Solving a Puzzle in P136

The following is a blog post I first wrote while on sabbatical in 2022 in Wake Forest. While there, I spent a nice afternoon with Libbie Schrader Polczer at the wonderful David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library examining their Greek NT manuscripts. One of those is P136.

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This last week I had the good fortune of getting to spend some time with Duke University’s sole NT papyrus, P. Duke Inv. 1377 (P136). The GA number is your tipoff that this is a recently published papyrus. Andrew and Valerie Smith published the editio princeps only in 2018. It’s so recent that it didn’t make it into the ECM Acts. (As an aside, one of the great things about textual criticism is that we regularly get new material to work with like this.)

It’s a sixth century fragment of Acts and it has some surprising features. The script is the first surprise. This is not your typical six-century majuscule. The Smiths identify it as chancery style and it does fit Kenyon’s description of 6th/7th century non-literary style for Byzantine papyri (Paleography of Greek Papyri, pp. 49-51). 

The more surprising feature is that P136 has text on both sides but is not a codex. The writing is upside down on the recto relative to the verso. The Smiths suggest it is most likely a scroll, written in rotulus format (meaning the text flows vertically rather than horizontally). This format apparently saw a resurgence of use in the sixth century. If this is the right format, the Smiths’ reconstruction would allow for Acts 1:1-13:43 in the original scroll. That’s a little less than half the book (based roughly on the pages in my NA27). 

One last feature that surprised me: it’s big. Bigger than I expected, at least. It would have been a good-size scroll. Here is Libbie holding it up to show the size.

All that is by way of introduction. My real interest here is in a curious reading in P136. I was tipped off by the Duke website which says, 

Text varies from Nestle-Aland 28th edition Novum Testamentum Graecum in 3 locations, most significantly at 3v (Acts 4:28), which reads η χειρ σου και η δουλη instead of η χειρ σου και η βουλη σου.

That lack of σου is not surprising. It’s missing in over a dozen witnesses according to the ECM, including 02* and 03. What is odd is δουλη for βουλη. It’s only a difference of one letter, and the word δουλοι does occur in the next line. But the result has Peter and John claiming that those who conspired to kill Jesus did “whatever your [God’s] hand and your (female) servant had predestined to take place.” That’s definitely odd. 

The letter in question on line 3 of the ↑ side

To be sure, the letter certainly did look to me like a delta not a beta. Then again, I had no prior experience with this script. I do, however, have enough general experience reading Greek manuscripts to know that two letters that look the same at first may well turn out to be different entirely. To add to my suspicion, I checked the NT.VMR transcription and it has βουλη instead of δουλη. (I do not know the source of this transcription.)

So, is this a delta or a beta? Unfortunately, there are no other betas in P136, but there are multiple deltas. And what we can see is that in each case, the final stroke ends down and does not connect with the next letter. This distinction may seem slight, but it is typical of how letters are distinguished in cursive scripts like minuscule. I’m not too surprised to see it here. It’s a subtle difference to us, but they must have recognized it easily enough.

Deltas (orange dot) vs. beta (blue dot).

We can confirm our suspicion by looking at comparanda. The Smiths point to P. Geneva 210 as “remarkably similar” to P136 and we can see why. The hand is very similar. Lucky for us, it has plenty of both betas and deltas and, sure enough, we find the same distinction between them.

P. Geneva 210 showing deltas (orange dot) and betas (blue dot). Image source

Again, the distinguishing mark is that deltas end on a down stroke whereas betas don’t. Instead, they connect in some way with the next letter.

One more example. P. Berol. 7027 is written in a decidedly more elaborate hand than our previous examples. It’s much harder to read to my eyes and so I haven’t highlighted all the examples I could. Here, the beta is not quite the same as P136 or P. Geneva 210. Instead, it looks much more like the form of we find in later minuscule (it looks like a u to me). The key distinction is still the same, however. The delta ends on a down stroke and the beta does not.

P. Berol. 7027 showing deltas (orange dot) and betas (blue dot). Image source

From these examples—both within P136 and without—I think we can confidently say that P136 reads βουλη not δουλη in Acts 4:28 and is a witness to the text otherwise known in all other manuscripts at this point. Kudos to whoever did the transcription for the VMR (anyone know?) for catching this before me. It certainly does look like a delta, but a closer inspection confirms we have a beta. There is still plenty to puzzle us about P136, but I hope to have shown that this one letter is not one of them.

The Green Scholars Initiative: Papyrus Series (eds. Obbink & Pattengale)

As already conveyed by Peter Williams in February (here), Brill has partnered up with the Green Scholars Initiative to start a new monograph series. Today it has become official as Brill announces the new forthcoming series: The Green Scholars Initiative: Papyrus Series, edited by Dirk Obbink and Jerry Pattengale which will include hitherto unpublished papyri texts from the private Green Collection. Jeffrey Fish, professor of Classics at Baylor University, will be editor of volume one. Perhaps this volume will include the seven early New Testament papyri which have been discussed on this blog (e.g., here), one of which is a purported first-century fragment of Mark.

Here is the news from the Brill website:

Brill has signed an agreement to publish The Green Scholars Initiative: Papyrus Series, edited by Dirk Obbink and Jerry Pattengale – a new book series that will include rare, unpublished papyri texts from the private Green Collection. Brill is quite pleased with the collaboration and looks forward to working with the Green Scholars Initiative (GSI). The collection itself is an untapped repository of extremely significant papyri, and the GSI provides access to the leading specialists in the field working on the project.

Dirk Obbink (University of Oxford)directs the Oxyrhynchus Papyri Collection and publications, and  Jerry Pattengale (Indiana Wesleyan University and Baylor University) directs GSI, is a prolific author, international speaker, and oversees the publication of all Green Collection and GSI research projects.

The new series fits well among Brill’s strong portfolio of Classical Studies and Biblical and Religious Studies publications, as well as its extensive list of digitized primary source manuscript collections. Comprising of one to two new volumes per year, the new series will publish approximately 20 papyri with a thorough description, commentary with images, and web-based support for further resources. The first forthcoming volume in the series, planned to be released in early 2013, is dedicated to an early 3c BCE papyrus containing an extensive, undocumented work by Aristotle on reason, and is currently being analyzed by a research group at Oxford University.

The Green Collection contains over 50,000 items, and now holds nearly 15,000 papyri acquired from private collections in Europe, and continues to grow. The collection is approximately 70% Greek, 15% Coptic and 15% late Egyptian. The collection is currently unpublished and contains items of extraordinary importance, including some of the earliest Greek literary texts known, dating to the early 3c BCE. A major building near Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. was purchased in July 2012 to house an international museum for these items.

For more information about this forthcoming new book series, contact Senior Acquisitions Editor Suzanne Mekking (mekking@brill.nl).