Egerton Gospel

The Papyrus Egerton 2 (= P.London.Christ.1 ) is an ancient papyrus fragments consisting of three in Codex shape of the parts from an unknown gospel or a collection of stories contains Jesus. The papyrus was found in Egypt in 1935 and first used by HI Bell and T.C. Skeat published. The papyrus fragment " Cologne 225 " adds the first fragment of the Egerton Papyrus.

Content

The first two fragments contain fragments of four texts:

• A dispute with the lawyers and the rulers of the Jewish people over an alleged breach of the law of Jesus. It ends with the unsuccessful attempt to stone him.
• The healing of a leper.
• Attempt to provoke Jesus with the tax issue ( cf. Mk 12:13-17 EU).
• A miracle of Jesus at the Jordan River, which is nowhere else survived. Here the fragment is badly damaged, so that the text can hardly be reconstructed.

The third and very small fragment does not allow text reconstruction.

Origin and dating

Language and content similar to the first episode particularly strong analog texts of John's Gospel, but also contains synoptic elements. The second fragment has parallels with synoptic tradition. Reveal some twists that the author did not come from Palestine. One suspects him in what was then Syria, Asia Minor and Egypt.

The text was initially dated to 150 AD Nowadays he is often dated to 200 AD. Klaus Berger and Kurt Erlemann represented an early date (ca. 75 AD). The papyrus is one definitely one of the oldest early Christian manuscripts.

Literary assessment

• Joachim Jeremias ( New Testament Apocrypha, pp. 82-85 ) believed that the author had known all four Gospels and free quotes from memory. It could be an excerpt from a contract concluded with a Passion narrative oeuvre.
• John Dominic Crossan (Four other Gospels, pp. 65-87 ), however, considers at least the pericope about the tax issue is older than the parallel Mk 12:13-17. The fragment was therefore developed independently of the synoptic tradition and show that it was given by the same time as other oral and written tradition of Jesus.
• CH Dodd (New Gospel ) holds the first pericope for literature from the Gospel of John -dependent, while the other lines had been orally handed down independently of the NT.
• John P. Meier looks straight in the wording of the tax issue guidance for a later formation. The wording of the question in Mark, if it was allowed, " the Caesar head tax to pay " ( Mark 13:14 EU) corresponds, in the Egerton - parallel " to pay to the king what those in power plays ." This generalization addressed to Jesus question whose concrete seat seems eliminated here in life, pointing at a later origin. CH Dodd's statement on the remaining pieces Meier holds in principle conceivable, but ultimately unprovable. Whether it is an independent Jesus tradition or to free retellings of the synoptic material, will not let itself be clarified with sufficient certainty. Also freely constructed additions as they are known from other apocryphal writings were, imagine.