This tiny fragment of Greek text titled P.Oxy 5575 from the latest volume of The Oxyrhynchus Papyri made waves late last year in early Christian scholarship. Dated by papyrological experts to the second century, it potentially revolutionizes our understanding of the textual transmission of the New Testament and the oral tradition of the sayings of Jesus. Transcribed and translated it reads:
‘. . . he died (?). you: [do not] worry [about your life,] what you will eat, [or] about your
body, what [you will wear.] For I tell you: [unless] you fast [from the world,] you will never find [the
Kingdom,] and unless you . . . the world, you [will never . . .] the Father . . . the birds, how . . . and [your
(?)] heavenly Father [feeds them (?).] You [also] therefore . . . [Consider the lilies,] how they grow . . .
Solomon . . . in [his] glory . . . [if ] the Father [clothes] grass which dries up and is thrown into the oven,
[he will clothe (?)] you . . . You [also (?)] therefore . . . for [your] Father [knows] . . . you need. [Instead
(?)] seek [his kingdom (?), and all these things (?)] will be given [to you (?)] as well.’
As can be clearly seen from the above, its a fragment with text from Jesus's Sermon on the Mount and is our earliest ever textual witness to it, earlier than any New Testament canonical gospel manuscript (most of which date from the third century). But here's the shocker: it's not a copy of Matthew or Luke's version of the sermon but rather a syncretistic text with material found in our Matthew, Luke AND the non-canonical Gospel of Thomas but variable enough from each one of these texts for scholars to be confident that it is not directly quoting any of them.
Combined and meshed together in an order matching none of these texts, at so early a date in the textual and oral transmission of the Jesus tradition. We have to wonder: is Thomas earlier than we originally thought such that there could be so early a witness to sayings found within it, or did Thomas use this text and what is it, a gospel harmony, a new sayings gospel or something else?
Scholar Dan Wallace on the new fragment:
Early papyrus with text from Matthew, Luke, AND the Gospel of Thomas now made public!
This fragment was published in the latest volume of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri (volume LXXXVII), 31 Aug 2023. It's the first entry in this volume, P.Oxy. 5575. It's been a long time coming. Over a decade ago, 8 of my students worked with me for several months, deciphering the fragment, determining its source(s), and offering a preliminary dating. Rory Crowley discovered that part of this papyrus had material that looked to be from the Gospel of Thomas.
We took high-resolution digital photographs of POxy 5575. Jeff Fish (Baylor University) and Mike Holmes (Bethel University, Museum of the Bible) took over the editing after I submitted preliminary work in 2015.
All of us independently dated the MS to late second or perhaps early third century, making it the oldest manuscript with text from Matt 6 (Sermon on the Mount). Significantly, the Institute for New Testament Textual Research (INTF) in Münster, Germany, assigns only a handful of New Testament papyri to the second or second/third centuries. Although this is not technically a NT papyrus (it's syncretistic, including portions from Matt 6, Luke 12, Thomas 27, and perhaps one or two others), that it includes portions from these books at such an early date is astounding.
It also is now the oldest extant fragment from the Gospel of Thomas. The very first papyrus that was published in the Oxyrhynchus volumes, P.Oxy. 1, was from an "Unknown Gospel," later known to be from the Gospel of Thomas. In a later volume, two other Greek fragments from Thomas were published (P.Oxy. 654, 655). Then, in the 1940s, the 4th century Nag Hammadi codices were discovered, which included the Gospel of Thomas en toto, a work in Coptic. One other fragment from Thomas has been published, which comes to six total. As far as I know, P.Oxy 5575 is the only one that is syncretistic. How these various works were put together--oral tradition, pre-written source for Gospel of Thomas, memory, or?, and what this might tell us about an early Christian community are intriguing questions which will no doubt spawn a myriad of speculations.
Let the fun begin!
Here is a synopsis showing where it overlaps with Matthew, Luke and Thomas respectively, by another scholar called Mark Goodacre:
The Thomas sayings that it parallels are the following (underlined):
(63) Jesus said, "There was a rich man who had considerable wealth. He said, 'I shall invest my wealth so as to sow, reap, plant, and fill my barns with crops, lest I run short of something.' These things are what he was thinking in his heart, and that very night he died. Whoever has ears should listen!"
(27) Jesus says: “If you do not fast from the world, you will not find the Kingdom of God. And if you do not sabbatize the Sabbath, you will not see the Father.”
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