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Copying Early Christian Texts: A study of Scribal practice

Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neun Testament No. 362


By: Alan Mugridge
October 2016
Mohr Siebeck
Distributed by Coronet Books
ISBN: 9783161546884
558 Pages
$225.00 Hardcover


Description:

In general, it is assumed that the first Christians reproduced their texts themselves, without special knowledge, and that some copyists introduced changes to substantiate their theological convictions.Alan Mugridge, however, examines in this volume all the Greek Papyrio that still contains the Christian literature up to the end of the fourth century, as well as numerous comparative groups of Papyri, concluding that Christian texts, by and large, and like most literary texts in the Roman Empire World, copied by trained writers. Professional Christian writers were probably prevalent in the time after Constantine, but this study suggests that the copyists of Christian texts in Greek were, in the early centuries, usually trained scholars, whether they were Christians or not, who reproduced the texts within their normal field of activity And tried to write them off as accurately as possible, although they made mistakes.