Author Archives: Brent Nongbri

P.Oxy. 31.2604: Writing Exercises and Palaeography

Elijah Hixson has drawn attention this morning to a new volume of The Oxyrhynchus Papyri series that is set to appear. Elijah focuses on a potentially interesting new copy of the Gospel According to Mark, but I must admit that … Continue reading

Posted in Oxyrhynchus Papyri, Palaeography | 6 Comments

Matthew and Levi (and James)

A kind of random question via e-mail sent me down a rabbit hole yesterday. The question was this: Does Origen say that Matthew and Levi were not the same person? The answer turns out to be more complicated than I … Continue reading

Posted in Textual criticism | 8 Comments

Excavating the Oxyrhynchus Philo Codex

In my previous post, I mentioned that the Oxyrhynchus Philo codex (LDAB 3540) was published in a number of different outlets. There are also some tantalizing hints about the archaeological context of the fragments. Here is the data on the … Continue reading

Posted in Antiquities Market, Codices, Find Stories, Maurice Nahman, Oxyrhynchus Papyri, Oxyrhynchus Philo | 8 Comments

The Oxyrhynchus Codex of Philo of Alexandria

It might not look like much at first glance, but one of the scraps published in the 2016 volume of The Oxyrhynchus Papyri (volume 82) belongs to a quite fascinating codex. I’m talking about P.Oxy. 82.5291, a small corner of … Continue reading

Posted in Codices, Oxyrhynchus Papyri, Oxyrhynchus Philo | 7 Comments

Palimpsests among the Tura Codices

A question concerning papyrus (rather than parchment) palimpsests came up recently in the comments over on Bart Ehrman’s blog. I thought I would post here a good example of a papyrus palimpsest, namely the papyrus codex containing the commentary on … Continue reading

Posted in Codices, Palimpsests, Reuse of manuscripts, Tura Papyri | Leave a comment

A Working List of Funerary Sculpture Attributed to Oxyrhynchus

As I have been looking into a set of sculptures attributed Oxyrhynchus (in previous posts here and here), some patterns have emerged in terms of acquisition. It seems that the best thing to do is to make a list of … Continue reading

Posted in Antiquities Market, Find Stories, Oxyrhynchus Sculpture, William Matthew Flinders Petrie | 2 Comments

A Bit More on Sculpture Attributed to Oxyrhynchus

In an earlier post, I discussed a set of limestone sculptures usually described as funerary reliefs found at Oxyrhynchus. One of the pieces was a portrait of a woman acquired by the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in 1972. I … Continue reading

Posted in Antiquities Market, Oxyrhynchus Sculpture | 1 Comment

Faces from Oxyrhynchus?

Earlier this year I had the pleasure of visiting the University of Edinburgh. In addition to chatting with a fascinating group of graduate students, I was able to squeeze in a quick trip to the National Museum of Scotland. While … Continue reading

Posted in Antiquities Market, British Museum, Fakes and Forgeries, Oxyrhynchus Sculpture, William Matthew Flinders Petrie | 4 Comments

The Barcelona-Montserrat Greek-Latin Codex: Another “Bodmer” Codex with Mixed Contents

In addition to the so-called Bodmer composite codex (LDAB 2565, which I described in some detail here), the same ancient collection seems to have included another papyrus codex with equally (if not more) diverse contents. The Barcelona-Montserrat “miscellaneous” codex (LDAB … Continue reading

Posted in Barcelona-Montserrat Greek-Latin Codex, Bodmer Papyri, Codices, Robinson Papyri | 9 Comments

Justin Martyr and the Gospel(s)

Over on his blog, Larry Hurtado has responded to my last post on textual transmission, and I fear we may be talking past each other. Just to try to clarify the actual points of our disagreement: Hurtado writes: “Nongbri seems … Continue reading

Posted in Justin Martyr, Textual criticism | 6 Comments