Editing Rylands Library Papyrus P52 (section)

=== Brent Nongbri ===

The early date for 𝔓{{sup|52}} favoured by many [[New Testament]] scholars has been challenged by Andreas Schmidt, who favours a date around 170 CE, plus or minus twenty-five years; on the basis of a comparison with [[Chester Beatty Papyri|Chester Beatty Papyri X and III]], and with the redated Egerton Gospel.<ref>A. Schmidt, "Zwei Anmerkungen zu P. Ryl. III 457," ''Archiv für Papyrusforschung'' '''35''' (1989:11–12).</ref>  Brent Nongbri<ref name="Nongbri, p. 46"/> has criticized both Comfort's early dating of 𝔓{{sup|52}} and Schmidt's late dating, dismissing as unsound all attempts to establish a date for such undated papyri within narrow ranges on purely paleographic grounds, along with any inference from the paleographic dating of 𝔓{{sup|52}} to a precise ''terminus ad quem'' for the composition of the Fourth Gospel. In particular Nongbri noted that both Comfort and Schmidt propose their respective revisions of Roberts's dating solely on the basis of paleographic comparisons with papyri that had themselves been paleographically dated. As a corrective to both tendencies, Nongbri collected and published images of all explicitly dated comparator manuscripts to 𝔓{{sup|52}}; demonstrating that, although Roberts's assessment of similarities with a succession of dated late first to mid second century papyri could be confirmed,<ref name="Nongbri, p. 40">Nongbri, p. 40.</ref> two later dated papyri, both petitions,  also showed strong similarities (P. Mich. inv. 5336,<ref name="Nongbri, p. 41">Nongbri, p. 41.</ref> dated around 152 CE; and P.Amh. 2.78,<ref name="Nongbri, p. 42">Nongbri, p. 42.</ref> an example first suggested by [[Eric Gardner Turner|Eric Turner]],<ref name="Eric Turner 1977, p. 100">Eric Turner, ''The Typology of the Early Codex'', Philadelphia; University of Pennsylvania Press, 1977, p. 100</ref> that dates to 184 CE). Nongbri states "The affinities in letter forms between (P. Mich. inv. 5336) and 𝔓{{sup|52}} are as close as any of Roberts's documentary parallels",<ref name="Nongbri, p. 41">Nongbri, p. 41.</ref> and that P.Amh. 2.78 "is as good a parallel to 𝔓{{sup|52}} as any of these adduced by Roberts".<ref name="Nongbri, p. 31">Nongbri, p. 31.</ref>  Nongbri also produces dated documents of the later second and early third centuries,<ref name="Nongbri, p. 43-45">Nongbri, p. 43-45.</ref> each of which display similarities to 𝔓{{sup|52}} in some of their letter forms. Nongbri suggests that this implied that older styles of handwriting might persist much longer than some scholars had assumed,<ref name="Nongbri, p. 32">Nongbri, p. 32.</ref> and that a prudent margin of error must allow a still wider range of possible dates for the papyrus:

{{blockquote|What emerges from this survey is nothing surprising to papyrologists: paleography is not the most effective method for dating texts, particularly those written in a literary hand. Roberts himself noted this point in his edition of 𝔓{{sup|52}}. The real problem is the way scholars of the New Testament have used and abused papyrological evidence.  I have not radically revised Roberts's work. I have not provided any third-century documentary papyri that are absolute "dead ringers" for the handwriting of 𝔓{{sup|52}}, and even had I done so, that would not force us to date P52 at some exact point in the third century. Paleographic evidence does not work that way. What I have done is to show that any serious consideration of the window of possible dates for P52 must include dates in the later second and early third centuries. Thus, P52 cannot be used as evidence to silence other debates about the existence (or non-existence) of the Gospel of John in the first half of the second century. Only a papyrus containing an explicit date or one found in a clear archaeological stratigraphic context could do the work scholars want P52 to do. As it stands now, the papyrological evidence should take a second place to other forms of evidence in addressing debates about the dating of the Fourth Gospel.}}

Nongbri resists offering his own opinion on the date of 𝔓{{sup|52}}, but apparently approves the relatively cautious terminology both of Roberts's dating, "On the whole, we may accept with some confidence the first half of the second century as the period in which (𝔓{{sup|52}}) was most probably written";<ref name="Roberts(1935), p. 16">Roberts(1935), p. 16.</ref><ref name="Nongbri, p. 30">Nongbri, p. 30.</ref> and also of Roberts's speculations on possible implications for the date of John's gospel, "But all we can safely say is that this fragment tends to support those critics who favour an early date (late first to early second century) for the composition of the Gospel rather than those who would still regard it as a work of the middle decades of the second century".<ref name="Nongbri, p. 30">Nongbri, p. 30.</ref><ref name="Roberts(1935), p. 26">Roberts(1935), p. 26.</ref> Nevertheless, and notwithstanding Nongbri's statement to the contrary, some commentators have interpreted his accumulation of later dated comparators as undermining Roberts's proposed dating;<ref>Roger S. Bagnall, ''Early Christian Books in Egypt'', Princeton; Princeton University Press, 2009, p. 12, ".. undermine confidence in an early date, even if they do not fully establish one in the late second or early third century"</ref>  but such interpretations fail to take into account the essential similarity of Roberts's and Nongbri's main findings.  Roberts identified the closest parallels to 𝔓{{sup|52}} as being P. Berol 6845 and P. Egerton 2,<ref name="Roberts(1935), p. 14">Roberts(1935), p. 14.</ref> then dated paleographically to 100 CE and 150 CE respectively; and proposed that the most probable date for 𝔓{{sup|52}} would lie in between these two.  Nongbri rejects paleographically dated comparators on principle, and consequently proposes the closest dated parallels to 𝔓{{sup|52}} as being P. Fayum 110 of 94 CE, P.Mich. inv. 5336 of ca. 152 CE and P.Amh. 2.78 of 184 CE; each, he suggests, as close to 𝔓{{sup|52}} as the others,<ref name="Nongbri, p. 31">Nongbri, p. 31.</ref><ref name="Nongbri, p. 36">Nongbri, p. 36.</ref><ref name="Nongbri, p. 41">Nongbri, p. 41.</ref> and all three closer than any other dated comparator. The consequence is to extend the range of dated primary reference comparators both earlier and later than in Roberts work; and Nongbri stresses that, simply from paleographic evidence, the actual date of 𝔓{{sup|52}} could conceivably be later (or earlier) still.<ref name="Nongbri, p. 46">Nongbri, p. 46.</ref> Although Nongbri is concerned to demonstrate that the possibility of a late second (or early third) century date for 𝔓{{sup|52}} cannot be discounted, his chief criticism is directed at those subsequent commentators and scholars who have tended to take the midpoint of Roberts's proposed range of dates, treat it as the latest limit for a possible date for this papyrus, and then infer from this that the Gospel of John cannot have been written later than around 100 CE.<ref name="Nongbri, p. 31">Nongbri, p. 31.</ref>
.