Christian Graffiti in Smyrna – not as early as once thought

Back in 2012 I posted a brief note about some Christian graffiti in Smyrna that was dated by Roger Bagnall to before AD 125 (and mentioned in R. Bagnall, Everyday Writing in the Graeco-Roman East (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011, 2012 pb), 22f., see here). I suggested that if the date was secure “this would be the earliest securely dated archaeological evidence for Christianity anywhere in the ancient world”.

isoyhfa

kurioj   w

pistij   w

This could be translated as: ‘equal in value: lord: 800, faith: 800’. It works on the basis of isopsephy:

• kurioj  when one counts the letters equals 20+400+100+10+70+200=800 (i.e. omega)
• pistij  when one counts the letters equals 80+10+200+300+10+200=800 (i.e. omega)

Anyway, recently I came across the publication of these texts on the new book shelves in the Sackler library: Graffiti from the Basilica in the Agora of Smyrna (eds R.S. Bagnall, R. Casagrande-Kim, A. Ersoy, C. Tanriver; New York: New York University Press, 2016)

In this analysis the dating is shifted back to ‘the last part of the second century and the first part of the third’ (p. 40). Other evidence for Christian presence is also noted (pp. 45-47). It is a full discussion with photos of a range of graffiti texts.

Christian Graffiti in Smyrna before AD 125

An interesting graffito from Smyrna:

isoyhfa

kurioj   w

pistij   w

This was incised into plaster in pier 100 in basement of the basicila in Smyrna. Three things of note: 

1. firstly the date: the graffiti here was regularly plastered over, and Bagnall argues that this particular graffito lies on a layer below a layer which includes (admittedly in a different place) a dated graffito which makes reference to "year 210" (which he further argues corresponds to the customary dating - found in coins and inscriptions etc. - to the (re) conquest of Asia Minor by Sulla in 85/84 BC; so minus 84 plus 210 yields AD 125/6 [not worrying for the moment about the Bibfeldtian problem of the year zero]). If this is secure (the only problem would seem to be that the dated graffito occurs in Bay 16 and the above graffito, which is assigned to the layer below the dated graffito, occurs in Pier 100) this would be the earliest securely dated archaeological evidence for Christianity anywhere in the ancient world (unless someone can think of something earlier). 
2. secondly the use of isopsephy in early Christianity - general interest in playing around with numbers is evident in the Apocalypse (from a similar setting), so this is interesting. By the way, this is how it works:
   kurioj  equals 20+400+100+10+70+200=800 (i.e. omega)
   pistij  equals 80+10+200+300+10+200=800 (i.e. omega)
   According to the principles as follows:
   
3. Thirdly, the evident Paulinism of this isopsephy is rather striking evidence for the influence of Paul's theology (admittedly at a simple level) in Smyrna in this period.
   
   See R. Bagnall, Everyday Writing in the Graeco-Roman East (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011, 2012 pb), 22f.
   Discussed at an early stage on this blog here; and elsewhere by Larry Hurtado, Ben Witherington (on the basis of an SBL session)

Review of The Oxford Handbook on Papyrology

Over at Reviews of Biblical and Early Christian Studies (RBECS), Edgar Ebojo has published a review of Roger S. Bagnall, ed. The Oxford Handbook of Papyrology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Xxiv + 688 pages. £95.00 (hardback) and £32.50 (paperback). ISBN: 9780199843695.

Ebojo concludes:

This magnificent Handbook is a very rich resource for those who are interested in the science and art of papyrology. Closer to home, this will definitely be a “textbook” for many years to come that will be constantly consulted by postgraduate researchers dealing particularly with biblical manuscripts, either in a roll or codex format, or whether written on a papyrus or parchment. This Handbook is definitely for everyone who recognizes that the past is a very certain guide for the future. Let me end this humble review with how I would like to see the future of papyrology–similar to how Peter Van Minnen (p. 659) ends this Handbook–with a high sense of optimism, “The past will continue to surprise into the distant future as far as the eye can see”.

Brief notes about The Oxford Handbook on Papyrology here and here.

Bagnall's Early Christian Books in Bryn Mawr Classical Review

Roger Bagnall Early Christian Books in Egypt (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009), has been reviewed by Benjamin Garstad, Grant MacEwan University in Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2010-02-10.

The review is duplicated on the Bryn Mawr Classical Review blog here, where readers can comment.

See earlier reports and reviews of Bagnall's book here, here and here.

Hurtado Reviews Bagnall Early Christian Books

I thought I'd post something to make Peter Head feel better (he has been ill lately), so here is an announcement of Larry Hurtado's review of Roger Bagnall Early Christian Books (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009), in Review of Biblical Literature 01/2010.






Here is an extract regarding the controversial issue of dating Christian papyri:

In support of his contention that the widely accepted number of second-century Christian papyri is too high, Bagnall points to the slightly later dates of early papyri assigned by the great papyrologist/palaeographer Eric Turner, rightly observing that Turner’s expertise was unsurpassed. (It must be noted, however, that in general Turner’s dates differ by only a few decades, e.g., dating several items to the early/mid-third century instead of the late second century.) Bagnall also offers an argument from probability. Essentially, he contends that we should expect that the percentage of Christian papyri among extant second-century papyri should correlate with the likely percentage of Christians in the population of Egypt in that time. In the absence of hard data on either the population of second-century Egypt or the number of Egyptian Christians then, Bagnall adopts Rodney Stark’s “guesstimates” of the number of Christians in the early centuries. This leads Bagnall to propose that Christians comprised as much as 1 percent of the Egyptian population only by “the late 220s” (19). So, he reasons, Christian manuscripts from the second century should comprise no more than 1 percent of the total extant, or about one or two manuscripts. Consequently, he concludes, the widely accepted view that we have as many as eight second-century Christian manuscripts must be wrong.
I share Bagnall’s high regard for Turner and am also reluctant to base much on any dating of manuscript that conflicts with Turner’s judgments. But I am less swayed by Bagnall’s attempt to mount his argument from probability. It all seems to me too much guesswork to form the basis of anything compelling.

See Peter Head's evaluation of Bagnall's book here and here.

Bagnall Chapter One

Last week I posted some initial comments about Roger Bagnall's new book, Early Christian Books in Egypt. Now I want to look at it chapter-by-chapter. I'll start with chapter one. There are several good reasons for starting with chapter one:

first, the chapters come in a numerical sequence and chapter one is the first in that sequence (followed in turn by chapters two, three and four);
secondly, this numerical sequence is reflected in the binding of the book (and the pagination), with chapter one printed as pages 1-24 and bound in "before" chapter two (it is a codex in English, reflecting traditional left-to-right reading practices);
thirdly, chapter one is on-line so anyone can read it (well anyone in the 4% of the world's population with an internet connection);
fourthly, chapter one (as I find often to be the case) opens the book with some of the general issues which the author thinks is important.

Of course one wonders whether one should throw off the repressive power-play that this sort of control over my reading habits represents, but hey, maybe the revolution can wait.

Fundamentally Bagnall is puzzled by a couple of things:

1. Documentary evidence for the existence of Christians among the papyri is completely lacking until the middle of the third century (after which date there are reasonably numerous examples of identifiable Christians in letters and semi-official records). This is puzzling if the normal dates assigned to Christian literary texts (in the second and early third centuries) is correct: why would Christians write gospels but never write letters to each other?
2. Scholars have disagreed about the dating of some of the early Christian texts. Especially Eric Turner 'who new vastly more early codices than Grenfell and Hunt or indeed practically anyone else before of afterward [and] fairly consistently also opted for later dates than those that the editors of papyri and other commentators had offered' (p. 12). In particular Bagnall thinks that the early Christian texts have been dated early in relation to each other and without comparative evidence from other texts, so the whole cluster could shift with each other to a later date.
3. Bagnall attempts to model the number of Christians in Egypt across the first few centuries (based on a load of assumptions, but essentially assuming a steady rate of increase between 40 CE and the late fourth century throughout the whole empire). On this basis, for example, in 200 CE there were 21,747 Christians making up 0.395% of the population of Egypt (p. 20 - yes, inappropriate levels of precision I know). Using these figures, and working on the further assumption that Christians had or used books in the same proportion as the rest of the population he figures, for example, that in the second century there are 1,474 surviving books from Egypt; Christians (averaging things out) made up 0.092% of the population, and thus that we might explect 1.360 Christian books from the second century. He writes:
   

'On any reckoning, the number of published fragments of Christian character usually assigned to these early periods considerably exceeds the expected number.' (p. 21)

This combination of modelling and appeal to the authority of Turner is then the basis for the proposal that Christian literary texts have been dated too early (by most other scholars). A generally later dating would allow for more coherence not only with the models, but with the appearance of Christians in the documentary papyri.

There are plenty of positive points raised by Bagnall. He is a good writer, very clear. I think he has detected a tendency among some writers to think of how early texts can be dated, and an over-confidence in dates assigned by editors. I agree that a wider perspective is necessary and welcome. But I think there are a lot of problems here. The assumptions behind the modelling are to my mind problematic (e.g. I think Christians would be more book friendly than the general population, although not as bookish as the educated elite). The deliberate avoidance of literary evidence (Christian texts which speak of books, especially the martyrological reports) is not actually utilising all the evidence. And his argument is most noticeable for its avoidance of any engagement with the palaeography of the papyri - here we have simply the appeal to authority (of Turner instead of Parsons, Cavallo, Seider, Skeat etc., etc.). Bagnall is actually wrong to think that the dating of the Christian literary tests is as inbred as he thinks (he seems to think that Peter Parsons would date a Christian text on a different basis to other texts); he is also wrong to think that early Christian texts form a distinct palaeographically moveable cluster, as if they can be shifted back a century or so without any impact on the dating of every other second and third century literary text.
But it is good to hear the challenge and in the next chapters (which follow numerically) he offers some more argumentation.

Bagnall on Early Christian Books in Egypt

Roger Bagnall, papyrological supremo, has written an interesting book: Early Christian Books in Egypt (Princeton: Princeton UP, 2009), which I read last week. The first chapter is available on-line and is well worth reading as an introduction, but I found the other chapters, especially those on the economics of ancient book production and the spread of the codex, even more interesting, even occasionally intriguing, although not altogether convincing.

Even more exciting than the book itself is the promotional blurb provided by the publisher, which suggests that all previous scholarship on the subject has been biased and that the dates of Christian texts have been dated too early:

For the past hundred years, much has been written about the early editions of Christian texts discovered in the region that was once Roman Egypt. Scholars have cited these papyrus manuscripts--containing the Bible and other Christian works--as evidence of Christianity's presence in that historic area during the first three centuries AD. In Early Christian Books in Egypt, distinguished papyrologist Roger Bagnall shows that a great deal of this discussion and scholarship has been misdirected, biased, and at odds with the realities of the ancient world. Providing a detailed picture of the social, economic, and intellectual climate in which these manuscripts were written and circulated, he reveals that the number of Christian books from this period is likely fewer than previously believed.

Bagnall explains why papyrus manuscripts have routinely been dated too early, how the role of Christians in the history of the codex has been misrepresented, and how the place of books in ancient society has been misunderstood. The author offers a realistic reappraisal of the number of Christians in Egypt during early Christianity, and provides a thorough picture of the economics of book production during the period in order to determine the number of Christian papyri likely to have existed. Supporting a more conservative approach to dating surviving papyri, Bagnall examines the dramatic consequences of these findings for the historical understanding of the Christian church in Egypt.

It is a little disconcerting to realise how few of the things in the blurb are actually contained in the book. The verbs of the blurb sound impressive: "Bagnall ... shows ... provid[es] a detailed picture ... reveals ... explains ... offers a realistic reappraisal ... examines ..."; but the book is actually very brief and not much given to detail or actual facts (certainly nothing of a palaeographical argument about any particular manuscript). The basic motif, as regards dates assigned to early Christian literary texts, is 'Eric Turner dated many of these texts late' and Turner's dates fit better with some statistical modelling I've come up with for estimating the Christian population in Egypt. He doesn't think much of the scholarship in this field that he has read (although he hasn't read much because he doesn't read theological journals and he spends one sixth of the book critiquing Carsten P. Thiede's claims as if they have never previously been addressed). (Fair enough, that gets personal, since I wrote a thorough critique of Thiede in 1995* which Bagnall does not mention) It is rather strange to me that he critiques 'the excessively self-enclosed character' of scholarship on the subject of early Christian books on page 1, and then later refers dismissively to 'a number of articles not cited here [which] appeared in theological periodicals little read in papyrological circles' [page 94] - so whose scholarship is more excessively self-enclosed?

Anyway, I hope to pick up on some of the issues raised by Bagnall in some later posts.

The Christianization of Egypt

Roger Bagnall evaluated name occurrences in documentary texts to tentatively estimate the rate of Christianization of Egypt. His results challenged the notion that Egyptian Christianization was a gradual process (per Roger Rémondon, 1952).

Roger S. Bagnall, 'Religious Conversion and Onomastic Change' BASP 19 (1982): 105–124.

274___2.4%
275__13.5%
278__10.5%
310__18.0%
313__18.0%
318__50.0%
353__78.0%

Bagnall's data have come under fire for various reasons, but are still very much defensible. Two matters bear consideration with regard to the low 3rd century numbers. First, Earlier Christianity was probably centered in the metropolitan areas. Second, Christian names may have been avoided during and after the persecutions affecting the data.

Ewa Wipszycka, 'La valeur de l'onomastique pour l'histoire de la christianisation de l'Egypte' ZPE 62 (1986): 173–181.
Roger Bagnall, ‘Conversion and Onomastics: a Reply’ ZPE 69 (1987): 243–250 (reprinted in Later Roman Egypt, 2003).
Ewa Wipszycka, 'La christianisation de l'Egypte aux IVe–VIe siecles: Aspects sociaux et ethniques' Aegyptus 68 (1988): 117–165.

Research Group: Mark Depauw (Coordinator), "Names and Identities in Christian Egypt" (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven) funded for 2009–2012.