# Greek New Testament Papyrus Is Discovered on eBay



## Backwoods Presbyterian (Nov 21, 2015)

> Last January, Geoffrey Smith, a scholar of early Christianity at the University of Texas, noticed something startling: an eBay listing for an ancient Greek papyrus fragment of the Gospel of John — with an opening bid of only $99.
> 
> “I thought, This can’t be allowed to sell on eBay,” Dr. Smith said. “It will just disappear into a private collection.”
> 
> ...



http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/21/b...overed-on-ebay.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur


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## arapahoepark (Nov 21, 2015)

If I knew it was on ebay I would have bought it.


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## ZackF (Nov 22, 2015)

arap said:


> If I knew it was on ebay I would have bought it.



No kidding. I would have tried to snatch that myself.


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## Semper Fidelis (Nov 22, 2015)

The fact that the early Church preferred codices (books) to scrolls is actually an apologetic defense against a lot of the fecal theories about how the early Christian Church was in "competition" about what Christianity and its texts consisted of.

This is a really cool find.


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## Jerusalem Blade (Nov 23, 2015)

This is an image of it:


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## Romans922 (Nov 23, 2015)

The critical text world just blew up and I'm sitting here like: "God's preserved His word in all ages and this changes nothing."


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## GulfCoast Presbyterian (Nov 23, 2015)

I may be being dense here, but how can someone tell from looking at it if the fragment came from a book versus a scroll?


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## Logan (Nov 26, 2015)

Romans922 said:


> The critical text world just blew up and I'm sitting here like: "God's preserved His word in all ages and this changes nothing."



Maybe I missed it but how did the critical text world "blow up"?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Romans922 (Nov 26, 2015)

Logan said:


> Romans922 said:
> 
> 
> > The critical text world just blew up and I'm sitting here like: "God's preserved His word in all ages and this changes nothing."
> ...



Something new, etc to cause a stir


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## Warren (Nov 26, 2015)

_The fact that it has another text copied on the other side (seemingly in the same low-quality handwriting), Professor Hurtado added, suggests that it was intended for private study, rather than liturgical use._

I never think of third century Christians, or any century Christians, prior to Gutenberg, reading from scriptures privately. 
Maybe the unidentified Christian text is actually the owner's sermon notes.


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## Romans922 (Nov 26, 2015)

Matthew you mean like the Ethiopian eunuch who was reading the prophet Isaiah privately?


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## Warren (Nov 26, 2015)

Yep. Its not a fact I consider, just one I've glossed over, until now.


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## jwithnell (Nov 26, 2015)

Thought I remembered seeing something about this in Biblical Archaeology Review. God tells us He preserves His word, and that is sufficient for me, but it is really cool how these finds appear from time to time. 



> The fact that the early Church preferred codices (books) to scrolls is actually an apologetic defense against a lot of the fecal theories about how the early Christian Church was in "competition" about what Christianity and its texts consisted of.


Rich, I'm trying to follow your reasoning here: are you talking about the early church having a compilation of the recognized texts as opposed to individual scrolls here and there? (Isn't that also the reason for the book form to be developed -- to be able to handle the large Biblical manuscript all in one place?)


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