Rodenbiker on the Canon List in Claromontanus

Kelsie Rodenbiker has a helpful article clarifying some issues about the odd canon list in Codex Claromontanus (the so-called Catalogus Claromontanus). The pre-pub was uploaded back in March and is available here but it looks like the JSNT version isn’t out yet.

For context, here is the NT list of books with stichometry (copied from here).

Evangelia .IIII.		Four Gospels:
Mattheum ver.	ĪĪDC	Matthew	2600
Iohannes ver.	ĪĪ	John	2000
Marcus ver.	ĪDC	Mark	1600
Lucam ver.	ĪĪDCCCC	Luke	2900
Epistulas Pauli		Epistles of Paul:
ad Romanos ver.	ĪXL	To Romans	1040
ad Chorintios .I. ver.	ĪLX	To Corinthians 1	1060
ad Chorintios .II. ver.	LXX	To Corinthians 2	70
ad Galatas ver.	CCCL	To Galatians	350
ad Efesios ver.	CCCLXV	To Ephesians	365
ad Timotheum .I. ver.	CCVIII	To Timothy 1	209
ad Timotheum .II. ver.	CCLXXXVIIII	To Timothy 2	289
ad Titum ver.	CXL	To Titus	140
ad Colosenses ver.	CCLI	To Colossians	251
ad Filimonem ver.	L	To Philemon	50
—ad Petrum prima	CC	—To Peter 1	200
ad Petrum .II. ver.	CXL	To Peter 2	140
Jacobi ver.	CCXX	Of James	220
Pr. Iohanni Epist.	CCXX	Of John	220
Iohanni Epistula .II.	XX	Of John 2	20
Iohanni Epistula .III.	XX	Of John 3	20
Iudae Epistula ver.	LX	Of Jude	60
—Barnabae Epist. ver.	DCCCL	—Of Barnabas	850
Iohannis Revelatio	ĪCC	Revelation of John	1200
Actus Apostolorum	ĪĪDC	Acts of the Apostles	2600
—Pastoris versi	ĪĪĪĪ	—Shepherd	4000
—Actus Pauli ver.	ĪĪĪDLX	—Acts of Paul	3560
—Revelatio Petri	CCLXX	—Revelation of Peter	270

And here are images from the BnF.

She clarifies a few things that seem to have been missed or forgotten thanks, in part, to Tischendorf’s original transcription. In particular, she argues that (1) the lines (obeli?) before the four NT books (there is also one before Judith too that is often missed) are probably later than the original hand; (2) the line before 1 Peter is not a paragraphos (contra Metzger) but marks the odd title to 1 Peter which she (rightly in my view) accounts for as a scribe’s mistake due to the repetition of ad in the Pauline letters just before; (3) following Metzger, the omission of Philippians, 1–2 Thessalonians, and Hebrews is best explained by homoioteleuton from Ephesians (εφεσιους) to Hebrews (εβραιους) if the list was originally in Greek.

From this she concludes that we shouldn’t see the original list as equivalent to our current NT. Instead, it’s a witness to “the continuing elasticity of the New Testament canon” in the 6th century. Of course, we don’t know how much later the lines (obeli?) are from the original scribe and the fact that the NT list doesn’t match the very books in Claromontanus raises questions for me about the purpose (and weight) of the list in its current form. 

In any case, Rodenbiker’s main contribution is to remind us of the line at Judith, to argue that the lines are later, and to offer a better explanation for the line at 1 Peter. On all three points, I think she’s right.

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Update: Meade reminds me that he covered some of this ground in his Myths and Mistakes chapter.

Is the Muratorian Fragment a Late Antique Fake?

Clare Rothschild says yes in “The Muratorian Fragment as Roman Fake,” NovT 60, no. 1 (2018): 55–82 and now Christophe Guignard says no in “The Muratorian Fragment as a Late Antique Fake? An Answer to C. K. Rothschild,” RevSR 93/1–2 (2019): 73–90.

I haven’t had time to read either so I’m just the messenger here. For an informed opinion, I’d ask John Meade except he’s on vacation. Slacker!

XVIII. International Conference on Patristic Studies at Oxford

Every four years the International Conference on Patristic Studies meets at Oxford. This year it meets from August 19–24, and I’ve made plans to participate.

Dr. Francesca Barone (Chargée de recherche au CNRS) and I have organized a workshop entitled, “Early Christians and the Books at the Edges of the Canon” [proposal PDF]. The papers to be presented in the workshop are as follows:

Alessandro De Blasi: Gregory Nazianzen’s poem I 1, 12: On the Genuine Books of the Holy Scripture 

John Meade: Origen and the Disputed Books: A Reappraisal of the Evidence for an Origenic Recension of Books Outside the Hebrew Canon 

Francesca Barone: The Book of Esther in John Chrysostom’s Synopsis Scripturae Sacrae  

Edmon Gallagher: Jerome’s Use of the Deuterocanonical Literature 

Claudine Cavalier: Between the Sages and the Fathers: Esther, a key book

I plan to combine some of my interests in this paper: Origen’s work as grammarian and the disputed books. Here is the abstract of my paper:

In the first half of the third century, Origen created a six-columned synopsis, the Hexapla (perhaps more columns were added as needed for books like Psalms), for those books that were extant in Hebrew, the Seventy, and the Three Jewish revisers (Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion). Debatably, from this work, Origen published a corrected edition of the version of the Seventy. This revised version of the Seventy went through further corrections at the hands of Pamphilus and Eusebius (cf. the many colophons bearing their names in these contexts). But did Origen make a revised edition of the Greek version for the disputed books? In this paper, I will survey the evidence for Origen’s recension of the disputed books for which there seems to be evidence: Baruch, Sirach/Ben Sira, Wisdom of Solomon, and Judith. After surveying the relevant data, I analyze the evidence of a revision of Sirach/Ben Sira further before drawing some preliminary conclusions about Origen’s textual work on this book and others like it.

The overall program for the conference appears to be full of very interesting papers. I look forward to gathering with friends and colleagues in Oxford. It will be my first visit there, and I could not be more excited about it.

Meade on Canon on Camera

My sources tell me that John Meade is currently hiding out in the outer banks, camping or some such thing. Lucky for you, he was recently captured on camera talking about all things canon with several faculty from Southeastern. Take a watch.

On the Relationship of Inspiration to Canon in the Church Fathers

Today, there is a renewed focus on the primary sources pertaining to the New Testament text (just peruse most of the posts on this blog) and its canon. Some of our source material is relatively new (MS finds, whole works of church fathers rediscovered etc.), but with regard to canon, the relevant sources have been at our fingertips for a long time. In any case, all of this evidence is under great scrutiny now, and this development is welcomed, for returning to the primary sources is the surest way forward in our current discussions.

One particular area under scrutiny is how to describe the nature of early Christian writings. Did early Christians think only the eventual NT books were inspired or did they view inspired literature as a wider category of books than what eventually became recognized as the canon of authoritative-for-doctrine Scripture? Michael Kruger has brought this issue to the fore in a recent blogpost and it is worth presenting his view along side of Lee McDonald’s, whose view he mentions in the post, in short order without attempting to resolve the differences between the two. Both views affirm the inspiration of the NT books. Both views affirm that early Christians thought their works were inspired in some sense. Both views affirm that early Christians recognized (at least eventually) the NT books as unique revelation. The disagreement is over why early Christians saw these NT books as unique, not whether they saw them as unique.

It’s important to remember that this is a blog exchange and that Kruger has written whole books and articles on the topic of canon. He didn’t say everything in his post. I bet Lee McDonald would even say he didn’t write everything in his most recent two volume tome on the biblical canon. I will include these works along with a few others in the Further Reading section below.

Discussion of Canon and Text at the G3 Conference

Yesterday morning, at the G3 conference in Atlanta, GA, James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries and Michael Kruger of Reformed Theological Seminary in Charlotte held a good discussion of the canon of scripture (mostly the New Testament canon), and often times their conversation drifted toward matters of textual criticism. I would encourage you to watch the video (link below; sorry, it’s currently available only on Facebook), and if you are interested, please comment on some of the more salient points. For example, around the 45:00 minute mark, there is a good discussion of the relationship between the canon and individual text forms of books, which will probably interest many of you. Also, I would be interested to know what you all think about the distinction between the “ontological” canon and the “exclusive” canon (Kruger) or White’s Canon 1 and Canon 2. If I remember correctly, this topic arose near the beginning of the discussion on the video. Here is the link to the video: The Canon (G3 conference).

Poll: Text as Corollary of Canon

Let’s take a poll on this statement from Carl E. Armerding: “Moreover, the development of an authoritative text is a natural corollary to an authoritative list of books.”*

Is the development of an authoritative text a natural corollary to an authoritative list of books?

*The Old Testament and Criticism, 101

What hath Codex to do with Canon? A Rejoinder to Michael Kruger

UPDATE: this conversation is inching along with Michael Kruger’s response to my post here. I probably won’t pursue the matter any further with him presently due to time constraints. I do think matters have been well presented on both sides, even if there are lingering questions we may have for one another. Overall, I have appreciated the conversation with Kruger and think it has highlighted different aspects of method for determining and describing the ancients’ biblical theory.

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My post a few days ago has attracted some attention; most significantly, it has prompted Michael Kruger to respond, which you can read on his own blog here.

Before I reply to him, I do want to affirm what Kruger says in his last paragraph: we probably do agree on more than we disagree. However, I think I have read Kruger carefully, and I restrict my response to method and the Shepherd.

The New Testament Canon and Manuscripts

UPDATE: Michael Kruger responds to my post on his own blog here.

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In this post, I briefly lay out some of Michael Kruger’s argument for the NT canon from the MSS to evaluate its worth for determining early canonicity of NT books. This is a pilot post, not finished research. I welcome your feedback in the comments.

In Canon Revisited, ch. 7, Kruger treats the “potentially fruitful” but often overlooked “study of the New Testament manuscripts themselves” (233) to discern what they might tell us about the formation of the NT canon. This chapter is divided into (1) The Quantity of Early Manuscripts, (2) Early Manuscript Collections with subsections treating the Gospels, Pauline Epistles, Catholic Epistles/Acts, Revelation, (3) The Early Christian Use of the Codex, and (4) Public and Private Manuscripts. Kruger notes that the first three areas focus on the broad features, while the last area treats internal features of early Christian MSS, noting the difficulty in attempting to separate public from private use (254).

“Daniel” in Select Codices

I have written elsewhere on the (in)significance of the codex for determining the boundaries of an ancient’s canon of Scripture. Probably, historical anachronism has occurred, and we have foisted the significance of our modern, printed Bible on to the ancient codex. So what is the value of the MSS for such studies? They do help in determining a wide range of contents of religious literature as well as provide context for the various orders of books, neither of these aiding in determining a canon.

Though the MSS probably did not help the ancients concretize the canon, they do visualize for us what an ancient scribe or church father meant or conceptualized by the title of a certain book. This may not be a big deal for New Testament studies, but for the Greek Old Testament, we need to take this point to heart. The contents of books such as Jeremiah, 1-2 Esdras, Esther, and Daniel are not very straightforward. Let’s use “Daniel” as a test case by touring some select MS images of the book to see whether our vision of the contents improves. As is well-known, the book of Daniel in Greek was transmitted in quite a different form from the Protestant Bible, taking the form of Susanna-Daniel-Bel and the Dragon in most of the early MSS. We will consider briefly Daniel in Codex Vaticanus (IV), Codex Marchalianus (VI), and Codex Syro-hexaplaris (VIII/IX).

Where Should the Books of Chronicles be Placed?

In the latest issue of the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 60.2 (2017): 283–99, Gregory Goswell has contributed an article entitled “Putting the Book of Chronicles in Its Place.” His “aim is to unsettle any developing consensus that Chronicles must be read as the last book of the OT (in preference to other positions)” (283–4; emphasis original). His conclusions are worth citing in full:

My argument has been that the placement of Chronicles within the different canons reflects post-authorial evaluations of the book and its contents. Each position has its rationale and potentially contributes to the understanding of readers. There are no grounds for insisting that any one position is the earliest or best. In particular, there is no proof that the Chronicler composed his work to conclude the OT canon. Chronicles after Kings alerts readers that Kings (and the preceding historical books) record the history of Israel from a prophetic perspective. Chronicles at the head of the Writings suggests that succeeding books have a liturgical and/or wisdom orientation. Finally, Chronicles at the end of the Writings sums up the witness of the OT to God’s purposes that culminate in the rebuilt temple (= palace) of God as a precursor to the dawning of God’s final kingdom (pp. 298–9).

The first order of books alluded to above is the Greek ordering of the OT books in which Chronicles or Paraleipomenon follows Kings (p. 284ff); the second order is that of the earliest extant Hebrew codices of Aleppo and Leningrad which have Chronicles at the beginning of the Writings (p. 289ff); the third order in which Chronicles concludes the Writings is found in Baba Batra 14b.

In the final analysis, Goswell shows that our current, variegated evidence keeps us from concluding that any one of these orders is primary or better. Most importantly, according to him, we cannot conclude that the author of Chronicles is responsible for closing the Writings and therefore closing the Hebrew Bible with his own book. The different canonical orders result from “post-authorial interpretive frames” not an “authorial paratext” or an authorial guide to interpretation of the whole.

The article is worth reading in its entirety paying especial attention to pp. 295-7 wherein he shows the improbability that Chronicles was composed as a conclusion to the Writings as an authorial paratext. Goswell probably has not settled the debate, but he and others like Edmon L. Gallagher (see Tyndale Bulletin 65.2 (2014): 181-199; pdf) are certainly unsettling any recently formed consensus on this question.

Does Scripture’s Self-Attestation Apply to Textual Criticism?

The Reformed tradition has long held that one of the means by which Christians are convinced of Scripture’s divine origin is through the internal testimony of the Holy Spirit. This work of the Holy Spirit is essentially one in which he removes the blinders from our eyes to see the truth and beauty of the Bible. Both these qualities were there before, but it takes the work of the Spirit to help us appreciate them (in both senses of the word). As the Westminster Confession puts it, “our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth and divine authority thereof, is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts” (§1.5). This quality is sometimes also referred to as Scripture’s self-attestation. Scripture impresses its own nature and authority upon us, we might say. Many Christians can attest to this feature of the Bible in their own experience.

In this post, I don’t intend to defend this particular doctrine; I take its truth for granted. Instead, I want to ask those of us who hold to this doctrine to reflect on the level to which it applies. In particular, I want to ask if (a) the doctrine applies to canonicity, does it also (b) apply to textual variants? If the Spirit attests to the divine qualities of Genesis or Jude, does he also attest to the divine ending of Mark’s Gospel or to the right form of Jeremiah?

ETC Interview with Chuck Hill: Part 2

This is part 2 of our interview with Chuck Hill. Part 1 is here.

In The Early Text of the NT, you suggest that David Parker “gives the impression that concern for the original text is simply a religious phenomenon, driven by pressure from churches who desire an ‘authoritative text’” (p. 4). You point out, rightly in my opinion, that religious belief is hardly the only motivation for seeking a work’s original text. But what is the relationship between a high view of Scripture (as found, say, in the Westminster Confession) and the quest for the original text? Is such a view of scripture viable without the concept of a single original text?

Having a high view of Scripture, as you pointed out, is not the only motivation for seeking an original text. I don’t know why anyone would make that assumption. But is a high view of Scripture viable without ‘the concept of a single original text’? The short answer, I suppose, has to be ‘yes’, but it depends, of course, on what is meant by ‘the concept of a single original text.’ You can, of course, make a distinction between the original text (let’s just define it as the text as it left the author’s hands for the last time, with the author’s intent for release) and the ‘Initial text’ or Ausgangstext (the text we reconstruct as the source of all the known readings). But even the ‘Initial text’ is a form of the text that originated with the author. Different compositional stages of a book (e.g., a book before the author added a prologue, or decided to insert new material, etc.) are not different editions of the book, and it just seems like obfuscation to bring them into the picture.

The main, possible complication, I suppose, would be if the author did make a second edition (as some people have argued for the text of Acts). Let’s say (for the sake of argument) Paul sent a letter to the Roman church and kept his own personal copy, then later modified his copy in some way, intending to make this revised copy the basis for copies that would be more widely distributed to the churches, perhaps along with a collection of his letters. In this case you could say there are two ‘original’, authorial texts of Romans, essentially two editions.

Each of these would have originated with the author with his intention to be ‘released’ or published. Each one, I think we would have to say, was inspired, written by Paul in the exercise of his apostolic ministry. So here we would have two ‘originals’. In my opinion, the natural standard we would be seeking (if we could tell the difference) would be the final version that left Paul’s control, as representing the author’s final, intended ‘original’, even if it was not the ‘original’ original.

Or, let’s say that the ‘release’ of a book like Revelation, or even one of the Gospels, for that matter, was marked by the sending out of several ‘initial’ copies as part of the release. What if there were minor scribal differences between them? In this case, presumably there was still one single master copy from which other copies were made, which would be the logical ‘original’. But what if this, or any other, first exemplar itself contained errors that were made and somehow not corrected, in the inscription process? Then the ‘original’ text, or the normative text, would presumably go back to the author’s intention, no matter what happened between thought and words appearing on a page. This is why Warfield, in his book on NT textual criticism, identified the original text as the text intended by the author.

You teach in an institution that holds the Bible to be “absolutely and finally authoritative as the inerrant Word of God.” How do you respond to critics who say that such a belief is necessarily restrictive and even incompatible with the academic study of the Bible? Does belief in inerrancy restrict your scholarship in any way?

Yes, I’m sure it has restricted the number of stupid things I would otherwise have said. I can’t say I feel restricted in a negative way. Inerrancy can be defined in unhelpful ways but I see it not as ‘a thing in itself’ so much as simply a corollary of a couple of very basic articles of the Christian faith: that God is true and cannot lie, and that Scripture is his word. If we were starting over today, perhaps we would have found another word besides ‘inerrancy’ because it seems so prone to misunderstanding. But it has entered the theological vocabulary and it does have its value – and not to affirm it sounds a lot like not affirming God’s truthfulness. God speaks in a way that is ultimately true, not false. For me, that doesn’t predetermine very much about what the text must say or look like; God might speak, and speak truly, in ways and in forms I don’t expect. Human language (which God seems happy to employ, thankfully, because we are humans) is full of surprises.

It’s true that my convictions about God and Scripture will make me loathe to declare historical or theological problems in Scripture to be real errors or material contradictions, preferring instead to lay out options and sometimes withhold judgment until more evidence is in. But I don’t know why that should be judged to be incompatible with academic study. The ability to jump to conclusions should not be considered an essential attribute of academic scholarship. (I know that might be controversial.)

I think those who have a high appreciation for the divinity of Scripture will often look at a text much more carefully and insightfully than those who don’t, who might be satisfied with (or even eager to take) a shallower and less sympathetic treatment. And, of course, I think we would have much, much deeper problems without such a God who has spoken to us in Scripture.

If you had a particularly gifted student who wanted to pursue graduate work in textual criticism or canonicity (or both!), are there any particular issues you might want to steer them toward? Any you would advise them to avoid?

Studies of particular manuscripts are now starting to come into their own, and this is a good thing that should be encouraged in every way. I think the study of textual division is one area that holds a lot of potential (see on next question).

Sorting out the issues behind what has been called the ‘Western’ textual tradition, in my view, would be helpful, particularly the relationship between the early Latin and Syriac translations and their presumed Greek Vorlagen. How much of what has been attributed to a Greek Vorlage is really a result of translation technique? I don’t think the Greek fragments of Irenaeus that contain Biblical citations have been adequately analyzed and compared with the Greek manuscripts and the Old Latin translation(s).

More work is being done on early patristic appropriations of Scriptural texts, and that is a welcome sign, but more can still be done. More attention could be given to early Christian book collections, of churches or of individuals. There are a number of signs that Christians in the second half of the second century already believed that Scripture consisted of a ‘closed collection’ of books. These could be explored further.

I can’t think of any to avoid, except anything that won’t hold your interest for years of study.

2016 Academic Lecture  |  Listen here

Dr. Charles E. Hill, delivers the Spring 2016 Academic Lecture at RTS Orlando on the theory of the early development of the NT text. Offering an alternative solution to long held views.

Can you share any of your current research projects with us?

Of most interest to readers of this blog might be the work I’m doing on textual divisions in early manuscripts. For the Michael Holmes FS I did an investigation of early manuscripts of John, focusing on what appears to be a very early template for textual division, best preserved in P75 and in B. Among other things, I think it indicates that the scribes of Vaticanus probably had access to a very early copy, or copies, of John. My paper at SBL last November (2015) carried the study through to the other three Gospels, and I’m hoping to take this research further.

Following up on the work begun in ETNT, I’m working on updating the prevailing theoretical model for the early development of the NT text. Extending work on the Johannine Corpus (The Johannine Corpus in the Early Church) I’m also working on a book on the composition of John, in which I’m revisiting theories of multiple editions of the Gospel. Also I’m writing something on the socio-theological context of 1–3 John. If I should live long enough, I’m hoping to write a commentary on John.

Dr. Hill, thank you so much for your time and experience.

Thank you for your interest!

ETC Interview with Chuck Hill: Part 1

I am pleased to introduce our next interviewee in our ETC interviews series. Dr. Charles E. Hill completed his PhD on eschatology in the early Church at the University of Cambridge under Lord Rowan Williams of Oystermouth (yes, they still use such fantastic titles in England). More recently Dr. Hill has turned his attention to issues of NT text and canon in his Who Chose the Gospels? Probing the Great Gospel Conspiracy (2010) and The Early Text of the New Testament (2012) which includes several contributions from our ETC bloggers. He is also a member of the Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas and is currently the John R. Richardson Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at Reformed Theological Seminary in Florida. Thanks to Pete Head for some of these questions.

PG: Few people probably know that your first degree was in fine art and you worked for a period as a graphic artist (a fine job to have, if I may say so). Is there any particular piece of art that you find yourself coming back to again and again?

CH: Not really, though I would say that I find myself being more and more fascinated by the beauty of creation. I can stare at trees and clouds for a long time (hopefully this is not just a sign of aging). I still have favorite artists: Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Dürer, Caravaggio, and now, my kids. Somebody else who heard of my art background and didn’t realize that I’ve been out of it for the past several decades actually invited to give a lecture this spring on Salvador Dali before leading a tour through the Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, FL. That ought to be an interesting experience.

Readers of this blog will probably be familiar with your more recent text critical work, but your Cambridge dissertation was on the topic of eschatology in early Christian thought. Having worked on that topic, what led to your interest in textual criticism?

In the early nineties I was given a book on the Muratorian Fragment to review. At the time, I didn’t know very much about the formation of the NT canon per se. But having spent a great deal of time in the second century for my dissertation, I found several of this author’s conceptions about the second-century writers to be at odds with those I had developed. The experience of writing that review, along with some other things that were happing in scholarship at about that time (Bart Ehrman’s The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture, for example), convinced me that the issues of canon and text were ones where there might be a real need for scholarship.

Shortly after that, I came to RTS, where teaching both NT textual criticism and the NT canon happened to fall to my lot. From very early on I also had an interest in manuscripts. I think the art background was certainly part of that, not only because of the aesthetics of the manuscripts, but also the artefactual, material-culture aspect. Maybe for all these reasons, and because I was not trained as a textual critic, my particular interest has not been so much on what you might call textual criticism in the traditional sense, the art/science and methods of establishing the text. I’ve been most interested in what happened with the text in the process of transmission, in how Christians were using the text, and in what the NT manuscripts as material objects can tell us about those things. We live in very exciting times, as you know, with more and more discoveries and with the wonderful increased access to digitized images. I hope this will lead to a real renaissance of manuscript and textual scholarship.

Hill, Who Chose the Gospels?

One of the books I picked up at SBL, and the one I chose to read on the plane home was C.E. Hill, Who Chose the Gospels? Probing the Great Gospel Conspiracy (Oxford: OUP, 2010). Chuck, who has written a load of important things about the history of the NT canon (some listed on his faculty web page) has written a readable, but not sensational, treatment of the history of the four-fold gospel canon (he has also written a short summary here).

In fact Chuck doesn’t think that anyone chose the gospels, he thinks (quoting and following Bruce Metzger) that they ‘imposed themselves as canonical upon the church’. The approach works backwards from an excellent and thorough demonstration that Irenaeus was not alone in accepting an exclusive four-fold gospel canon towards the end of the second century (Hippolytus, Tertullian, Origen, Dionysius, Cyprian, Victorinus, Marinus and Euplus [yes a new one to me too] held fundamentally similar views). In working back through the second century Hill argues that Justin Martyr and Papias both also had a four-fold gospel collection, and there is perhaps room for some disagreement here (although it should be noted that Hill has published a long article on the “new” Papias material he discerned in Eusebius, and for a fuller argument see Hill, ‘What Papias Said About John (and Luke): A “New” Papian Fragment’ JTS 49 (1998), 582-629). If you work backwards from the really clear evidence I think you are more inclined to think that somewhat marginal evidence is actually proof that the four-fold gospel was known in a period when working inductively from the available evidence we might not be able to say that.

Overall I think this is a really useful book. It is not sensationalist (despite the talk of conspiracy, Hill is generally in respectful dialogue with other scholars [with a hint of frustration that they haven’t considered all the relevant evidence]). Occasionally I found myself not quite so convinced of Hill’s position as he was, but had to admit he had arguments for his position. Certainly if you accept that Papias had a four-gospel canon tradition this would be tremendously significant for how we read the less clear evidence in the early part of the second century.

I found quite a few problems / errors / something more than just differences of opinion, especially in relation to manuscripts and such things. Somethings to consider for the second edition:

• p8. Here Hill is discussing how many other gospels existed in the second century and gives a list of nine, noting ‘It is not unlikely that more Gospels might have circulated before 175. But if they once existed they have left no record, even in later lists of books to be avoided ...’ But there are later lists of non-canonical gospels which do provide some record of numerous named gospels. For example, there is a Samaritan list of 35 named non-canonical gospels (J. MacDonald & A.J.B. Higgins, ‘The Beginnings of Christianity according to the Samaritans’ NTS 18(1971)54-80, esp. pp. 66-69), and the Decretum Gelasianum also names a number of gospels and other books.
• p. 13. In discussing the Oxyrhynchus Papyri Hill mentions 500,000 pieces, ‘only about a tenth of which have so far been published’. But in fact it is more like a hundredth, since the most recently published is P. Oxy 5071 (Parsons, cited by Hill in note 7 confirms this).
• p. 20f. Here Hill is discussing the lack of early manuscripts of Mark. He argues that since church fathers knew Mark, and since some manuscripts could have included Mark alongside other gospels, ‘there is reason to believe that at this time Mark was more widely used in Christian churches than the statistics of papyrus discoveries would, by themselves, lead us to believe’. I think on the contrary that there is no reason to believe this (and I have argued this more fully in an essay on Mark in a forthcoming book edited by Hill) - it is rather a consistent phenomena that church fathers who doubtless knew Mark did not often quote Mark (for Clement of Alexandria for example Cossaert has 274 quotations from Matthew; 143 from Luke; 72 from John and 1 from Mark; for Didymus Ehrman has 155 passages from Matthew; 146 passages from John; 111 passages from Luke; and 10 passages from Mark; Brogan found only one quotation from Mark in Athanasius!).
• p. 25. Hill writes: ‘A “book” was a scroll, or roll, a long sheet of papyrus or parchment rolled up with rods attached at each end to serve as handles.’ In Greek bookrolls on papyrus no rods are used (either in contemporary illustrations or in actual archaeological finds).
• p. 30f. Hill follows Hurtado’s idea that use of a codex might correspond with identification of the text as scripture by the scribe; and further that public reading in church required a large codex. Since non-canonical gospels are often on rolls or small codices, they probably were not regarded as equivalent with the four canonical gospels. But in discussing the size of two non-canonical texts Hill slightly cooks the books. This is perhaps not a big problem, but suggests that perhaps the overall argument is driving how the evidence is perceived and presented. Firstly by taking P. Oxy 4009 (G.Peter?) as representing a miniature codex (‘a strong possibility’), whereas we don’t really know that for sure, and the editors also suggest that it could have been from a double columned codex. Secondly by describing P. Ryl 463 (G. Mary) as ‘a miniature’ when as reconstructed (9cm x 13.5 cm) it certainly goes beyond the normal categorisation of a miniature codex.
• p. 72. Here Hill is comparing Clement of Alexandria’s use of non-canonical gospels with his use of the canonical ones, citing a monograph by Mutschler [whose first name is misspelt as Bernard, when it is actually Bernhard] on Irenaeus that he used Matt 757 times; Luke 402 times; John 331 times and Mark 182 times. Now I haven’t been able to check Mutschler’s book, nor his definition of “use”; but it is plain that the more recent monograph actually on the subject (The Text of the Gospels in Clement of Alexandria by Carl Cossaert) offers significantly different figures: 274 quotations from Matthew; 143 from Luke; 72 from John and 1 from Mark (and actually discusses Clement’s lack of knowledge of Mark).
• p. 84. Here Hill is discussing the Akhmin codex of the Gospel of Peter. He writes: ‘It has often been reported that this codex was found in the grave of a monk ... This is part of a legend that has grown up around the discovery. We don’t know if the person in whose grave it was found was a monk or not, or what the person thought of the book. As far as we know, the gravedigger could have thrown it into the grace to get rid of it!’ Well, the reason it is often reported is not because of legend, but because the original publication of the manuscript, by one of the French archaeologists who excavated the Christian cemetery at Akhmim, stated that it came from the grave of a monk. One might disagree with this, or wonder whether the archaeologists had sufficient basis for making this identification (as van Minnen does in an article cited by Hill), but the conclusion is more well-grounded than Hill’s speculation. Another grave in the same cemetery contained a mathematical papyrus - the phenomena of people being buried with texts that had some relevance/value to them is fairly widely attested.
• p. 118. Here Hill is discussing various aspects of Skeat’s view that some NT papyrus manuscripts were originally four-gospel codices. I was especially interested in this bit, and read it especially carefully and found a couple of problems. a) He notes that the scribe of P75 has some harmonisations and suggests that these ‘seem to indicate the scribe’s knowledge of Matthew and perhaps Mark’. This reference to Mark goes beyond the evidence, even of Comfort and Barrett (cited as evidence) who note the scribe’s knowledge of Matthew (as also picked up in Royse), since the possible reference to Mark is only in a direct parallel to a passage also in Matthew - if the scribe knows uniquely Matthean readings it doesn’t make much sense to propose he drew a reading from Mark. b) Hill states ‘if copied around 200, it is more likely than not that it [P75] had such a companion volume [containing Matthew and Mark], whether attached or separated.’ This is interesting, but I have no idea how this likelihood is measured. I would think this is extrapolating beyodn the available evidence. c) In discussing Skeat’s view of P4, 64 & 67 he states that in Skeat’s view ‘the codex contained at least three Gospels, and other features of the papyri indicated that this condex in fact originally contained four.’ Hill gives no indication of what these ‘other features’ are. I had another look at Skeat and can’t find any comment in this direction. d) Hill says that ‘Skeat’s conclusions have indeed been accepted by a number of other papyrologists’, but the footnote refers only to van Haelst, writing more than twenty years before Skeat and who does not accept Skeat’s view (although he does accept that P4 is probably from the same codex as P64 & P67). e) Hill notes that Skeat’s views have ‘not gone unchallenged’ (with footnote to Head and Charlesworth) but then says: ‘it seems agreed, however, that the books of Matthew and Luke represented in P4, 64, 67 were copied by the same scribe, whether bound together with Mark and John or not.’ This fails to note the major disagreement about whether we should even think of Matthew and Luke as bound together.
• p. 119. Hill says that P75 ‘has sectional divisions which would make it easier to read aloud to a congregation’. This is clearly either wrong or rather exaggerated. I’m not saying that P75 couldn’t be read aloud to a congregation, but it has less help in this than just about any other NT manuscript. (On p. 121 he refers to ‘the apparent liturgical design of the papyri P75’ which I also found very questionable).

Canon Lists in the Early Church

Over at Thoughts on Antiquity, Ben Smith has conveniently set out some of the extant canonical lists of the early church with additional commentary on each entry. These include:

Introduction.
Marcionite canon.
Muratorian canon.
Origenic canon, part 1.
Origenic canon, part 2.
Eusebian canon, part 1.
Eusebian canon, part 2.
Cheltenham canon.
Apostolic Constitutions canon.
Canon of Cyril.
Canon of Athanasius.
Canon of Epiphanius.
Laodicean Synod canon.
Carthaginian Synod canon.
Claromontanus catalogue.
Stichometry of Nicephorus.