Customer Reviews

Eyewitness to Jesus

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

A few of scraps of papyrus seemingly stand the world of New Testament scholarship on its head. The scraps are believed to be from the Gospel of Matthew. When they were discovered, they were dated to the time period 80-100 A.D. Thiede re-examines the scraps and finds them to date from around 60 A.D. Such a dating would mean that Matthew's Gospel most likely was written by an eyewitness. It would also mean that the four document hypothesis, that well-respected mainstay of Gospel scholarship, is dead wrong. Thiede tries manfully to explain how he came to the dating. In so doing, he must explain the arcane, esoteric, and almost impenetrable world of papyrology. It makes for slow, painful reading, and students who are not familiar with the science of the study of papyrus scraps will have to take much of what Thiede says on faith. Those of a conservative bent will readily embrace Thiede's findings; the more liberal Bible students will not. Whichever side you take, or even if you fall somewhere in the middle, you should find it worth your effort to read this book.

Not only does the book present convincing analysis, it prompts us to look for the re-evaluation of manuscript fragments in other collections using the techniques described so well by Thiede. The book really should receive more serious consideration from scholars. It's been sadly neglected. Thiede is obviously something of a radical, but Biblical scholarship needs men who are willing to explore completely new avenues, particularly when they are as skilled as Thiede is. The question of when and how the gospels were written is really wide open. We have a monumental heap of investigation and speculation proving very little or nothing. We need new approaches. Those who don't seek can't find. Anne Rice, New Orleans, La.

Thiede makes a potentially dry subject interesting. His discussion of ancient writing scripts is reserved but forceful. In short a must read for those interested in the New Testament.

My favorite chapter was the fourth. Its summary of Huleatt, the Victorian missionary and scholar, gives us a small window of life in the last half of the 19th century.

This book is a good counterpoint for those who claim that the Gospels were written long after Christ died.

I am amazed that this book has not received more attention. The cynicism and skepticism of the Booklist reviewer seen above is evident.

This book provides more evidence that the gospels were written as eyewitness accounts. This is no surprise to evangelical scholars, but it is more vindication nonetheless.

The most amazing fact to me continues to be the lack of attention to this amazing find by the theological, cultural and media establishments. It should rightly turn Biblical scholarship on its head, but this age's disdain for truth in the face of comfortable old paradigns (e.g. holding to the theory of evolution despite mounting evidence that it is impossible in a thousand different ways) is exasperating!!

This volume presents "non-theological," papyrological evidence for the early dating (pre-70 AD) of the gospels. Without theological bias, the authors have presented the technical and scholarly evidence that revolutionizes New Testament studies. It is my opinion, sadly, that many New Testament scholars will ignore this volume because it overturns the methodological procedures of the historical-critical school of scholarly study.

This is one of the most interesting books I've ever read. Reads like a detective story. Those interested in the Bible, ancient mysteries, and archaeology will love this book. I did a review for my Website which is THE CRITICAL REVIEW under Concentric at concentric.net /~Mando
Ties in indirectly to the Dead Sea Scrolls. Great reading!!

This is one of the most interesting books I've ever read. Reads like a detective story. Those interested in the Bible, ancient mysteries, and archaeology will ove this book. I did a review for my Website which is THE CRITICAL REVIEW under Concentric at concentric.net /~Mando
Ties in indirectly to the Dead Sea Scrolls. Great reading!!

Around 1901, an Englishman, Charles Huleatt, who was a scholar as well as an Evangelical missionary to Egypt, was living in the Egyptian town of Luxor when he came into possession of three tiny papyrus fragments, on which were written, in Greek, words from the 26th chapter of Matthew's gospel.

In 1994, scholar Carsten Thiede came upon the fragments, which had been largely ignored, stored in a display case of an Oxford University library. In the 1950s, the fragments had been dated to about AD 180-200, but Thiede thought it might be worthwhile to re-analyze them using modern techniques not available in the 1950s.

For example, Thiede, together with biologist Georg Masuch, developed and patented a new type of "epiflourescent confocal laser scanning" microscope, which can differentiate between twenty separate micrometer-(millionth of a meter; micron)-thick layers of a papyrus manuscript. This instrument showed that a certain puzzling dot "which has caused so much debate and irritation" (p. 60), and which was on one of the three fragments... was only 4.0 micrometers thick (thickness = height of ink on, plus depth of ink within, the papyrus sheet).

Yet the recognizable Greek letters were 12.1 micrometers thick. The troublesome dot was thus revealed to be nothing more than an accidental ink blot, common enough on ancient papyri.

And now we come to the matter of dating--when was the papyrus manuscript (of which the three scraps remain) actually written? In dating the three fragments, "The weakness of previous estimates was clear: certain key assumptions had persisted out of respect for tradition rather than because they were logically defensible" (p. 114).

So I wondered why carbon-analysis (a standard method for dating ancient manuscripts) had not been done on the three fragments, to settle the question of how old they are, once and for all? However, upon reading further, I learned that a portion of the manuscript is necessarily used up--destroyed--during the process of carbon-dating it. Hence, only blank margin space is ever used for such analysis.

But the three pieces of papyrus have no blank margin space; writing covers them to all their edges. To radiocarbon-date them would result in the destruction of one of the three postage-stamp-size fragments (including the text written on it), which is not an acceptable option (p. 71).

Fortunately, it turns out that there are other methods, besides carbon-dating, to determine the age of an ancient manuscript.

When Carsten Thiede analyzed the handwriting style of the three fragments (p. 113), he found it to be quite similar to manuscripts discovered at Qumran. (AD 68 is the most recent that Qumran manuscripts can have been written, since that is the year the Jewish settlement of Qumran was abandoned, right before the conquering Roman army arrived [p. 116].)

Thiede discovered that the handwriting style of the three papyrus pieces was also very similar to at least one manuscript found at Herculaneum, a town in Italy. (AD 79 is the most recent the Herculaneum manuscript(s) can have been written, because the Mount Vesuvius eruption's lava flow buried Herculaneum [as well as Pompeii] in that year [p. 104].)

Therefore, based on the 'most-recent-possible' dates for manuscripts from Qumran (AD 68), and from Herculaneum (AD 79), Dr. Thiede concluded that the three papyrus fragments of Matthew's gospel "should be dated to the first century AD, toward AD 70 or even earlier" (p. 106).

Incidentally, Thiede was the first person to use the Greek-language fragments from among the Dead Sea Scrolls ( = Qumran Caves manuscripts), in order to date other ancient Greek-language writings (in this case, New Testament manuscript fragments) (p. 116). (Since the Dead Sea/Qumran scrolls were discovered 1947-1955, I wondered why nobody else had made such comparisons any earlier. But no explanation is offered, which omission I consider a deficiency of this book.)

And now I turn to a somewhat peripheral matter, yet of some value in understanding more about Matthew's gospel, and hence indirectly setting the three papyrus pieces in a broader perspective. The author of Matthew's gospel is evidently Levi / Matthew, the tax collector. (The authors provide some evidence of his authorship in the text, which I will not go into here.) He managed the tax office at a border-crossing (between Galilee on the west, and to its east the Tetrarchy of Philip), on a trade route (from the Mediterranean Sea, to the inland city of Damascus), in Capernaum (on the northern edge of the Sea of Galilee).

As a result, though his occupation made him a social outcast, it also made him wealthy enough to throw a big party at his house for Jesus, which was attended by "a large crowd" (Luke 5:29, New International Version). "A large crowd" leads me to conclude that Matthew's house was a large one...confirming that he was indeed wealthy. More importantly for us, in order to operate such a (relatively important) customs station, he must have been both highly intelligent, and well-educated, being "fluent in Aramaic and Greek" (p. 17).....So that is the background scoop on Matthew the tax-collector, who, after leaving his lucrative but disreputable position, later became Matthew the gospel-writer.

By the way, it is not only Matthew's gospel which turns out to have been written earlier than was once supposed. A snippet from the Gospel of Mark was found in Qumran Cave 7, proving that, like Matthew's gospel, Mark's gospel also was written before AD 68, the year when both the town of Qumran "and the nearby area of the caves were overrun by the Tenth Roman Legion" (p. 30).

Furthermore, a papyrus fragment from the Gospel of Luke--which was acquired at Luxor, Egypt, the same town where missionary/scholar Charles Huleatt obtained the three fragments of Matthew's gospel--has a handwriting style which is remarkably similar to that of the three Matthew fragments. As a result, it is now generally regarded as being (part of) the earliest known manuscript of Luke's gospel.

In fact, author Carsten Thiede agrees with the assessment of American scholar Philip Comfort; in Thiede's words, "the Paris papyrus [named for the city where it now resides] of St. Luke's Gospel is not much later than" the three scraps of Matthew's gospel (p. 70). Furthermore, Thiede concludes that "the Paris codex--quite probably came from the same scribal school or center, commissioned by a different patron, and only slightly later" (p. 68).

The overall SIMILARITIES between the three Matthew fragments, and the Paris papyrus of Luke....are the basis for postulating that they both came from the same scribal center, probably somewhere in Egypt.

Slight DIFFERENCES in the handwriting on the Paris papyrus (differences from the three Matthew fragments)...are the basis for assigning a "slightly later" date to the Luke papyrus, since ancient handwriting of Greek letters evolved gradually over time in characteristic ways, such as changing from a cursive joined-letters style....to a more printed separate - letters style (pp. 119-120); thus the handwriting style of a particular manuscript gives a good idea of when it was written.

There is much more in "Eyewitness to Jesus" than I have discussed. Such as abbreviation of holy names, which the three papyrus fragments of Matthew's gospel are the earliest example of among all ancient papyri. Specifically, one of the three Matthew fragments abbreviates "Lord" which in Greek is "kyrie," as "KE". Likewise another of the three fragments abbreviates the name of "Jesus," which in Greek is "ieous," as "IS". Suffice it to say here.... that the authors feel such abbreviation "asserts unequivocally the divinity of Jesus" (p. 143).

If you wish to follow their complete line of reasoning about how abbreviation of holy names signifies that the writer (Matthew) believed in Jesus' divinity, I encourage you to read the book. In fact, for anyone who is interested in finding out more about what science (papyrology)...can tell us about religion (the origins of the New Testament), I heartily recommend reading this fascinating book.

I also liked and recommend two other books on related topics: "The Stones Cry Out" (which I have also reviewed) describes how modern archeology--often surprisingly--confirms the Bible as a reliable record of actual historical events.

And "Brother of Jesus" (also reviewed by myself) is about an ossuary (stone burial box) that might have contained the bones of the same James who is mentioned in the New Testament as being the brother (or cousin?) of Jesus (!) (Just make sure you are getting the revised "UPDATED AND EXPANDED" 2004 [paperback] edition, which contains new material that is not included in the original 2003 [hardcover] edition.)

Also worthwhile reading for me has been "The Miracle Detective" by Randall Sullivan, about apparitions of Mary (the mother of Jesus), which the author personally investigated (by interviewing people involved in the visions).

And not to be overlooked is a book my sister told me about, and I surprised myself by liking it, as well as its sequel: "The Bible Code" and "Bible Code II", about a code seemingly present in the words of the Christian Old Testament / Hebrew Bible.

Finally, Joan Wester Anderson has written a bestselling collection of true stories, "Where Angels Walk" which I enjoyed immensely, about people's encounters with...real-life angels(!)


p.s. If you are interested in another letter of the New Testament (in addition to the Letter of James) which was written by a brother of Jesus, please see my "Comment" following the end of this review.

I have read, and re-read this book. The most interesting concept here! Explains just WHY Jesus would pick certain men to follow Him. A must read for the serious scriptual scholar.

"He [Thiede] seeks 'an unexpected convergence of faith and history, a filling in of what Gotthold Lessing called 'the ugly ditch' between the two. The gap between the university and the church, between science and faith', may at last be overcome." Indiana Jones and the Gospel Parchments



Eyewitness; Thiede found:
On December 24, 1994, the Times of London ran a sensational article by Matthew d'Ancona that introduced the theories of a German papyrologist, Carsten Thiede, and the story spread like wildfire, published as, "The Jesus Papyrus." According to Thiede's thesis, the three Magdalen scraps of Matthew had been misdated, since they were in fact the Gospel's earliest papyrus fragments, dating to the first century and so bear the attestation of eyewitnesses to Jesus' ministry. In 1995 Thiede published (Rekindling the Word: In Search of Gospel Truth), offering a popular elaboration on his views. Finally, in 1996, Eyewitness to Jesus appeared.

Papyrologists Complain:
Thiede's work does not lack good sense, but it is speculative and open to peer criticism. Graham Stanton, New Testament scholar of King's College, London, has expressed scholars and papyrologists complaint that Thiede never undertook to explain the reasons for dating P64 later, particularly the Uncial writing style of the fragments. He prefers to point to Greek writing styles evidenced in Qumran and elsewhere in order to show that P64 (and other manuscripts) are from the first century. Thiede's attempt to redate Magdalen's P64 may well be vindicated by subsequent research.

Most rational review:
Thiede's attempt to redate Magdalen's P64 may well be vindicated by subsequent research. And he is right when he says that New Testament scholarship is rarely willing to give the benefit of the doubt to the antiquity and authenticity of the New Testament documents. But the merits of his arguments should be weighed in the scholarly journals instead of exploited by publishers' marketing departments. Gary Burge, Wheaton College

Carsten Peter Thiede:
Late Revd Prof. Thiede (D. 2004) was a German New Testament scholar, a recognized pioneer in papyrology. Thiede advanced new thesis challenging traditional academics and orthodox scholarship based on his speculative although scientific analyses.

Encountering the Manuscripts: An Introduction to New Testament Paleography & Textual Criticism