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  • From: "Fabrizio Palestini" <fabrizio.palestini AT tin.it>
  • To: <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Darrell Doughty on Dutch Radical
  • Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2001 19:39:11 +0200


Dear John,

Below I turn to you Darrell Doughty's response about your position on
"literary" and "documentary" papyri and on paleography.
I have received it now, so I could not include it in my previous message.

Darrell Doughty wrote:

"I agree that the distinction between "literary" and "documentary" papyri is
largely an artificial, apologetic device. A few years ago at the Westar Paul
Seminar I made the same point -- namely, that writings such as Romans and 1
Clement are much too long to be regarded as actual letters -- and was
countered by an apologist who said I was obviously unfamiliar with the
Pseudo-Philonic Epistles. As we say in English these days, Go figure!

I think the real question is whether any one -- in the ancient world or our
own -- wrote letters of this kind.

Lupia wrote:

>>palaeography is an area that requires many years of research. One
cannot pick it up in a few months without making serious errors in judgment.
It is an area of specialization that requires IMHO at least a decade of
erudite study to make serious palaeographic assertions. So, caution should
be given when reading critisms of experts by non-specialists. This is apoint
I already made in my previous post.<<

This kind of elitism - in which only so-called "experts" are taken
seriously - essentially cuts off any serious debate. This is particularly
the
case because such appeals to "expertise" bypass the fact that the field of
palaeography is highly subjective. With regard to P46, there is simply not
enough comparative material to reach a firm conclusion. It is generally
recognized that the writing is similar to materials dated around the close
of the second century. But materials with different writing are found only
at the beginning of the fourth century. As far as anyone can determine, P46
could have been written anytime in the third century. Then we have the
problem that a given scribe could have written in the same way for fifty or
sixty years. Or scribes might have imitated earlier hand-writing.

I haven't read Kim's article, and don't have much interest in pursuing a
debate in which so many participants are clearly apologists. But I don't see
how anyone could decisively demonstrate that P46 comes from the first
century.

Darrell"

Best regards

Fabrizio Palestini






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