Recent Comments
Brent Nongbri on A Late Example of the Biblical… Andrew Patton on A Late Example of the Biblical… El Jesús Histórico:… on The Palatine Alexamenos G… magnificentb49030ee1… on Callimachus on the Walls Brent Nongbri on Callimachus on the Walls
Author Archives: Brent Nongbri
New Images of P52
For some time now, the Rylands Library at the University of Manchester has hosted good digital images of P.Ryl. Gr. 3 457 (a.k.a. P52), the fragment of the Gospel According to John. I recently visited the University of Manchester’s LUNA … Continue reading
Volumes 9 and 10 of The Bulletin of the Bezan Club
Thanks to C.R. van Tilburg and Jean Putnams for sending scans of issues 10 and 11 of The Bulletin of the Bezan Club. Thanks also to John Muccigrosso for improving the quality of some of the pdf files. These files … Continue reading
Volume 12 of The Bulletin of the Bezan Club
Thanks to Jean Putmans for tracking down a copy of volume 12 of The Bulletin of the Bezan Club. This, as far as I know, was the last issue of the Bulletin. The issue contains several comments that indicate another … Continue reading
Manuscripts of The Jewish War by Josephus
The seven-book composition by the historian Josephus describing the sacking of Jerusalem goes by different names in the Greek manuscript copies: In the Latin tradition, these books were known to Jerome as captituitas Iudaicae (Comm. in Isaiam 17), but the … Continue reading
A New Project on Gospel Harmonies
I’m very happy to report that my colleague Dr. Mina Monier has been awarded funding from the Research Council of Norway for a four-year project examining gospel harmonies, texts that weave together the narratives of the four canonical gospels. The … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Diatessaron, Eastern Christianity, Gospel harmonies, Gospels
1 Comment
New Radiocarbon Analysis of the Dead Sea Scrolls
An important new study of the Dead Sea Scrolls has just been published (open access!) in the journal PLOS One: Mladen Popović et al., “Dating ancient manuscripts using radiocarbon and AI-based writing style analysis,” PLOS One 2025. In some ways, … Continue reading
Posted in Dead Sea Scrolls, Frank Moore Cross, Palaeography, Radiocarbon analysis
Tagged archaeology, books, Dead Sea Scrolls, history, qumran, Radiocarbon analysis
8 Comments
The Sarcophagus of the Muses from Isola Sacra: Manuscripts and Readers
I’ve written before about the reopening of the museum at Ostia Antica in 2024. One of my favorite displays there involves material from what is now known as Tomb E 200 from Isola Sacra–an interesting sarcophagus with equally interesting contents. … Continue reading
Posted in Archaeological context, desks, Ostia
Tagged archaeology, art-history, history, Ostia, papyrus, Roman history, Rome
1 Comment
The Bulletin of the Bezan Club
[[Update 5 June 2025: I managed to find two additional issues (8 and 9) and a copy of issue 6 that has all of its pages. So, now we lack only issues 10-12.]] [[Update 26 June 2025: Thanks to Jean … Continue reading
7Q5 and Appeals to Authority, Part 1: Orsolina Montevecchi
I am fascinated by the Wikipedia entry for 7Q5, which seems to continuously bounce back and forth between being useful and informative to being goofy and borderline incoherent. 7Q5 is a tiny fragment of papyrus found in Cave 7Q at … Continue reading
Posted in 7Q5, Dead Sea Scrolls, Orsolina Montevecchi
Tagged 7Q5, ancient-judaism, Bible, christianity, Dead Sea Scrolls, early-christian-manuscripts, history
16 Comments
Pumice, Parchment, and Papyrus
In the latest issue of the Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists (2024, just out–table of contents here), I have an article on the use of pumice on papyrus (AAM here). Here is the abstract: Papyrological handbooks published in … Continue reading
Posted in Archaeological context, Book Trade in Antiquity, Voluminology
Tagged books, history, papyrus, Papyrus rolls, Pumice, writing
Leave a comment
Variant Readings 