 is hardly enough to make a positive judgment about its textual character, the text seems to be Alexandrian…” [5] (emphasis added)

Lost Christianities says about the fragment,

“A fragment of the Gospel of John(18:31-33,37-38)discovered in a trash heap in the sands of Egypt. This credit-card sized scrap is the earliest surviving manuscript of the New Testament, dating from around 120-150 CE.” [6]

Sadly enough there are still many Christians out there who have absolutely no idea that this is the kind of manuscript evidence they have for their beloved New Testament. To continue claiming that the Bible is absolutely inerrant, containing no mistakes and that it is supported by good and reliable manuscripts is nonsense at best and utterly foolish at worse. Let us end this discussion with the words of Prof. Bart D. Ehrman who in his best-selling Misquoting Jesus astutely observes,

“how does it help us to say that the Bible is the inerrant word of God if in fact we don’t have the words that God in-errantly inspired, but only the words copied by the scribes – sometimes correctly but sometimes (many times!) incorrectly?” [7]

“It’s a bit hard to know what the words of the Bible mean if we don’t even know what the words are!” [8]

References:

[1] Bart D. Ehrman. Misquoting Jesus(2007). HarperSanFrancisco. p. 10

[2] Richard N. Soulen & R. Kendall Soulen. Handbook of Biblical Criticism. London: Westminste John Knox Press. p. 128.

[3]Edward P. Blair. Abingdon Bible Handbook(1975). Nashville: Abingdon Press. p. 362

[4] Helmut Koester. The Text of the Synoptic Gospels in the Second Century, Gospel Traditions in the Second Century(1989). Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press. p. 19

[5] David P. Barret. The Text of the Earliest New Testament Greek Manuscripts(2001). Wheaton, Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers. p. 365

[6] Bart D. Ehrman. Lost Christianities(2005). New York: Oxford University Press. p. 50

[7] Bart D. Ehrman. Op. Cit. p. 7

[8] Ibid. p. 11