Editing Rylands Library Papyrus P52 (section)

=== Pasquale Orsini and Willy Clarysse ===

[[Pasquale Orsini]] and Willy Clarysse also adopt the "graphic stream" approach; and have applied it to reviewing the dating for all New Testament manuscripts proposed as having been written before the mid-fourth century, including 𝔓{{sup|52}}. Since none of these papyri and parchments carry explicit dates, all must be dated paleographically; so Orsini and Clarysse propose that manuscript comparisons for such paleographic dating should be made only between hands that are similar to one another.<ref name="Orsini, p. 448">Orsini, p. 448.</ref> However, and in contrast to Don Barker, their classification of hands conforms rigorously to the typology of Hellenistic Greek handwriting styles developed by [[Guglielmo Cavallo]];<ref>Guglielmo Cavallo, ''Il calamo e il papiro.  La scittura greca dall'eta ellenistica ai primi secoli di Bisanzio'', Florence; Papyrologica Florentina 36, 2005, p. 75</ref> applying his categorisation of hands into 'styles', 'stylistic classes' or 'graphic types' as appropriate.  Orsini and Clarysse propose dates for New Testament papyri that are often rather later than the consensus dates in the Nestle-Aland lists,<ref name="Orsini, p. 466">Orsini, p. 466.</ref> and considerably later than the counterpart dates proposed by Comfort and Barrett.<ref name="Orsini, p. 445">Orsini, p. 445.</ref> They criticise Don Barker for assigning dates they regard as extending too early;<ref name="Orsini, p. 460">Orsini, p. 460.</ref> the dating ranges they themselves propose for New Testament papyri are never wider than 100 years, more frequently 50 years, and for several early papyri ([[Papyrus 46|𝔓{{sup|46}}]], [[Papyrus 95|𝔓{{sup|95}}]], [[Papyrus 64|𝔓{{sup|64+67}}]]) they propose purely paleographic dates within a 25-year range.<ref name="Orsini, p. 470">Orsini, p. 470.</ref> In their paper Orsini and Clarysse state that the early parallels proposed for 𝔓{{sup|52}} by Comfort and Barrett are "inappropriate";<ref name="Orsini, p. 462">Orsini, p. 462.</ref> and, although they cite with approval Nongbri's assessment of the respective papyrological dating approaches adopted by Grenfell, Hunt and Roberts, they do not cite his specific study of 𝔓{{sup|52}}, and none of his proposed later parallels feature in their list of stylistically similar comparators; nor do any of other papyri advanced by Barker as representatives of his proposed graphic stream.  Of the papyri discussed by Roberts and his correspondents, and in contradiction to Barker, Orsini and Clarysse maintain Kenyon's proposed dated parallel, P. Flor 1. 1 (153 CE) as corresponding to the same "Round Chancery Script" graphic type as 𝔓{{sup|52}}.<ref name="Orsini, p. 458">Orsini, p. 458.</ref> Two further comparators they propose are PSI V 446, the official proclamation of an edict of the prefect Petronius dated 132–137 CE; and P. Fayum 87, a municipal receipt dated 156 CE;<ref name="Orsini, p. 462">Orsini, p. 462.</ref> while they also note, as other commentators have done, the close similarity of 𝔓{{sup|52}} to [[Papyrus 104|𝔓{{sup|104}}]] for which they propose a date of 100–200 CE.  Consequently, Orsini and Clarysse propose 125 to 175 CE as the range of dates for 𝔓{{sup|52}};<ref name="Orsini, p. 470">Orsini, p. 470.</ref> which corresponds with the "mid second century" date proposed Stanley Porter, is much narrower than the ranges envisaged by Barker or Nongbri, and implies within their dating schema that 𝔓{{sup|52}} and [[Papyrus 104|𝔓{{sup|104}}]] stand as the earliest New Testament papyri so far identified (although, strangely, at the conclusion of their article, Orsini and Clarysse state that 𝔓{{sup|52}}, [[Papyrus 90|𝔓{{sup|90}}]], and [[Papyrus 104|𝔓{{sup|104}}]] "probably all [date to] the second half of the second century)."<ref name="Orsini, p. 466">Orsini, p. 466.</ref>