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Re: orion Nash Papyrus Discussion



Pardon this late entry into a bygone discussion, the origins of which I've
forgotten, but if the question was about ANY surviving Biblical texts (not
just in Hebrew/Aramaic), there are a good number of Greek fragments that
are as early as the Nash Papyrus and much earlier than the Genizah
materials. Some are Jewish in origin, others Christian.

Bob Kraft, UPenn

Asia wrote:
> 
> I am very greatful to all who answered - and let me summarize the information:
> 
> Excluding DSS, the oldest Biblical texts we have are:
> 
> 
> 1. "Silver Amulet" with a short text from Numbers (priestly blessings),
> dated 700BC (in Paleo-Hebrew script).
> 
> 2. "Nash Papyrus", Decalogue and Shma, dated 1BC (used to paleographically
> date DSS, Herodian script)
> 
> 3. Biblical fragment from Cairo Genizah, dated 5AD (this must be in the
> square Babilonian script)
> 
> 
> That's pretty sparse. What if we widened the criteria to include any Jewish
> literary text, including pseudoepigraphic and apocryphal (but excluding
> such things as funerary inscriptions, deeds of sale and marriage,
> administrative lists, Uzziah inscription, etc..) - would we then have a
> much longer list of manuscripts for the period of, say, up to destruction
> of the temple? 
> 
> Best regards,	Asia

-- 
Robert A. Kraft, Religious Studies, University of Pennsylvania
227 Logan Hall (Philadelphia PA 19104-6304); tel. 215 898-5827
kraft@ccat.sas.upenn.edu
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/rs/rak/kraft.html