Rescuing an Ancient Gem From the Trash

DETERMINING ITS AGE

Roberts suspected that this papyrus scrap was very old.  But how old? To find out, he compared the handwriting on it with other dated ancient manuscripts-a discipline called paleography.   By applying this method, he was able to assign an approximate age. But he wanted to be sure. So he photographed the fragment, sent copies of it to three papyrologists, and  asked them to determine its age.  What did these experts conclude? 

By studying the style of the script and the strokes, all three of the expert scholars agreed that the fragment had been written in the first half of the second century C.E.-just  a few decades after the apostle John's death!  Paleography, however, is not a foolproof method of dating manuscripts, and another scholar  believes that the text could have been written anytime during the second century. Yet, this tiny scrap of papyrus was-and still is-the oldest existing manuscript fragment of the Christian Greek Scriptures that has ever been found. 

WHAT THE RYLANDS FRAGMENT REVEALS

Why is this fragment of John's Gospel so important to lovers of the Bible today?  For at least two reasons. First of all, the format of the fragment gives us some insight into how the early Christians valued the Scriptures.  In the second century C.E.,written text came in two formats-the scroll and the codex. Scrolls were pieces of papyrus or parchment that were pasted or stitched together to form one long sheet. This sheet could then be rolled up and unrolled whenever needed. In most cases, only one side of the scroll was used for writing. 

However, the tiny fragment that Roberts discovered has handwriting on both sides.  This suggests that  it came from a codex rather than a scroll. A codex was made from sheets of parchment or papyrus that were sewn together and folded in a format resembling a book. 

Next time: Conclusion of WHAT THE RYLANDS FRAGMENT REVEALS

From the Watchtower magazine, 2015