Posted on 04/25/2007 2:25:07 AM PDT by restornu
March 5, 2007 — The world's oldest known copy of the Gospel of Saint Luke, containing the earliest known Lord's Prayer, and one of the oldest copies of the Gospel of Saint John have been acquired by the Vatican, according to reports from Rome.
A nonsectarian New York nonprofit, Pave the Way, helped facilitate the acquisition.
Now stored in the Vatican's Library, the documents are for the first time available for scholarly review. In the future, excerpts may be put on display for the general public.
Collectively known as the Bodmer Papyrus XIV-XV, the documents date to 175-225 A.D. and consist of 51 leaves from a manuscript that originally consisted of 72 leaves folded in the middle to form a single quire, according to Father Richard Donahoe, rector of the Cathedral of St. Paul in Birmingham, Alabama, who also helped with the acquisition.
"The papyrus authenticates that which has been passed down over the millennia," Fr. Donahoe told Discovery News.
He believes it is even possible the texts may have been copied from the original gospels.
Many of the earliest Biblical texts are in the possession of private collectors. In this case, the materials were found, along with other papyri, in 1952 at Pabau, Egypt, near the ancient Dishna headquarters of the Pachomian order of monks.
The papyrus was mysteriously smuggled to Switzerland, where collector Martin Bodmer purchased it.
To fund the construction of a library, the Martin Bodmer Foundation contacted the auction house Christie's about a sale. Gary Krupp, founder of Pave the Way, Donahoe and others learned of the sale and, with the Vatican's help, sought a buyer who could purchase the papyrus for the Vatican.
Frank J. Hanna III , CEO of an investment management company and co-chairman of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence, agreed to be the buyer. Hanna privately purchased the documents for an undisclosed, "significant" price.
With drama befitting a Dan Brown novel, the papyrus was transported from Switzerland to the Vatican.
"An armed motorcade surrounded by people with machine guns picked up the texts," said Krupp, the only Jewish man to have ever been twice knighted by two popes.
Donahoe added, "The materials were carried in the passenger section of a public plane that had some seats removed. Officers then escorted it to the Vatican."
Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, a librarian and archivist at the Vatican, received the papyrus, from which he took a few pages to Pope Benedict XVI's private apartment.
According to the Catholic News Service, Cardinal Tauran invited the pope to "come in person to the library to meditate, if I may say so, in front of that which can be considered a true relic, given that the church has always venerated the divine Scriptures."
Donahoe believes the papyrus has now come full circle.
He said, "It has been a pilgrimage, a holy journey, to bring the texts back to the church, back to their proper home."
Quote: “Now stored in the Vatican’s Library, the documents are for the first time available for scholarly review. In the future, excerpts may be put on display for the general public.”
Good. Back where it belongs!
In other words, it has gone home.
Language?
Greek?
Assyrian?
Coptic?
Anybody know?
Good question.
GREEK;PAUL AND LUKE WHERE THE ONLY WRITERS THAT USED GREEK!
I thought the whole New Testament was originally Greek (although Latin would make sense for Romans).
http://www.catholicconvert.com/Portals/0/003Luke.pdf
see third paragraph,the translations where in latin,the original language wher hebrew[aramaic] and paul and luke used the greek!
The popes are royalty as well???
The Pope is an elected Monarch, and is the head of all other European Royalty, in the absence of the Roman Emperor.
St. Matthew wrote in Aramaic. It is thought that the letter to the Hebrews was probably written in Aramaic or Hebrew for obvious reasons. Other texts may or may not have originally been set down in Greek, either directly, or possibly by a translator/scribe changing the dictation from Aramaic to Greek. St. Paul did not actually write down his Epistles, as witnessed in the letters themselves, where he only writes his salutation at the end. "The salutation of Paul with my own hand. Be mindful of my bands. Grace be with you. Amen." (Colossians 4.18) "The salutation of Paul with my own hand; which is the sign in every epistle. So I write." (2 Thessalonians 3.17)
Or so some scholars claim. There are no manuscripts or manuscript fragments of Matthew or any other New Testament book written in Aramaic or Hebrew. The earliest surviving witnesses are in Greek.
This is not to say that it is impossible that they were not originally writting in Aramaic, but there is no physical evidence of these texts.
In the first line of the image, notice the high point just after the letter nu (N) and before the omicron (O). When compared to another high point in line 9 which has plenty of space around it, one can conclude that the point was not originally written but was inserted by a corrector. The text then must be considered as two witnesses.
Notice also that instead of the letters "OUDEN," this manuscript has the two words "OUDE EN." Either one of the epsilons has been dropped (if P75 is the original reading) or it has been reduplicated (if P66 represents the original reading). The meaning is actually altered little, only making the expression more emphatic.
I always assumed they depended on textual evidence of translation -- you know, the way it's sometimes obvious in an English translation from, say, French or German that it is, in fact, a translation from the other language. The more literal a translation tries to be, the more such things will show up.
That is the method that was used to make the claim, and it has some merit. Nevertheless, owing to the lack of physical evidence we cannot claim with certainty that the original monographs were in any language other than Greek.
But also, if a person who grew up speaking one language writes in another language, his mother tongue flavors the way he writes, even without there being a translation. And there are regional preferences as well. If you go and read something from someone in India writing in English, someone from Nigeria writing in English (both countries where these languages are among the commonly used official languages), someone from England and someone from the US, you can often really notice differences in style and word preference.
From what I understand, you can really notice the linguistic slants of some of the writers of some of the New Testament authors; is it the writer’s own linguistic background showing, was it translated,did it reflect the secretary who might have done the actual transcribing from the dictation of someone?
Just some points to add to the pondering.
It is my understanding that there are some early fragments in Syriac and Copt, but that does not mean those are the original languages (St. Mark helped start the Coptic Church).
The popes are not royalty as such, but Peter was the prince of the apostles, the pope is the prime minister of the kingdom of God on earth, historically the pope is accorded princely status by European monarchs, and as the head of a sovereign state (that is not a republic) he can grant knighthood.
... a circle of wealthy and influential conservative Catholics who have been working to ally their church--traditionally a Democratic stronghold--with the Republican Party. The movement's players also include Tom Monaghan, the Domino's Pizza czar; Patrick O'Meara, CEO of O'Meara Capital Partners; Frank Hanna III, CEO of HBR Capital Ltd.; Paul Henkels, CEO of Henkels & McCoy, Inc.; Barbara Henkels of the Catholic Leadership Conference; and Robert George, professor of jurisprudence at Princeton University.
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