The Diatessaron has survived in a number of languages: Greek, Syriac, Latin, Armenian, Ethiopic, Arabic, Persian, Middle Dutch, Old Saxon, Middle German, Middle Italian, and Middle English. Until the discovery at Dura, debate was exchanged over its original language. Kraeling provided the first studies on the fragment in an article entitled, "A Greek Fragment of Tatian's Diatessaron from Dura." He discusses its discovery and describes it in detail; he conjectures about its place of origin and date of composition. Reconstructing the text is his next task, followed by comments about its significance. These issues lead to the main body of his work covering the original language and text of the Diatessaron. He concludes that the Dura fragment is a genuine copy of Tatian's work and grants us the first look at his text before it was harmonized with conventional versions of the gospels. Since the Diatessaron was the primary gospel for many centers of the church, this fragment provides an important link to understanding the development of the gospel record.
| |||||||||||||||
Book Description
Discovered at Dura-Europos, on the Euphrates, in March of 1933 was a parchment that provided strong evidence that the Diatessaron was composed originally in Greek. The fragment was buried in a rubbish heap built by Rome along the inner face of the western city wall in preparation for a siege. The small but heavy parchment measures about 9.5 x 10.5 cm.; it is frayed at the lower end and ripped or cut along the other three sides. Portions of fifteen lines of text are visible, fourteen of which can be restored. Its likely place of writing is Mesopotamia. The script suggests a date from the first half of the third century; the embankment in which it was found was constructed between 254 and 256. This parchment is the earliest known text of the Diatessaron; also found at the site are the earliest known church and synagogue. If Tatian composed the Diatessaron about 172, this fragment is less than 80 years removed from the autograph. It is preserved today in Yale University's parchment and papyrus collection.
Editorial Reviews
About the Author
Carl Hermann Kraeling was born at Brooklyn, New York, on March 10, 1897. He studied at the University of Heidelberg, Columbia University, Union Theological Seminary, University of Pennsylvania, and the Lutheran Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, where he taught between 1920 and 1929. At Yale he was professor of New Testament (1929-41) and Buckingham Professor of New Testament Criticism and Interpretation (1941-50), while acting as chairman of the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Literatures at Yale (1947-50) and as Henri Focillon Scholar at Harvard University (1946-47). In 1950 he became professor of Hellenistic Oriental archaeology and director of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. Kraeling is known especially for his work in the Hellenistic and Roman eras of Near Eastern culture and history, a field on which he wrote extensively. He was affiliated with a number of excavations conducted by Yale and other associations. One of his most lasting contributions involved the archaeological finds at Dura-Europos.
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
Customer Reviews
|
There are no customer reviews yet.
|
|||
|
Video reviews
|
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items. |
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
