Gerald Lankester Harding’s Qumran Cave 1Q Excavation Photos

Posted on July 30, 2024 by Brent Nongbri

I think a copy of Gerald Lankester Harding’s photographs of the Cave 1Q manuscripts as they were being excavated in 1949 may be at the École biblique in Jerusalem.

The back story: When I was writing an article on the Cave 1Q scrolls a few years ago, I ran into a problem that I just could not solve. Nearly all the evidence I surveyed suggested that there was no sure connection between any of the rolls that Muhammad ed Dhib is said to have found and the cave now known as 1Q. Nearly all the evidence. The one indicator that pointed in another direction was a claim from John Trever. Here is how I put it in the article:

“Trever makes a curiously specific claim regarding one fragment of this text: ‘A small piece of 1QSb (Col. II) also was sifted from the debris’ during the excavation of Cave 1. I can find no corroboration of Trever’s statement, but if it were correct, this fragment would constitute a material connection between Cave 1 and the three scrolls associated with Muhammad ed-Dhib. Thus, it would be very useful to see if Trever’s statement can be somehow confirmed or disconfirmed.”

I added the following long footnote that invoked Harding’s photos as a possible path forward:

“In theory, Trever’s claim could be either confirmed or disconfirmed by reference to photographs taken by Harding at the time of the excavation itself in 1949. As Harding wrote in DJD I: ‘Inscribed fragments were mounted between glass each day as they were found, and photographed on the spot for safe record’ (Gerald Lankester Harding, ‘Introductory: The Discovery, the Excavation, Minor Finds,’ in Barthélemy and Milik, Qumran Cave I, 3–7, at 7). While a very small group of these photographs seems to have been published (see the bibliography in Barthélemy and Milik, Qumran Cave I, 43), I have been unable to locate the original copies of this set of excavation photographs. The Jordanian Department of Antiquities did not respond to my queries concerning these photographs. Stephen Reed reports that the John C. Trever Collection of photographs includes some of Harding’s images (see Stephen A. Reed, Marilyn J. Lundberg, and Michael B. Phelps, The Dead Sea Scrolls Catalogue: Documents, Photographs, and Museum Inventory Numbers [RBS 32; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1994] 451–52). According to the descriptions Reed provides, the Harding photos in the Trever collection seem to contain a mix of excavated and purchased materials, so these may not be the excavation photos that Harding mentioned. I contacted James Trever, the son of John Trever, in July 2020 to try to obtain copies of this material, but he was unable to locate these photographs or negatives. Among the PAM photographs, at least one sequence seems to derive from Harding (PAM 40.433–40.552). Although the date given for the photographs is April 1953, these images appear to be photographs of earlier photographs by Harding (PAM 40.508 is actually labeled “MR LANCASTER HARDINGS (sic) PHOTOGRAPH A1”). Again, these contain a mix of excavated and purchased materials, and none of them seems to match the published photographs mentioned in DJD I, 43. The recovery of Harding’s excavation photographs is a desideratum.”

The early photos of the Dead Sea Scrolls present a number of challenges. Even guides by good scholars can be misleading or just wrong (here’s a case from Tov and Pfann, Companion Volume to the Dead Sea Scrolls Microfiche Edition, 2nd rev. ed; Leiden: Brill, 1995).

The Harding photos said to be a part of Trever’s collection continue to escape me. Trevor’s photos are now at the University of Chicago, and I have been assured that copies of Harding’s photos are not among them.

But, while digging around for photographs of Muhammed ed Dhib over the last couple weeks, I came across a piece of evidence that I somehow missed while conducting my search for copies of Harding’s Cave 1Q excavation photos: It may be the case that the École biblique in Jerusalem holds copies of these pictures. In the first volume of the Qumran excavation report, the following note accompanies one of the photographic sources (Lot 8, on p. 404):

“Date et circonstances. M. Lankester Harding, alors directeur des Antiquités de Jordanie, a représenté pendant les campagnes de fouilles à Qumrân, le service des Antiquités qui patronnait les travaux. Bon photographe, il a pris une centaine de clichés de synthèse, en général de bonne qualité.
Dépôt. Les archives photographiques de Lankester Harding ont été déposées aux archives photographiques du service des Antiquités de Jordanie. Les négatifs ont été rangés dans des classeurs à couverture grise et les contacts dans des classeurs à couverture rouge. Une copie de toute la série avait été donnée par l’auteur à l’École biblique, où les clichés ont été intégrés aux albums de la photothèque. Toute une série de documents concernant les manuscrits et les circonstances de leur découverte a été réalisée par Lankester Harding. Les documents ont été déposés aux archives photographiques du service des Antiquités de Jordanie où leur numéro d’inventaire est précédé dans les registres de la lettre A. Puisqu’ils ne concernent pas les travaux de chantier, nous ne les avons pas intégrés à notre liste; cependant, nous en donnons ici la liste, à titre indicatif A 1 393-1 492 (objets trouvés avec les manuscrits), A 1 493-1 500 et 1 536-1537 (manuscrits enveloppés dans des toiles de lin), A 1 538-1 539, A 1 652-1 672, A 2 069-2 077, A 2 341-2 353 (objets trouvés avec les manuscrits).”1

The 95 photos from the Harding collection that are individually described in this volume are almost all from the 1950s excavation, with just 12 from the 1949 campaign. But it sounds like there is a reasonably good chance that copies of the daily manuscript photos from the 1949 excavations might be found at the École biblique photo archive. Let us hope so.

PAM 40.508; image source: The Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library
  1. Jean-Baptiste Humbert and Alain Chambon, Fouilles de Khirbet Qumrân et de Aïn Feshkha I: Album de photographies (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1994), 404. ↩︎
Posted in Archaeological context, Dead Sea Scrolls, Find Stories | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments

Another Photo of Muhammad ed-Dhib

Posted on July 26, 2024 by Brent Nongbri

Thanks to Asaf Gayer for pointing out that there is another excellent photo of Muhammad ed-Dhib to add to the small group of photos of the alleged finders of the first scrolls that I discussed in an earlier post. This picture was probably taken in 1963 and appears in the Wadi ed-Daliyeh excavation volume (Muhammad ed Dhib is identified as the man on the left; the fellow on the right holding the bat is not identified by name):

Paul W. Lapp and Nancy L. Lapp (eds.), Discoveries in the Wâdī ed-Dâliyeh (American Schools of Oriental Research, 1974), plate 102

Muhammad ed-Dhib was among the Bedouin who worked for the excavators, as Lapp describes in the summary of work undertaken in the caves at Wadi ed-Daliyeh in 1963:

“A word must be said about the unbelievable Ta‘amireh who worked for us. Their strength was amazing. They worked at least twice as hard as any workmen I have ever seen on any previous dig. From the first day we could see that their working code disgraced any slacker, and the lack of a foreman to curb their fiercely independent spirits was a distinct advantage. They scrambled up rocky slopes in less than two minutes like goats, when it took the best of us fifteen minutes of cautious climbing to do the same. There were no misgivings on the part of our best men when faced with the task of carrying out heavy pots a meter high and nearly as wide to the car five kilometers away. One of these was the famous Muhammed edh-Dhib Hassan, who began the search for manuscripts by throwing a stone into Qumran Cave I in 1947 (and thus contributed indirectly to the discovery of the Samaria Papyri).”

It is interesting that the finder of the first scrolls is identified as “Muhammed edh-Dhib Hassan.” This is also how Frank Cross identified him in his report, “The Discovery of the Samaria Papyri,” Biblical Archaeologist 26.4 (1963) 109-121, at 114, note 4. In The Untold Story of Qumran, Trever gave his name as “Muhammed Ahmed el-Hamed, whose nickname is ‘Edh-Dhib’.” Trever also followed up on Cross’s version version of the name: “As a result of the addition of ‘Hassan’ to Edh-Dhib’s name in reports from Jerusalem during 1963 (e.g., BA XXVl:4 [December, 1963], p. 114, n. 4), I asked Mr. Kiraz to check Muhammed’s identity card. On July 21, 1964, Kiraz visited him at his camp near el-‘Azariyeh (Bethany) and examined the card, which is numbered 5941/218342 and dated in Bethlehem on October 23, 1956. There his name is clearly given as transliterated here” (Trever, The Untold Story, p. 195, note 9).

If others are aware of additional photographs of Muhammad ed Dhib, I would be happy to learn about them!

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Photos from the 1950 Duke Exhibition of the Dead Sea Scrolls

Posted on July 22, 2024 by Brent Nongbri

Thanks to Alexander Schick for pointing out the digitization of photos in the Duke University Archives related to the exhibition at Duke of the Dead Sea Scrolls that were in the possession of Mar Samuel in 1950. There are some excellent photos in this collection:

I’m also reminded of the film footage of William Brownlee and John Trever with the scrolls in Jerusalem in the very early days after the discovery of the first scrolls. Again, thanks to Alexander Schick for pointing out this footage in a YouTube talk by Orit Rosengarten. The archival footage begins at 14:31:

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Photos of the First Finders of the Dead Sea Scrolls

Posted on July 21, 2024 by Brent Nongbri

In my last post I unpacked the story of what seems to be the earliest published photograph of the alleged finders of the first Dead Sea Scrolls:

“The Bible’s Oldest Texts,” Picture Post, vol. 60, no. 6, 8 August 1953 (p. 32)

This picture was taken in 1951 by Richmond Brown, and published (I think) for the first time in this 1953 Picture Post article. This picture is part of the photo archive of the École biblique et archéologique française de Jérusalem. The Picture Post simply calls the men in the picture “two shepherds.” In the photographic catalog of the École biblique, one of the men is identified as the person who is said to have first discovered the cave, Muhammad ed Dhib:

J.-B. Humbert and A. Chambon, Fouilles de Khirbet Qumrân et de Aïn Feshkha I (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1994), p. 204

But from this caption, it’s not clear which person is Muhammed ed Dhib. Another version of this image appears in an exhibition catalog produced by Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. It offers a more detailed caption:

Gary & Stephanie Loveless Present Dead Sea Scrolls & the Bible: Ancient Artifacts, Timeless Treasures (Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2012), p. 70

Alongside the photo is the description, “Featured here are two of the men responsible for this great discovery, Muhammed ‘ed-Dib (the wolf)’ Ahmad el-Hamid and Jum’a Muhammed Khalil.” Another name is added, but it’s not clear which person is which. I do not know where the anonymous author found this extra information, and I cannot confirm or disconfirm its accuracy.

But we can compare this image to other images. A second photo was published a couple years after the Picture Post article. This picture is in Millar Burrows, The Dead Sea Scrolls (New York Viking Press, 1955):

Millar Burrows, The Dead Sea Scrolls (New York: Viking Press, 1955), Plate I

Permission to reproduce the photo is credited to William L. Reed, director of the American School of Oriental Research in Jerusalem. As far as I can see, there is no information about the date when this picture was taken. Reed was a participant in the expedition to locate manuscript caves in 1952, so that is a likely timeframe for this photograph. The man on the right in this image is identified as Muhammad ed Dhib, and he appears to be the same man as the man on the right in the École biblique image (based on the clothing), but the man on the left seems to me to be a different person from the one on the left in the École biblique image.

Perhaps the most frequently reproduced photo of the alleged discoverer(s) is the one below, here as it appears in Weston Fields, The Dead Sea Scrolls: A Full History (2009):

Weston Fields, The Dead Sea Scrolls: A Full History Volume 1, 1947-1960 (Brill, 2009), p. 25.

The date given in Fields (“about 1950”), seems to be incorrect. To the best of my knowledge, the earliest form of the photo was published by John Trever in The Untold Story of Qumran (1965):

John C. Trever, The Untold Story of Qumran (Revell, 1965), p. 104

So, the caption dates the photograph not to 1950 but to 1962. And in this cropping, we see that the picture also included the two men who had conducted an interview with these Bedouin. Trever credits the photo as “courtesy Anton Kiraz.” This makes me wonder if this date is also not quite right. For Trever seems to have received this photograph in a letter from Kiraz that was sent 10 December 1961. The letter contains what seems to be a description of this picture:

“Enclosed you will find a photo of the Bedouins Muhammad ed Deeb and Jum’a when they came to my home for the tape recording. The man beside me is Jum’a Muham[m]ad and the other one standing near Mr. Docmac is Muham[m]ad ed Deeb. The photo was taken on the roof of my home after lunch. You also find enclosed an approximate bill of the expenses.”1

I’m fairly sure I recognize Anton Kiraz on the far left. So, the figures in the picture are identified as (left to right): Anton Kiraz, Jum’a Muhammad, Muhammad ed Dhib, and Judeh Docmac (the headmaster of the Lutheran School in Bethlehem, who helped with the interview).

The results of this interview and other interviews with these men form the backbone of Trever’s account of the discovery of the first scrolls. Yet, as Trever notes, the stories they told in 1961 and 1962 “seemed irreconcilable at several points with the first accounts given in 1949 and 1952. The earlier accounts had also been based on direct contacts with the same Bedouins and had the advantage of being nearer the actual events.”2

But comparing the École biblique photo and the Reed photo on the one hand with Trever’s photo on the other, I’m not sure it’s absolutely clear that these are in fact “the same Bedouins.”

I’m not aware of other early photos of the people said to be involved in the discovery of the Cave 1Q scrolls, but I would be happy to be informed if anyone knows of any.

  1. George A. Kiraz (ed.), Anton Kiraz’s Dead Sea Scroll Archive (Gorgias Press, 2005), 88-90, quotation at 90. ↩︎
  2. John C. Trever, The Untold Story of Qumran (Revell, 1965), 171. ↩︎
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The Earliest Photo of the Man Who Discovered the First Dead Sea Scrolls?

Posted on July 19, 2024 by Brent Nongbri

When I was looking into the history of the Dead Sea Scrolls that are said to have been found in Cave 1Q a few years ago, I became interested in the early surviving videos and photographs of the scrolls and the excavators.

I recently came across an article in a popular magazine that I had missed until now. It’s a short piece by Gerald Lankester Harding that ran in Picture Post in August 1953. As the name of the magazine implies, the article is well illustrated with a series of photographs, for which the credit is given to Ronald Startup, a freelance photographer.

This 1953 photo shoot covers both the excavations at Qumran and the early work of sorting the fragments. I was surprised to see a photo of the “two shepherds” who are said to have been the first to find scrolls standing outside the entrance to Cave 1Q.

“The Bible’s Oldest Texts,” Picture Post, vol. 60, no. 6, 8 August 1953 (p. 32)

In this version of the image no identification is made beyond “these two shepherds.” When I have seen the image in other publications, one of the figures is identified as Muhammad ed-Dhib, the person usually credited with the initial discovery of the first three scrolls.1 I’m fairly sure that this 1953 publication is the earliest that I have seen this picture in print. What is odd is that when I have seen it in print elsewhere, the credit line is always the École biblique et archéologique française de Jérusalem. So, it seems that Ronald Startup, who took the rest of the photographs for this article, did not take this picture. This made me wonder who took it and when.

In the excellent 2017 article on Cave 1Q by Taylor, Mizzi, and Fidanzio, this picture appears as Figure 4, and it is given a date of 1949 in the caption.

Joan E. Taylor, Dennis Mizzi and Marcello Fidanzio, “Revisiting Qumran Cave 1Q and its Archaeological Assemblage, PEQ 149 (2017) 295-325, at 301.

But I don’t think this date of 1949 can be right. Cave 1Q was identified by archaeologists in late January 1949 and excavated between 15 February and 5 March 1949. As far as I know, that excavation was carried out by the Jordanian Department of Antiquities along with the École biblique and the Palestine Archaeological Museum (with the Arab Legion providing protection at the site). I don’t think there is any published reference to Bedouin teams in general or Muhammad ed-Dhib in particular being present at this cave at this time. Another story by Harding ran in the Illustrated London News on 1 October 1949. It makes no mention of identifying, much less photographing, the alleged discoverers of the first scrolls. I don’t think the identity of the alleged finders of the first scrolls were yet known to the scholars and archaeologists in 1949 (their identities were known by early 1953, when Harding mentioned “Mohammed edh Dhib and Ahmed Mohammed” by name in DJD I). [[Addendum 20 July 2024: I see that Harding did note in a 1949 article that the identity of the alleged finder of the scrolls had only just been discovered.2]]

In any event, the source given for the photo, the École biblique et archéologique française, provides both the true date of the photo and a possible explanation for the date of 1949 given in the article. The first volume of the École biblique’s Qumran excavation report is a catalog of photographs related to the excavations. This picture appears in a series of photos of Cave 1Q as Figure 419:

J.-B. Humbert and A. Chambon, Fouilles de Khirbet Qumrân et de Aïn Feshkha I (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1994), 204

The immediately preceding photo, Figure 418, was indeed part of a series of photos that Roland de Vaux took at Cave 1Q in 1949. But Figure 419 does not belong to that series. It was part of a different set of photos taken by Richmond Brown in 1951, as indicated in the photo log (p. 407 in the excavation volume):

I assume this is the same person as “Mr. R. Richmond Brown” who took some of the infrared photos of the Cave 1Q scrolls. So that seems to answer the question of who took the photo and when.

But what was the occasion in 1951 that brought these Bedouin to Cave 1Q? During the excavations of Khirbet Qumran that began in November 1951 (and the expeditions to the caves in the area that commenced in 1952), the Bedouin played an important role. Scholars often portray the discovery of the scrolls as “archaeologists in a race against the Bedouin,” and while there is some truth in this characterization, it is also the case that de Vaux’s projects employed many Bedouin workers, including the man identified as Muhammad ed-Dhib.3 When discussing William Brownlee’s proposal about a different identification of the location of the discovery of the first scrolls, John Trever mentioned that de Vaux and Muhammad ed-Dhib had at some point been together at Cave 1Q:

“I discussed the matter with Father R. de Vaux at the École Biblique in Jerusalem, and he told of sitting with adh-Dhib on a large rock within a few feet of the entrance to Cave I and listening to his account of the discovery.”4

I wonder if this photo from 1951 is a snapshot from that meeting, and I wonder if the 1953 Picture Post publication of this photo really is the first published image of Muhammad ed-Dhib.

Looking more closely at this photo also raises some questions for me about other photos of the alleged discoverer of the first scrolls. But that will wait for another post.

  1. Trever identifies the full name of this person as “Muhammed Ahmed el-Hamed, whose nickname is ‘Edh-Dhib’ ” (Trever, The Untold Story, 103). Frank Cross called him “Muḥammed edh-Dhîb Ḥassan” (Frank M. Cross, “The Discovery of the Samaria Papyri,” BA 26 [1963] 109–21, at 114 n. 4) ↩︎
  2. Harding wrote, “Up to the time of writing the original finder, who must be a goatherd, has not been located,” but in a footnote added before the article went to press, Harding reported the following: “Since writing this, Mr. Saad, Secretary of the Palestine Museum, has had an interview with the goatherd.” See Gerald Lankester Harding, “The Dead Sea Scrolls,” Palestine Exploration Quarterly 81 (1949) 112-116, at 112. ↩︎
  3. Roland de Vaux, “Les manuscrits de Qumrân et l’archéologie,” RB 66 (1959) 87-110, at 89. ↩︎
  4. John C. Trever, “When was Qumrân Cave I Discovered?” Revue de Qumrân 3 (1961) 135-141, at 140. ↩︎
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A Correction and a Codicological Mystery in P.Bodmer 13

Posted on July 1, 2024 by Brent Nongbri

I only recently learned of the death, about a year ago now, of Stuart G. Hall (1928-2023). It sent me back to an article that we wrote together. In 2015, I stumbled across grainy black and white photographs of what up until then had been a “lost” leaf of a papyrus codex containing the beginning of the Peri pascha of Melito of Sardis. The leaf was part of the “Bodmer Composite Codex,” and I was (and am) very interested in the construction of this book. I thought it best to publish the piece, but not being an expert in Melito, I contacted Stuart, who was 87 at the time. He jumped at the chance to revisit his earlier work on Melito, and the two of us published an article on the piece.1

The best available images of the codex can be found on the Bodmer Lab website. For the sake of clarity in the following discussion, I post images of the front and back of the “lost” leaf below.

I was responsible for the codicological section of that article, and in revisiting it, I see that I made a substantial mistake. I take the opportunity now to correct it. Below is a diagram of the quire in question and my summary of the problem in the article:

Page ⲅ (3) of Melito begins a new quire, a complete quaternion, which is followed by another complete quaternion. Thus, the first leaf of the text of Melito (pages ⲁ and ⲃ) cannot belong in a quire with the leaves that follow it. By tracing continuity of papyrus fibres across leaves, it can be shown that leaf ⲝⲇ/ⲝⲉ and leaf ⲝϛ/ⲝⲍ form a bifolium. Since the ‘inside’ of this bifolium contains consecutive pages (ⲝⲉ and ⲝϛ), it can be presumed to be the centre of a quire. Continuous fibres also show that leaf ⲝⲃ/ⲝⲅ and the leaf consisting of page ⲝⲏ and the unnumbered title page of Melito also form a bifolium. Thus, we are almost certainly dealing with a quaternion. The question is: how does the first leaf of the text of Melito fit in? Because of damage to its edges, it is not clear whether it forms a bifolium with the first or second leaf of the quire. Also adding to the difficulty is the fact that we have a total of only seven leaves (14 pages). Thus, as Turner noted in 1977, if this quire is a normal quaternion, an additional leaf (two pages) must be missing. Turner speculated that the ‘two pages could have been left empty or held a short Psalm’. 2Yet, given that the structure of the two central sheets of the quire is clear, there are only two possible positions for the missing leaf. It would need to have been located either between the title page of Melito and the first page of the text or between the first and second leaves of the text of Melito (i.e. between pages ⲃ and ⲅ of Melito). Neither option is appealing.

Given that state of affairs, I proposed that perhaps instead of an additional leaf, we may have had just a stub in one of those two positions, as illustrated in this graphic:

The problem is this: When I subsequently gained access to better images of most of the rest of this codex, I recognized that the bifolia of this codex were cut from the roll not according to how wide the bifolia should be but rather according to how tall they should be, as illustrated below:

Model of papyrus roll being cut into bifolia for a square-format codex by intended height of the bifolium

The give-away is the presence of horizontal rather than vertical kolleseis (sheet joins) that run across the full length of the bifolium. All the bifolia for this codex seem to have been cut in this way. Bifolia cut in this way will all have an equal length (the height of the roll). There will be no stubs. As a result, my suggestion that perhaps quire 5 contained a stub rather than a full sheet is simply not possible. To have stubs in a square-format codex of about the height of the Composite Codex (about 15.5 cm), you would need to be cutting the bifolia to the desired width rather than height. You probably need to have either a roll that was not very tall or a more standard roll that was cut both vertically and horizontally as illustrated below:

Model of papyrus roll being cut into bifolia for a square-format codex by intended width of the bifolium

In such a case, we would see vertical kolleseis, but I have not spotted any of these in the Composite Codex.3 This means that we are again faced with the problem of explaining the quire construction. It seems that a folium intervened either between the title page of Melito and the first page of the text or between pages 2 and 3. Neither of these locations really makes sense in terms of the contents of the codex.

So what is the solution? I’m not sure. There seems to be some imprinting of the text of page ⲁ of Melito on the title page, so those two folia were probably pressed against each other at some stage, but a blank folium between pages 2 and 3 of Melito seems very odd. As I said, it’s a bit of a mystery. Suggestions welcome.

  1. For Hall’s earlier work, see Stuart George Hall, Melito of Sardis: On Pascha and Fragments (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979), reprinted with corrections 2013. For the changes to the 1979 edition, see Stuart George Hall, “Melito Peri Pascha: Corrections and Revisions,” Journal of Theological Studies 64 (2013) 105-10. For the edition of the extra Bodmer leaf, see Brent Nongbri and Stuart G. Hall, “Melito’s Peri pascha 1-5 as Recovered from a ‘Lost’ Leaf of Papyrus Bodmer XIII,” Journal of Theological Studies 68 (2017), 576-592. The edition of the text of the papyrus in that article was much improved by the suggestions of Ben Henry. ↩︎
  2. Eric G. Turner, The Typology of the Early Codex (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1977), 80. ↩︎
  3. I thought I had identified vertical kolleseis on several folia, like this one, but I am now convinced these are simply creases (the bottom of the folium in the link above seems to make this clear). ↩︎
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Stichometry 5: Problems with Metzger’s Stichometric Data

Posted on June 26, 2024 by Brent Nongbri

This will be my fifth and final post in this series on stichometry. For the earlier posts, see Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.

One of the things that initially confused me about the stichometric data for the New Testament was the set of evidence for the Pauline letters presented in Bruce Metzger’s classic, The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origin, Development, and Significance (corrected ed., Clarendon, 1989). At page 298, Metzger wrote:

“Scribes of Biblical manuscripts would sometimes indicate the length of each Epistle in terms of number of lines, called stichoi. The statistics are as follows:

To Churches
Romans 979 stichoi
1 Corinthians 908 stichoi
2 Corinthians 607 stichoi
Galatians 311 stichoi
Ephesians 331 stichoi
Philippians 221 stichoi
Colossians 215 stichoi
1 Thessalonians 207 stichoi
2 Thessalonians 111 stichoi

Hebrews 243 stichoi

To Individuals
1 Timothy 238 stichoi
2 Timothy 182 stichoi
Titus 100 stichoi
Philemon 44 stichoi”

Metzger cites no source for this data. And if I have understood the evidence of the surviving ancient manuscripts and lists properly, every single one of the numbers reported by Metzger here is incorrect. This strikes me as strange and wholly out of character for Metzger. After making some calculations, I think I see what may have gone wrong. What Metzger reports in this list are not the numbers that “scribes of biblical manuscripts” indicate. Instead, what he seems to be listing are modern estimates based (directly or indirectly) on the work of Charles Graux (1852-1882). In a classic article published in 1878, Graux calculated the number of letters in the editions of several ancient texts, including the Septuagint and the New Testament.1 Metzger (or a predecessor) seems to have divided Graux’s total counts by 36 (the usual number used when a stichos is reckoned as letters rather than syllables) and then rounded either up or down to arrive at these totals. Here are Metzger’s numbers with the calculations from Graux:

Romans 979 stichoi: 35266 letters, divided by 36 ≈ 979.61
1 Corinthians 908 stichoi: 32685 letters, divided by 36 ≈  907.92
2 Corinthians 607 stichoi: 21851 letters, divided by 36 ≈ 606.97
Galatians 311 stichoi: 11202 letters, divided by 36 ≈ 311.17
Ephesians 331 stichoi: 11932 letters, divided by 36 ≈ 331.44
Philippians 221 stichoi: 7975 letters, divided by 36 ≈ 221.52
Colossians 215 stichoi: 7745 letters, divided by 36 ≈ 215.13
1 Thessalonians 207 stichoi: 7468 letters, divided by 36 ≈ 207.44
2 Thessalonians 111 stichoi: 4011 letters, divided by 36 ≈ 111.42
Hebrews 243 stichoi: 26738 letters, divided by 36 ≈ 742.72
1 Timothy 238 stichoi: 8575 letters, divided by 36 ≈ 238.19
2 Timothy 182 stichoi: 6554 letters, divided by 36 ≈ 182.05
Titus 100 stichoi: 3595 letters, divided by 36 ≈ 99.86
Philemon 44 stichoi: 1567 letters, divided by 36 ≈ 43.53

Metzger’s otherwise strange numbers line up remarkably well with Grauxs calculations, but there are a couple problems with this theory of Metzger’s source. First, Metzger doesn’t cite Graux. Second, to get Metzger’s numbers, it is twice necessary to round down when one would expect to round up (Romans and Philippians). Third, Metzger’s number for Hebrews (243) is impossibly low compared to the calculation from Graux (743).

The third problem is easily handled. Metzger has misprinted 243 for 743. The other two problems are trickier. I’m not sure why the numbers for Romans and Philippians are one digit off, and I don’t know why Metzger doesn’t cite Graux (or some intermediate source) for these numbers.

In any event, the “correct” traditional stichometric totals for the Pauline epistles are those reported by J. Rendel Harris (and reproduced below), although, as we saw in the case of Galatians, the stichometric tallies reported in actual surviving manuscripts can vary substantially.2

Romans 920
1 Corinthians 870
2 Corinthians 590
Galatians 293
Ephesians 312
Philippians 208
Colossians 208
1 Thessalonians 193
2 Thessalonians 106
Hebrews 703
1 Timothy 230
2 Timothy 172
Titus 97
Philemon 38

It is fitting to close the series on stichometry with portraits of Graux and Harris, who, as relatively young scholars, opened up the field of stichometry of early Christian manuscripts.3

Charles Graux in 1875 and J. Rendel Harris ca. 1885; image sources: Mélanges Graux: Recueil de travaux d’érudition classique dédié à la mémoire de Charles Graux (Paris: Thorin, 1884), frontispiece, and A History of Haverford College for the First Sixty Years of its Existence (Porter & Coates, 1892), plate facing p. 524.
  1. Charles Graux, “Nouvelles recherches sur la stichométrie,” Revue de Philologie de Littérature et d’Histoire Anciennes 2 (1878) 97-143. ↩︎
  2. J. Rendel Harris, Stichometry (London: C.J. Clay and Sons, 1893), 39. ↩︎
  3. Also foundational (though less focused on early Christian material) is Kurt Ohly, Stichometrische Untersuchungen (Leipzig: Harrassowitz, 1928). ↩︎
Posted in bruce-metzger, J. Rendel Harris, Stichometry | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Stichometry 4: Counts for Galatians in Latin Manuscripts

Posted on June 18, 2024 by Brent Nongbri

In my earlier post on the stichometry of Greek manuscripts of Galatians, I was surprised to see that the “traditional” Greek stichometric count for Galatians (293 16-syllable stichoi) matched almost perfectly with the count for the text of the Nestle-Aland (when the latter was adjusted to account for nomina sacra). Earlier Greek manuscripts of Galatians, however, had different counts: Codex Sinaiticus with 312 and P46 with 375 (and the important minuscule 1739 had a count of 392). So, what about the Latin tradition?

I had expected that the Latin counts would be a bit lower just on the basis of Latin lacking definite articles. And a rough count of the Stuttgart Vulgate (3rd edition) for Galatians yielded 4804 syllables (that is, 300 versus of 16 syllables and a last line of 4 syllables), which is indeed a little lower than my rough count of Nestle-Aland 28 (303 stichoi + 11 extra syllables). But again, the subtraction of syllables to account for nomina sacra led to some surprising results (surprising to me, at least). Earlier Latin biblical manuscripts tend to contract a smaller set of words as nomina sacra than do their Greek counterparts, so I only subtracted syllables for this smaller set (forms of Deus, Christus, Iesous, and Dominus). That took away 108 syllables. So, we subtract 108 syllables from the the Vulgate Galatians 4804 syllables: 4804-108=4696. Divide 4696 by 16, and we get: 293.5. This is really quite close to the traditional Byzantine (Greek) count of 293. That seems like a very odd coincidence.

But what do the Latin manuscripts themselves say? Some Latin manuscripts do indeed give this number. Here is St. Gallen, Stiftisbibliothek Cod. Sang. 70, an 8th century codex of Paul’s letters:

St. Gallen, Stiftisbibliothek Cod. Sang. 70 (p. 137), end title of Galatians, argumentum of Ephesians and stichometric count of Galatians; image source: e-codices

Here the stichometric count is added in lighter ink at the bottom of the page after the Argumentum of Ephesians has already commenced: ver(sus) CCXCIII, 293. Other Latin manuscripts give a considerably lower number, such as the 9th century Bible, BnF Latin 1:

Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Latin 1 (fol. 400v), end title of Galatians and stichometric count; image source: Gallica

After the end title: hab(et) vers(us) CCXIII, 213 versus.1 How could the number be so low? I suppose it’s possible that the 293 syllables could be reduced by a count that took into consideration additional nomina sacra contractions and other forms of Latin abbreviation beyond nomina sacra, such as the relatively common dix(it), fec(it), –er(unt), etc. But I doubt this could reduce the count by 80 versus. I think an easier explanation would be an error, CCXIII for CCXCIII. But 213 is not the only other count given in the Latin tradition. The Latin stichometric list in Codex Claromontanus gives a (much) higher number:

Stichometric list in Codex Claromontanus (fol. 468r), showing stichometry for the Pauline letters; image source: Gallica

Here, we get ad galatas ver(sus) CCCL, 350. So, not as high as the counts in P46 (375) and 1739 (392), but considerably higher than 293. I’m not sure how this count of 350 came to be. But there are a lot of strange things about this list.2 For now, I just note that the count for 2 Corinthians seems very low and that it is an odd coincidence that the count for Ephesians is exactly 375 (that is, the count for Galatians in P46). It makes me wonder if these counts simply became jumbled at some point(s) in their history.

Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Clm 6243, a miscellaneous codex of the 8th or 9th century, contains another biblical stichometric list in Latin, and the count for Galatians here is CCCXII, 312 (the same as what is found in Codex Sinaiticus):

Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Clm 6243 (fol. 190r), showing stichometry for the Pauline letters; image source: MDZ

Looking at the Roman numeral, I’m tempted to wonder if this also might be an error for 293: CCCXII for CCXCIII, but this would require both the transposition of the X and C and the loss of an I. Perhaps a better explanation would be to consider this a count based on stichoi of 15 rather than 16 syllables (see below).

At this point, it might be good to summarize the different stichometric counts we have found for Galatians in Greek and Latin witnesses:

  • 293. This count is best attested, and as we have seen, matches up remarkably well with the actual number of 16-syllable stichoi in both Nestle-Aland 28 and the Vulgate.
  • 213. This total may be a mistake due to the similar representation of 213 and 293 both in Roman numerals (CCXIII for CCXCIII) and in Greek numerals (ⲥⲓⲅ for ⲥҁⲅ).
  • 312. This total may reflect a reckoning of stichoi based on 15 rather than 16 syllables (if we divide the Nestle-Aland total syllables by 312: 4684/312≈15.01). It may also be the result of misplacing the traditional count of Ephesians with Galatians.
  • 350. I have no good explanation for this count.
  • 375. I have no good explanation for this count.
  • 392. This total may reflect a reckoning of stichoi based on 12 rather than 16 syllables, an iambic trimeter line rather than a hexameter line (if we divide the Nestle-Aland total syllables by 392: 4684/392≈11.95).3
  • 393. This total is probably a mistake due to the similar representation of 393 and 293 both in Roman numerals (CCCXCIII for CCXCIII) and in Greek numerals (ⲧҁⲅ for ⲥҁⲅ).

So, of the seven reported counts, five have a reasonably good (or at least plausible) explanation. It would be nice to be able to explain the other two counts, especially the 375 stichoi in P46.

  1. Others among the “Tours Bibles” also give this count (see Köln, Erzbischöfliche Diözesan- und Dombibliothek, Cod. 1, fol. 365r and Bibliothèque nationale de France, Latin 3, fol. 375r). ↩︎
  2. See the interesting recent article by Kelsie G. Rodenbiker, “The Claromontanus Stichometry and its Canonical Implications,”  JSNT 44 (2021) 240-253 https://doi.org/10.1177/0142064X211055647 ↩︎
  3. The tally of 392 that is found for Galatians in 1739 also appears in GA 436 (11th-12th century, Vat. Gr. 367, fol. 124v); GA 209 (14th century, Venezia Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, gr. Z. 010, coll. 0394, fol. 146r; GA 205 (15th century, Venezia Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, gr. Z. 5, coll. 0420, fol. 429r). ↩︎
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Stichometry 3: Counts for Galatians in Greek Manuscripts

Posted on June 14, 2024 by Brent Nongbri

In an earlier post, I set out the evidence used to establish that for ancient Greek and Latin prose writing, a stichos (or versus) was generally equal to 16 syllables. In a subsequent post, I drew attention to the discussion of the payment to writers based on number of stichoi in Diocletian’s Edict on Maximum Prices. So, stichometric counting served to measure works in a standardized way and as a basis for payment of writers. This seems simple enough. The odd thing is that, at least when it comes to Christian texts in the early period, these “notional” or “standard” line numbers don’t actually appear to be very standardized.

A spot check of some later Greek manuscripts of Galatians does give a regular stichometric count. Here is the end of Galatians in Codex Angelicus (GA 020, assigned to the 9th century):

Rome, Biblioteca Angelica, Manoscritti greci, Ang. gr. 39, folio 134 recto, end title of Galatians with stichometric count; image source: Biblioteca Angelica

The last datum given is the stichometric count: ⲥⲧⲓⲭⲱⲛ ⲥҁⲅ, 293 stichoi (using a cursively formed koppa to represent the number 90). This number, 293, is generally accepted as the “standard” stichometric number for the Greek text of Galatians. The problem is that earlier manuscripts give different numbers. For instance, Codex Sinaiticus:

Codex Sinaiticus, end title of Galatians with stichometric notation; image source: codexsinaiticus.org

Written in lighter ink and smaller letters below the closing title ⲡⲣⲟⲥ ⲅⲁⲗⲁⲧⲁⲥ is the notation ⲥⲧⲓⲭ ⲧⲓⲃ, 312 stichoi.1 This count differs again from the tally provided in the Beatty-Michigan Pauline Epistles codex (P46):

Beatty-Michigan Pauline epistles codex (P46), end of Galatians with stichometric count; image source: Chester Beatty Online Collections

Here the notation (in a hand decidedly different from that of the main text) is ⲥⲧⲓⲭ´ ⲧⲟⲉ, 375 stichoi. This is considerably more that the number of lines given in Codex Sinaiticus and the later manuscripts, so much so that I almost suspect that the number could be an error for ⲧⲓⲉ, 315.

There are a few later Greek manuscripts with high stichometric counts for Galatians, but these are mostly explicable as errors for 293 (for instance, some manuscripts have ⲧҁⲅ for ⲥҁⲅ, so 393).2 It is less easy to explain the stichometric total for Galatians in 1739 (assigned to the 10th century):

Monastery of the Lavra B.64 (GA 1739), fol. 75 recto, end title of Galatians showing stichometric count; image source: Library of Congress

Here we get ⲥⲧⲓⲭ´ ⲧҁⲃ, 392. It’s more difficult to see that as the result of an error of copying ⲥҁⲅ. We would have to posit mistakes in copying two out of three digits. (I should add that it’s not clear to me that the stichometric notes were produced by the copyist of the main text; I’ve never seen this manuscript in person.)

I didn’t have the time to count the syllables in each of these manuscripts to see what the “real” number of stichoi is in each of them. But I did do a rough count of the number of 16-syllable stichoi in the text of Galatians printed in Nestle-Aland 28, and I came up with 304 stichoi (or, to be more precise, 303 stichoi + 11 extra syllables, or 4859 total syllables).This is a little closer to the 312 stichoi reported in Codex Sinaiticus than it is to the Byzantine count of 293. But here’s where it gets interesting: My count of Nestle-Aland included unabbreviated nomina sacra. If we contracted the standard nomina sacra (forms of θεός, κύριος, Ἰησοῦς, Χριστός, υἱός, πνεῦμα, πατήρ, and σταυρός/σταυρόω) and count again, we would need to subtract about 175 from the total number of syllables (I say “about” because the forms of contraction can of course vary a little). So 4859-175=4684. Divide that by 16: 4684/16=292.75. That’s shockingly close to the Byzantine standard of 293.3

It makes me curious to know what the “real” stichometric count for the Byzantine text of Galatians is. And I am also at a loss to explain the count of 375 stichoi reported in P46, if it is not indeed an error as suggested above. And overall, I’m not sure what to make of this variety of stichometric counts for Galatians. In another post, I will take a look at the Latin evidence.

  1. 312 is also the stichometric number Codex Sinaiticus gives for Ephesians. But 312 also happens to be the traditional stichometric number for Ephesians. ↩︎
  2. GA 1891 (Jerusalem, Orthodox Patriarchate, Hagios Sabas 107, folio 173r) 10th-11th century, has ⲧҁⲅ, 393. ↩︎
  3. Rendel Harris did this exercise for the whole New Testament using the text of Westcott and Hort, and for Galatians, he also got a stichos count of 304. When he reduced that to account for nomina sacra contractions, he got a slightly higher number than me (296), but he only considered four words as nomina sacra (θεός, κύριος, Ἰησοῦς, and Χριστός). See J. Rendel Harris, Stichometry (London, 1893), 38-41. ↩︎
Posted in Codex Sinaiticus, Stichometry | Tagged , , , , , | 8 Comments

The Sale of the Crosby-Schøyen Codex and its Cost Over Time

Posted on June 12, 2024 by Brent Nongbri

The auction of several items from the collection of Martin Schøyen took place yesterday in London. The highlight of the sale was the so-called Crosby-Schøyen codex, which sold for just over the high end of the estimated price range at £ 3,065,000. Other items, such as the cover of Nag Hammadi Codex I, seem not have sold.

Image source: Christie’s

I do not know who purchased the Crosby-Schøyen codex. According to the BBC, “A spokesperson [for Christie’s] said they could not reveal who bought the book due to client confidentiality.”

The book seems to have been a sound financial investment. When it appeared on the market in 1955, it was sold to the University of Mississippi (together with a substantial part of another codex and loose papyri) for $5,000. When the University of Mississippi sold this codex and the portion of the other codex to the dealer H.P. Kraus in 1981, the reported cost was $250,000. When just our codex alone was sold to Martin Schøyen in 1988, the reported sale price was £ 200,000 (about $350,000 at the time).1 And now the book has sold for £ 3,065,000 (about $3,900,000). So, even accounting for cumulative inflation over time, the cost of the book has soared.

In any event, I do hope the new custodian of the codex will keep it available to scholars for study.

  1. These earlier purchase prices are reported in J.M. Robinson, “The Manuscript’s History and Codicology,” in J.E. Goehring (ed.), The Crosby-Schøyen Codex MS 193 in the Schøyen Collection (Peeters, 1990), xvii-xlvii. ↩︎
Posted in Antiquities Market, Crosby-Schøyen Codex, Schøyen Collection | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments