Talk:Oxyrhynchus Papyri

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An entry from Oxyrhynchus Papyri appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column on 22 May 2007.
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[edit] Title

The more accurately descriptive title here is List of Oxyrhyncus New Testament papyri, which describes what's been written. Such a title leaves open the poissibility of a List of Oxyrhynchus classical Greek papyri, which might be of interest to someone. Anyone object to the move? --Wetman 14:17, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, my concern is we have List of New Testament papyri. If we move this article (instead of expanding it), then we will have to articles with redundant content, except the Oxyrhynchus article will be a shorter list. If anything, this article, if it isn't expanding to include other articles, should be merged with the general NT papyri list article. We could perhaps highlight the P. Oxy.'s with a light red color on the table. Another suggestion brought up at CfD regarding the P. Oxy. categories was to move this article to Oxyrhynchus papyri and expand the content. And that could work if we removed the big NT papyri table (which, as stated, is basically redundent with List of New Testament papyri). Ok, so in summary. I suggest we move this article to Oxyrhynchus papyri and expand it so it doesn't just cover the NT, then merge the NT table with List of New Testament papyri.-Andrew c 16:04, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merge proposal

This article currently is not about the Oxyrhynchus Papyri, but instead the New Testament Oxyrhynchus Papyri. The vast majority of the P. Oxy.'s are not NT manuscripts. The list, I believe, is completely redundant with the List of New Testament papyri. The P. Oxy.'s are identified in a specific color, and you can sort the table based on manuscript number, so it's easy to identify or group the P. Oxy.s from the other P.'s. As for Oxyrhynchus, that article is not about the town as much as it is about the manuscripts and the archaeological find. After these articles are merged, an article specifically about the town can be created (using content from these articles).-Andrew c 01:16, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

There's not much to say about the town as it is under the present town of el-Bahnasa. It seems that this article needs expanding to include the other papyri (good luck with that, there are a few volumes still to come!). The structure of Oxyrhynchus seems fine to me. It covers what we do know about the town, the excavation and the finds without simply becoming a list of papyri topped off with a little introduction (which is what this article should be). Yomanganitalk 01:35, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
The intention in creating this article was to provide an equivalent to Chester Beatty Papyri and Bodmer Papyri, both of which also include non-Biblical mss I believe. The Biblical mss at the locations are notable in their own right w/in the field of Biblical textual criticism. I have personally been working on Egyptian love poetry which is known from some C-B papyri. I would imagine there will come a point (maybe I will do it myself), where we provide enough information about non-Biblical mss in these classes to warrant renaming/reorganizing the articles. Another reason for this particular list is that it makes navigation easier for editors or readers working on biblical Oxy paps, given that the numbers of the whole are so huge. In conclusion, I think the current name will not last, however, I think the subset "bib Oxy pap" will endure as an appropriate boundary for a specific article. Alastair Haines 02:04, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
I politely disagree with Yomangani that Oxyrhynchus seems fine. The lead is ok, as are the "Etymology" and "History" sections in relation to an article about a historical town. "Excavation" is a little problematic because the actual town wasn't excavated (The town site of Oxyrhynchus itself has never been excavated, because the modern Egyptian town is built on top of it). This entire section could be transposed directly to this article, and it would work fine, because nearly every sentence is referencing the Oxyrhynchus Papyri. "Finds" also could be transposed because again it is only describing Oxyrhynchus Papyri. And for obvious reasons "The project today" is not about the historical town Oxyrhynchus, but instead about the project to publish the papyris found near that historical town in volumes titles Oxyrhynchus Papyri. I think it is not the best solution to fill an article with a similarly related topic just because "there's not much to say about the town as it". If there isn't much to say about the town, then that is just how the encyclopedia article about the town will be. I believe that we have a lot of great content at that article, that would fit better in this article, hence my merge proposal.
As for Alastair's comment, I hope that my recent changes to List of New Testament papyri have address navigation concerns. I believe a list of 118 items isn't unmanageable, and with the color coding, and sortable reference numbers, editors can easily single out the P. Oxy.'s (thus making the list here redundant). What could work here is a list of all the current articles on P. Oxy.'s regardless of content. For technical reasons (size), I don't believe we should have a table with thousands and thousands of entries. I agree that this subject matter is confusing, because NT textual criticism refers to these manuscript collections in reference to only the ones containing portions of the NT, but more generally, these terms are used to catalog all manuscripts within these collections (for example, the sources I used when writing Chester Beatty Papyri only mentioned the first 12 in the collection, but maybe that is because they were found at the same site). However, I think expanding articles like Chester Beatty Papyri and Bodmer Papyri to include non-biblical content would be reasonable (as opposed to creating new spinout articles to separate the collections by content). I just think that we should have good information about the find and the content of the P. Oxy. collection here instead of just a list and I think a lot of that content is already written at Oxyrhynchus (maybe one day we could create something like List of Oxyrhynchus Papyri 1-249, List of Oxyrhynchus Papyri 250-499, List of Oxyrhynchus Papyri 500-999, etc). Anyway, if no one is feeling the merger in the way that I proposed, I'm content to let things stand as is for now.-Andrew c 03:25, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
I see your point, but renaming Oxyrhynchus to something like Oxyrhynchus excavation would seem to me a better solution than merging it to Oxyrhynchus Papyri. The argument about the Excavation section not being about the excavation of Oxyrhynchus is a bit misleading; by extension the Papyri article should be renamed Papyri from the former garbage dump of Oxyrhynchus, basically we refer to the excavation as Oxyrhynchus because there is no need to differentiate it further. Some content would and should be duplicated between these two articles, but the title Oxyrhynchus Papyri seems just as restrictive as Oxyrhynchus in terms of what should and shouldn't be included, so I don't see the benefit of a merger. There is also a lack of cited reliable sources for the majority of the content in the Oxyrynchus article, so merging it has additional complications. Yomanganitalk 16:09, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
As someone new to this topic, with a "fresh" set of eyes, I think it would be very reasonable to keep the Oxyrhynchus article with only the Etymology and History sections, and then merge the rest (Excavation, Finds, The project today) into the Oxyrhynchus Papyri article. The O. Papyri article should cover "all" the types of finds at the site, not just the biblical texts (although those texts are what I'm primarily interested in). I think biblical researchers will be interested to know that the biblical texts were found mixed in with governmental, financial, and literary documents. One article for all the archaeological project history and finds, and another article for the city and its history, make perfect sense to me. Timotheos 04:05, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for extra detail of the proposal, Andrew. As usual, I can see a lot of sense in your proposal and would rather "get behind" a good idea and a proposer I know to be committed to the project long-term. I'd still rather like the current NT papyri list to stay if there was a merger -- but as a collapsed table. I believe there may be Septuagint fragments among the Oxy paps too, I'd be keen to research that and produce another collapsed table for them. Collapsed tables seem a good way of holding information in an appropriate location, without "crowding out" the descriptive summaries and background. Before closing, I do want to note that the suggestions of all contributers to this discussion seem full of merits. I'm looking forward to seeing something good happening, whatever the precise details. :) Alastair Haines 10:01, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
PS Wieland Willker, as usual, is right on the money. Looking good is his rough count (probably because there are no systematic sources yet). So I want to track down at least those twenty-odd LXX paps. Alastair Haines 01:21, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
A good way to proceed here, as always, is to leave a concise summary of the removed material, in this case at Oxyrhyncus, with an italicised hatnote Main article.... Then by all means cut n paste the detailed information on the excavated rubbish tip here. That preserves a useful "nested" structure, which I wish we could achieve more widely. --Wetman 06:54, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
I'm just thinking, this article now has a complete list of biblical papyri from Oxy. It has some detailed consideration of the basic issues in understanding the classifications involved, and it is a nice manageable length. Given these things (if others think the same) it may work well for it to be a self-contained nested unit within a larger tree. Something like this:
  • Oxyrhynchus (parent article, detail on location and dates, summaries of genres of papyri)
    • |-Oxyrhynchus excavation (optional article, maybe best covered in parent)
    • |-Oxyrhynchus biblical papyri already written!
    • |-Oxyrhynchus theological papyri (main source Oxford Uni Oxy Project)
    • |-Oxyrhynchus classical literature (main source Oxford Uni Oxy Project)
    • |-Oxyrhynchus documentary manuscripts (main source Duke Uni Perseus Project)
    • |-Oxyrhynchus Arabic manuscripts (often paper, there's a source for this too I think)
One advantage with this scheme is that it follows Oxy Pap 's own classification system. They face many of the same issues we do, and have the advantage of funding to do it, also we can follow objectively (or critically if needed) something that is publically available. Alastair Haines 01:49, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
Ok, NOW we have a list of complete biblical papyri (see my last edit ;). I still personally believe that the best article to give an overview of the collection and genre would be titled Oxyrhynchus Papyri. I could see a case for keeping the excavation information in the article about the ancient town Oxyrhynchus. I think we both agree that the current content of this article doesn't exactly match the title. I wouldn't mind moving this article, but I'm not sure where (Oxyrhynchus biblical papyri, Oxyrhynchus Papyri (biblical) or something else?) I was considering getting started on listing the Homer manuscripts. Your categorization scheme seems prudent.-Andrew c 21:21, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
Homer manuscripts would be great. In about a year I want to include some treatment of Homer in my dissertation. The same kind of thing would be true of other readers. Biblical manuscripts generally have a high profile and notability, because of the prominence of the Bible, but classical works by known authors, have a dedicated, though smaller, readership. The documentary papyri are fascinating for knowledge of ancient life, but so numerous and diverse.
I think it's OK to have dealt with classification of Apocrypha and included NT apocryphal books as you have, though as you note, the NT apocryphal books never actually made it into any offical Bible. Technically they are not Biblical, but they are so obviously connected to the Bible -- dealing with the same topics, and self-consciously influenced by its style -- they are "Biblical" books in a broader sense.
On the other hand, 1 Clement is a fascinating book, it reads rather like a Pauline letter and is addressed to the Corinthians. It is generally dated to 95 or 96. It doesn't claim to be scripture, but it is the first of the patristic writings. It is earlier, and has had more respect given to it in the churches, than the later gnostic gospels. It feels odd to me to have the Gospel of Thomas in a biblical list, and not to have 1 Clement. Neither are Bible, but the latter was read and quoted in the churches, where the first was cited as heretical. I'm thinking I might run through the Oxy list again looking for patristic writings, and researching all other documents labeled as "theological". Essentially that would exhaust the whole category that includes the biblical papyri.
Also, I think I recall seeing reference to libelli among the oxy paps. These are highly significant in church history. The patristic writers often deal with the issues that arose due to Christians being making public sacrifices to the emperor cult, and receiving the libellus in exchange. It protected them against persecution from Roman authorities, however, it was taken as a serious sin, a revocation of the faith by most church writers. Some writers, however, considered the persecutions to be so horrendous, that Christians who gave in could easily be understood, and should be forgiven and re-admitted to the church.
The point of this is, Christian students alone would be interested in more than the bibilical papyri. Several classes of them could be relevent to "theology" defined broadly. In fact, pagan sacrifice is a type of theology. Anyway, if I were a first year church history student and looked up Libellus at Wiki, I'd be absolutely impressed if the article actually pointed to half-a-dozen libelli papyri from Oxy, or at least an article that had a list of these papyri.
I'll do some more thinking about the Oxy paps and the way they are classified at the Oxford site. The more closely we follow their divisions, the more objective we are and the easier it will be to use classification terms and categories that fit in with what readers/researchers in the area are used to.
Although this Oxy project we're working on is huge, I'm pretty sure Wiki's done other big projects. I'd like us to have a comprehensive but flexible classification scheme, and at least two of the sub categories written up -- the "Biblical/theological" category (if that's what we decide) and say the "Known classical writers" sub-cat. Then I'd feel we'd really put this topic "on the map".
Anyway, I'll work on patristics et al and libelli and try to reproduce the Oxford database on my home computer. I'll send you the file when I'm finished (though it may take a month or two). Alastair Haines 10:43, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
I agree that the article Oxyrhynchus should be only about the town, and that the information about the papyri, excavations and archeological findings should be combined ino the same article. --Lanternix 18:49, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
Yes, so much work has now been done on this article, we now have more information about the papyri than the town. The only comment I'd make is that this article should be a parent to potentially larger articles covering the particular genres of papyri found. So far we only have the theological papyri (and some related documentary papyri). I think I shall make an effort to gather classical authors together — there are two clear sub-types, works previously known, and works unique to Oxyrhynchus. I may also make the effort to produce a documentary papyri article, because these are specifically grouped together at Perseus. They are far too numerous for comprehensive listing (at least at this stage). Alastair Haines 02:43, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
Almost a year has gone by since the discussion above, yet this article still contains only references to biblical papyri. When I first read this article, I kept scrolling down, expecting to find mentions of the (many) other Oxyrhynchus discoveries. I was surprised when I found nothing else (which is why I checked this discussion page). It doesn't make sense that only biblical references are listed in an article with this title, as several people in this discussion have pointed out. Oxyrhynchus included many other kinds of manuscripts, including some monumental finds. This article makes it look like it was just biblical stuff. Something needs to be changed, whether it's the title of the article, or the content.Chillowack (talk) 06:05, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
You need to add a concise report on the classical papyri found at Oxyrhynchus. --Wetman (talk) 15:04, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
I agree that this has always been a problem, an article about a large set of manuscripts focusing only on a small portion of those manuscripts. I have re-arranged the article a little to make room for additions of non-theological texts. I'm not sure how we should start gathering or organizing the other manuscripts (by genre and/or author seems like an ok idea). However, I went to the list and noticed there were ~175 MSS listed under "Epic Poetry". Homer has about ~32 MSS. Hesiod has about 75 MSS (which would be a lot to list them all. Plutarch has 2 MSS, while Plato has ~35. ~10 for Sappho, 12 for Sophocles. 2 Virgil. ~40 for Menander, 25 for Isocrates. ~60 for Euripides. ~33 for Callimachus. 2 Aristotle. Plus tons of other authors. If we were all inclusive, like we currently are for the biblical MSS, this page would be huge. Maybe we should decide who gets included, or how many MSS to list? I think Homer is a big enough name that including all ~32 MSS wouldn't be a bad idea. Anyone have any idea how to proceed? I'm going to work on creating a table for Homer MSS in a sandbox.-Andrew c [talk] 15:37, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Libellus

Woohoo! Got four of them from here. IV 658, XII 1464, XLI 2990, LVIII 3929. I'm not sure if this is where we get the word libel from. I think there's a good chance it is. I can feel a new article coming on! :D Alastair Haines 11:20, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Shhh! Don't tell anyone. I did some Original research on the libelli. One of them is dated, but not recorded in the sources I use. ;) Alastair Haines 15:21, 16 July 2007 (UTC)