New Series “Papyri and the New Testament”

I just discovered today that Brill has a new series called “Papyri and the New Testament” edited by Peter Arzt-Grabner, John S. Kloppenborg, and Christina M. Kreinecker. Here’s the publisher’s summary:

Papyrology has always interested scholars of the New Testament and of Christian origins, mainly because of the discovery of papyrus copies of texts from the Christian scriptures. However, what documentary papyri, ostraca, and tablets indicate about issues of everyday Greco-Roman life has also much to contribute to the understanding of early Christ groups. These issues include ancient economy and agriculture, labor and social relations, reading cultures, administration, and a variety of other topics. The PNT series is designed to introduce students and teachers to the value of this material. The volumes provide introductions, evaluations, and conclusions. Many documents are presented in their entirety with an English translation and commentary. The authors cover the state of papyrological research and supplement it with their own conclusions and updates, making the series also of interest to scholars of Papyrology, Biblical Studies, Ancient History, and Classics.

The first two volumes are scheduled for release this year.

The first volume is More Light from the Ancient East: Understanding the New Testament through Papyri edited by the series editors. The title is an obvious ode to the pioneering volume by Adolf Deissmann.

The first volume of the new series “Papyri and the New Testament” introduces students, teachers, and scholars to the value of the study of papyrological documents and their impact on the understanding of early Christ groups. Papyri, ostraca, and tablets document the social, economic, political, and multilingual circumstances of the Greco-Roman period and are the best sources for understanding New Testament times. Compared to the first studies devoted to this topic about 100 years ago, the amount of available material has grown twentyfold. In addition, the days have passed when papyri were found exclusively in Egypt: a significant number of texts from Israel, Syria, North Africa, Britain, Switzerland, and other Greco-Roman regions demonstrate that these sources shed light on general conditions throughout the Roman Empire. The volume both introduces the main issues of comparing papyri with New Testament texts and presents many comprehensive examples.

The second volume is Letters and Letter Writing by Peter Arzt-Grabner.

New Testament letters are compared with the private, business, and administrative letters of Greco-Roman antiquity and analyzed against this background. More than 8.000 letters – preserved on papyrus, potsherds or tablets from Egypt, Israel, Asia Minor, North Africa, Britain, and Switzerland – have been edited so far. Among them are not only short notes by writers with poor writing skills, but also extensive letters and correspondences from highly educated authors. They testify to the high art of Paul of Tarsus, who knew how to make excellent use of epistolary formulas or enrich them with new variants, but they also show that some New Testament letters clearly fall outside the framework of standard epistolography, raising new questions about their authors and their genre. The introductions and discussions offered in the volume reflect the current state of research but also offer new results. Over 130 papyrus and ostracon letters are newly translated in their entirety.