I had a little time on Friday afternoon to work through the editors’ editio princeps of P.Oxy. 5575 and I hope to write some more on it soon. But in the meantime, I thought I might share a first pass I made at a Greek synopsis here [PDF].
For this, I have simply adopted the editors’ reconstructed text even though there are places where I’m of a different mind. They naturally include plenty of alternate possibilities in their discussion, so their reconstructed text should obviously not be treated as final. But you have to start somewhere. Feel free to use and share it. Corrections are welcome.
One initial observation from making this synopsis is that the inclusion of Luke is, to my mind, somewhat precarious. I don’t see anything in the fragment that is distinctive of Luke. The material from the canonical Gospels is from the so-called double tradition and, in the few places where Matt and Luke diverge, our fragment is lacunose, follows neither, or follows Matthew. I don’t see any point where it distinctly follows Luke. If so, then parsimony would suggest we leave Luke out of the equation in explaining what this fragment is. But maybe others will see something I missed—as I said, I only had an afternoon to spend with it so far.
As for other initial reactions, here’s a nice video from Bible Unboxed, and don’t miss Brent Nongbri’s post on the paleography.
Thank you for this. This is interesting!
ReplyDeleteI agree with you about Luke. The fragment has more than one agreement with Matthew against Luke, and no agreements with Luke against Matthew.
ReplyDeleteIt's also notable how different the section that parallels the Gospel of Thomas is from Thomas.
It seems to me that the Matthean parts of this fragment are dependent on the canonical Gospel of Matthew, and betray that with Matthean redactional elements. But the same cannot be said about the part/s that parallel Thomas. It seems more likely that this fragment and Gospel of Thomas are both mutually dependent on some similar tradition or source for a saying of Jesus.
One small agreement of P.Oxy. 5575 with Luke against Matthew is the absence of umon in line 4. But that is too insignificant to prove dependance on Luke, since the absence can be explained by the simple omission of one pronoun. And, since the sections of text that are supposed to be from Thomas are not sequential in Thomas, perhaps it is possible that those two sections of text are a commentary on Matthew 6 rather than material from another book inserted between consecutive verses from Matthew 6. But it is probably difficult to reconcile the surviving text with this suggestion.
DeleteBut notice that the "commentary" between Matt 6:25 and 26 in the fragment begins with, "I say to you." I think this indicates that what follows is quoted as a saying attributed to Jesus. And while I think the differences between this section and GThomas 27 are too great to support the conclusion that this is quoted from the Gospel of Thomas, the similarities are also too great to be just a coincidence. There was apparently a tradition of a Jesus saying about fasting that both this fragment and Gospel of Thomas attest to.
DeleteFor the little bit of text on the top line of P. Oxy. 5575, I don't see enough there to determine that it is in any way related to GThomas 63.
I didn't note them in my synopsis, but basically every difference between Mt/Lk in their parallel texts here is attested in plenty of manuscripts of both. So, υμων, for example, in line 4 is found in Luke MSS.
DeleteIf the απεθανε holds, then the order from the ‘rich fool’ to ‘don’t worry’ is uniquely Lukan
ReplyDeleteVery good point.
DeleteGoodacre made the point on his NT Pod. Not my find.
DeleteI see 6 places where the wording in POxy 5575 is closer to either Matt or Luke:
ReplyDeleteFour lines that are closer to Matt than Luke:
recto, line 3 - ων τι φαγητ (Mt 6.25; cf Lk 12.22)
recto, line 12 - και ο πατη (Mt 6.26; cf. Lk 12.24)
recto, line 13 - ουρανιος τ (Mt 6.26; cf. Lk 12.24)
verso, line 13 - γαρ ο πατηρ υ (Mt 6.32; cf. Lk 12.30)
Two lines that are closer to Luke than Matt:
recto, line 4 - σωματι τι (Lk 12.22; cf. Mt 6.25)
verso, line 15 - ητειτε τη (Lk 12.31; cf. Mt 6:33)
Thanks, Jeff. That's really helpful. For Luke, I also see:
DeleteRecto, line 3: No room for Matthew's ἢ τί πίητε (Matt. 6.25 // Luke 12.22)
Verso, line 11: ὑμεῖς (Luke 12.29, cf. Matt. 6.31)
Verso line 15-16: αὐτοῦ (probable -- only a letter visible, but also a space question; Luke 12.31, cf. Matt. 6.33)
Verso line 16: Probably not enough room for Matthew's καὶ τὴν δικαιοσύνην αὐτοῦ (Matt. 6.33 // Luke 12.31).
If there's room, it would be nice to get Justin Martyr into the synopsis as well. He's another interesting comparandum for the final bits.
ReplyDeleteThat's not a bad suggestion. Aland's synopsis has it and that's helpful. I also thought about adding variants but that got complicated and I thought it better to just go to Aland for that.
DeleteFun speculation: what are the chances the fragment is from papias? (unfortunately there is no way to prove this unless we ever find a full copy of Papias's Sayings of the Jesus, so it's would be no more than speculation).
ReplyDeleteI won't attempt to summarize today's zoom conference, but report one thing:
ReplyDeleteBrent Nongbri, who is sometimes skeptical of reported claims, gave his opinion that the scribe of p.Oxy. 5575 and the scribe of p.Oxy. 4009--though not necessarily in these two cases working on the same ms, and though Peter Head mentioned different boxes--were, given illustrated idiosyncrasies in hand and ductus, the same scribe.
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I won't attempt to summarize today's zoom conference, but will report one thing:
ReplyDeleteBrent Nongbri, who is sometimes skeptical of reported claims, gave his opinion that the scribe of p.Oxy. 5575 and the scribe of p.Oxy. 4009--though not necessarily in these two cases working on the same ms, and though Peter Head mentioned different boxes--were, given illustrated idiosyncrasies in hand and ductus, the same scribe.
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