![God's Library](/assets/artwork/1x1-42817eea7ade52607a760cbee00d1495.gif)
![God's Library](/assets/artwork/1x1-42817eea7ade52607a760cbee00d1495.gif)
![](/assets/artwork/1x1-42817eea7ade52607a760cbee00d1495.gif)
![](/assets/artwork/1x1-42817eea7ade52607a760cbee00d1495.gif)
God's Library
The Archaeology of the Earliest Christian Manuscripts
-
- 13,99 €
-
- 13,99 €
Publisher Description
A provocative book from a highly original scholar, challenging much of what we know about early Christian manuscripts
In this bold and groundbreaking book, Brent Nongbri provides an up-to-date introduction to the major collections of early Christian manuscripts and demonstrates that much of what we thought we knew about these books and fragments is mistaken. While biblical scholars have expended much effort in their study of the texts contained within our earliest Christian manuscripts, there has been a surprising lack of interest in thinking about these books as material objects with individual, unique histories. We have too often ignored the ways that the antiquities market obscures our knowledge of the origins of these manuscripts.
Through painstaking archival research and detailed studies of our most important collections of early Christian manuscripts, Nongbri vividly shows how the earliest Christian books are more than just carriers of texts or samples of handwriting. They are three-dimensional archaeological artifacts with fascinating stories to tell, if we’re willing to listen.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Nongbri (Before Religion) challenges beliefs about ancient Christian papyri in this readable account of the gaps and suppositions regarding them within modern scholarship. He challenges the fixation on the contents of ancient writings at the expense of considering them as objects. He provides clear explanations of the production of ancient codices, the imprecise methods of dating them, and the complicated history of their reemergence mostly in the late-19th through mid-20th centuries. Nongbri turns to three big papyri finds in order to home in on key problems. For the Beatty Papyri, Nongbri uses the wide range of dates assigned to the artifacts to show how paleography is much less precise than is often claimed. The murky tales of antiquities dealers complicates the study of the Bodmer Papyri, as researchers cannot be sure where they were found. Lastly, the records surrounding the excavation methods of the massive number of items found in trash heaps at Oxyrhynchus in Egypt leave many questions unanswered. Nongbri's concluding chapter on the leaps scholars make to explain fragments is particularly illuminating. For instance, Nongbri questions many scholars' assumption that fragments of gospels found today would have been contained within gospel compendiums in ancient times a common belief among paleographists. Nongbri's lucid arguments, free from any rancor, will give researchers and lay readers a greater appreciation for the complex problems involved in working with ancient writings.