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    From Kendall K. Down@kendallkdown@googlemail.com to uk.religion.christian on Wed Feb 25 11:23:43 2026
    From Newsgroup: uk.religion.christian

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-15303471/christianity-magdalene-papyrus-oxford-fragments.html

    A very interesting and thought provoking piece about the earliest
    Biblical document in existence. Some have dated it as early as AD 70,
    while those of a more sceptical turn of mind prefer a date in the late
    2nd century AD. I incline towards the earlier date; it's just a pity
    that the document wasn't found by archaeologists, as the context of the discovery might have enabled us to decide the ambiguous evidence of paleography and other forms of dating.

    God bless,
    Kendall K. Down
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  • From Graham Nye@nospam@thenyes.org.uk to uk.religion.christian on Thu Feb 26 21:13:06 2026
    From Newsgroup: uk.religion.christian

    On 2026-02-25 11:23, Kendall K. Down wrote:
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-15303471/christianity-magdalene-papyrus-oxford-fragments.html

    A very interesting and thought provoking piece about the earliest
    Biblical document in existence...

    A fuller, and rather less breathless, account at: https://www.magd.ox.ac.uk/blog/the-magdalen-papyrus-p64-possibly-the-earliest-known-fragments-of-the-new-testament-or-of-a-book/

    (You may need to reassemble the URL into a single line.)
    --
    Graham Nye
    news(a)thenyes.org.uk



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  • From Kendall K. Down@kendallkdown@googlemail.com to uk.religion.christian on Fri Feb 27 03:48:02 2026
    From Newsgroup: uk.religion.christian

    On 26/02/2026 21:13, Graham Nye wrote:

    A fuller, and rather less breathless, account at: https://www.magd.ox.ac.uk/blog/the-magdalen-papyrus-p64-possibly-the- earliest-known-fragments-of-the-new-testament-or-of-a-book/

    Thanks, Graham. Dating documents by handwriting style is a very inexact science, made the more uncertain when the document in question is small
    and fragmentary, which is the case with the Magdalen Papyrus. It is
    probably safest to adopt a middle-of-the-road estimate rather than
    either the very earliest or the very latest.

    Even so, the document would still be a very early testimony to the authenticity of the Biblical manuscripts.

    For example, proportional fonts were not widely used, so it is possible
    to calculate the number of letters per line. Parchment came in standard
    sizes (a bit like our A4 or Foolscap) and scribes were taught standard
    margins and so on. So when you find a gospel fragment you can calculate
    what is likely to appear on the reverse - and when you find that it
    does, you are justified in assuming that the rest of the document must
    accord with the wording of the gospels as they have come down to us.

    God bless,
    Kendall K. Down
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