God’s Library: The Archaeology of the Earliest Christian Manuscripts

388 Pages·2018·26.61 MB·English

by  Brent Nongbri

GOD’S LIBRARY
GOD’S LIBRARY
The Archaeology of the Earliest Christian
Manuscripts
BRENT NONGBRI
Published with assistance from the foundation established in memory of Calvin Chapin of the Class of
1788, Yale College.
Copyright © 2018 by Yale University.
All rights reserved.
This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that
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public press), without written permission from the publishers.
Quotations from Legends of the Centuries, by Charles Méla (Fondation Martin Bodmer), English translation
by David Macey, © 2004 Éditions Cercle d’Art, Paris.
Quotations from Carl Schmidt, “Die neuesten Bibelfunde aus Ägypten.” Zeitschrift für die
Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 30 (1931): 285–293, De Gruyter, Zeitschrift für die Neutestamentliche
Wissenschaft, Walter De Gruyter GmbH Berlin Boston, 1931. Copyright and all rights reserved. Material
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2017963318
ISBN 978-0-300-21541-0 (hardcover : alk. paper)
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This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Mary Jane Cuyler
Contents
Acknowledgments
Map Showing Locations in Egypt
PROLOGUE Reintroducing the Earliest Christian Manuscripts
1. The Early Christian Book
2. The Dating Game
3. Finding Early Christian Books in Egypt
4. A Discovery “Which Threw All Others in the Shade”: The Beatty Biblical
Papyri
5. An Elusive Collection: The Bodmer Papyri
6. Excavating Christian Litter and Literature at Oxyrhynchus
7. Fabricating a Second-Century Codex of the Four Gospels
EPILOGUE The Future of Ancient Christian Books
Appendix: Christian Books from Oxyrhynchus
Notes
Bibliography
Index of Subjects
Index of Manuscripts
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I AM GRATEFUL FIRST of all to Alanna Nobbs, Larry Welborn, and the Department
of Ancient History at Macquarie University for taking a risk and bringing me out
to Australia to work on early Christian manuscripts. This book definitely bears
the stamp of the unique environment of Macquarie’s Department of Ancient
History, where the study of the papyrological and epigraphic record of ancient
Christians has been central for decades. I also owe a huge debt to Gill Ellis and
the whole Arts Research Office at Macquarie for teaching me how to navigate
the Australian grant system, a system to which I am equally indebted. Funding
that supported this research came from the Department of Ancient History at
Macquarie, the Society for the Study of Early Christianity, a Macquarie
University Research Fellowship, and a Discovery Early Career Research Award
from the Australian Research Council.
The last revisions on the book took place during an enjoyable stay at Aarhus
University. I am obliged especially to René Falkenberg and Kasper Bro Larsen
for making that happen. Special thanks are due to Paul Dilley, Melissa Moreton,
and everyone at the University of Iowa involved in the Mellon Sawyer Seminar
on manuscripts across premodern Eurasia, which was an eye-opening experience
that helped to broaden my perspective on the history of book production at a key
moment of the project.
Many of the ideas presented in this book were first hammered out in talks
presented at Fordham University, Princeton University, Trinity College
Melbourne, the University of Manchester, the University of Notre Dame, the
University of Sydney, the University of Texas at Austin, and Yale University.
The Papyrology and Early Christian Backgrounds group at the annual meetings
of the Society of Biblical Literature has become my home away from home for
the past decade, and I very much appreciate the organizers, fellow presenters,
and audience members at these sessions. I would be remiss not to thank Ann
Hanson, who first introduced me to papyri and changed the direction of my
research.
Thanks are also due to the curators of the many manuscripts and archives that
I was fortunate enough to study. I express my gratitude to the staff at the Bentley
Historical Library and the Papyrology Collection at the University of Michigan;
the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana; the British Library; the Chester Beatty
Library; the Houghton Library at Harvard University; the John Rylands Library
at the University of Manchester; the Pierpont Morgan Library; the Magdalen
College, Sackler, and Bodleian libraries at the University of Oxford; the Scheide
Library and the Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library at Princeton University; the
Special Collections at the Claremont Colleges Library; and the Special
Collections at the University of Western Australia. Stasa Bibic, Florence Darbre,
and the entire staff of the Fondation Martin Bodmer were especially helpful and
accommodating during my visits to Cologny, and David Hogge’s guidance in the
archives at the Freer Gallery at the Smithsonian Institution was indispensable.
This book has evolved over a number of years and owes much to the patience
and guidance of Jennifer Banks, Heather Gold, Susan Laity, and the production
team at Yale University Press. Jessie Dolch provided expert copyediting on this
challenging manuscript. I am deeply grateful to all these people.
One of the real pleasures of undertaking this project has been benefiting from
the boundless enthusiasm and knowledge of AnneMarie Luijendijk. I have
learned a great deal by watching how she frames questions about early Christian
book culture, and I’m thankful for her input on the manuscript at several points
in the project. I’m also obliged to others who read part or all of the manuscript at
various stages: Roger Bagnall, Doug Boin, Josephine Dru, Sean Durbin, Felicity
Harley-McGowan, Edwin Judge, Hugo Lundhaug, Dale Martin, Julia Miller,
Roberta Mazza, and Gregg Schwendner. Many other friends have patiently
answered questions over the past few years. I single out Malcolm Choat, Cavan
Concannon, Stephen Emmel, Larry Hurtado, D. C. Parker, Dan Sharp, and Sofía
Torallas Tovar. Their advice saved me from many errors. Those that remain are
on me.
I began this project just after I married Mary Jane Cuyler, who has been an
inspiring conversation partner through every step of the research, writing, and
revision process. Her insightful feedback and admirable lack of tolerance for
scholarly “fibs” have made this a much better and more honest work.

Map showing locations in Egypt mentioned in the text.
(Cartography by Bill Nelson.)