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Re: orion Nash Papyrus Discussion



I originally asked about specifically Hebrew Biblical text, and then about
Hebrew non-Biblical literary texts. 

All best,	Asia Lerner

At 12:05 PM 11/11/98 -0500, you wrote:
>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
>
>