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Category Archives: Manuscript Collections
Color Images of the Hawara Homer Online
Thanks to Gregg Schwendner for the alert: In 2019, the Bodleian Library at Oxford posted very nice color digital images (with a scale!) of MS. Gr. class. a. 1 (better known as the Hawara Homer), a copy of books 1 … Continue reading
More Stolen Papyri to be Returned to the Egypt Exploration Society
Earlier today, the Egypt Exploration Society (EES) announced the discovery that more papyri “had been removed from the EES collection without authorisation.” This follows other related announcements over the last several months. The first announcement by the EES (25 June … Continue reading
Museum of the Bible Papyri in Egypt
From Egypt Today: “CAIRO – 27 January 2021: A large group of Egyptian artifacts that were in the possession of the Holy Bible Museum in Washington, USA, arrived at Cairo International Airport on January 27, as a result of the … Continue reading
New Facsimiles of the Chester Beatty New Testament Papyri
I had heard rumors a few years ago that a new facsimile edition of the Beatty Biblical Papyri was in the works. It looks like the New Testament papyri have now appeared courtesy of Hendrickson. This is exciting. The volumes … Continue reading
Posted in Chester Beatty Papyri, Codices
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Back When Single-quire Codices Were Strange
Since the discovery and publication of the Nag Hammadi codices, the single-quire codex format has become very familiar to papyrologists and historians of the book. It’s interesting, however, to recall that there was a time when the idea of an … Continue reading
Posted in Book binding, Codices, Codicology, Oxyrhynchus Papyri
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More on Dirk Obbink and the Provenance of the Sappho Papyrus
The latest issue of the Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists was just published. It contains an article by C. Michael Sampson, “Deconstructing the Provenances of P.Sapph.Obbink.” The article brings a load of new evidence to bear on the … Continue reading
A New Article on P52 in New Testament Studies
The latest issue of New Testament Studies contains an article I wrote on P.Ryl. 3.457, a.k.a. P52, the fragmentary leaf from a codex generally regarded as the earliest surviving copy of the Gospel According to John (and indeed earliest surviving … Continue reading
Mr. Spock and Qumran
Thanks to Stephen Goranson for drawing my attention to an episode of the television show “In Search of…” that aired on 9 February 1978. The topic of this episode, narrated by Leonard Nimoy, was the Dead Sea Scrolls. The content … Continue reading
Two Unheralded Excavators of Cave 1 at Qumran: Ibrahim Asuli and Mohamed Mustafa
In spare moments, I continue to work on the manuscripts generally associated with Cave 1 at Qumran. I’ve become very interested in the photographs of the excavations of Cave 1. Both Gerald Lankester Harding and Ovid R. Sellers took pictures … Continue reading
Trever’s Photos of the Cave 1 Scrolls Freely Available Online
[[Update 22 July 2024: I see that this book is among the many that have ceased to be available on archive.org since the decision in Hachette v. Internet Archive court case.]] I’ve written before on this blog about the dispersion … Continue reading
Variant Readings 