God's library : the archaeology of the earliest Christian manuscripts / Brent Nongbri. [print]

Prologue: Reintroducing the earliest Christian manuscripts The early Christian book The dating game Finding early Christian books in Egypt A discovery "which threw all others in the shade": the Beatty Biblical papyri An elusive collection: the Bodmer papyri Excavating Christian litter and literature at Oxyrhynchus Fabricating a second-century codex of the four gospels Epilogue: The future of ancient Christian books Appendix: Christian books from Oxyrhynchus.

"In this bold and groundbreaking book, Brent Nongbri provides an up-to-date introduction to the major collections of early Christian manuscripts and demonstrates that much of what we thought we knew about these books and fragments is mistaken. While biblical scholars have expended much effort in their study of the texts contained within our earliest Christian manuscripts, there has been a surprising lack of interest in thinking about these books as material objects with individual, unique histories. We have too often ignored the ways that the antiquities market obscures our knowledge of the origins of these manuscripts. Through painstaking archival research and detailed studies of our most important collections of early Christian manuscripts, Nongbri vividly shows how the earliest Christian books are more than just carriers of texts or samples of handwriting. They are three-dimensional archaeological artifacts with fascinating stories to tell, if we're willing to listen"-- Link to source of summary

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Brent Nongbri is an Honorary Research Fellow at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, and the author of Before Religion: A History of a Modern Concept and numerous articles on the paleography and codicology of early Christian manuscripts.