Newspaper Page Text
VOL. IV. RICHMOr
A nT T\ TPvT r
/\ DUlNULiI
(A paper read by Dr. G. F. Nicholass
The river Nile, in its course of several thousand
miles, forms five cataracts. The first of
these, as you go south up the river, about 600
miles above the Delta, is at Assuan, known to
the Greeks as Syene, a variant of the same name.
This is the point at which the British government
has constructed an immense dam, for the
purpose of controlling and regulating the overHow
of the river. Just below the cataract is
the island of Elephantine, so called because it
was the point to which ivory (elephant tusks)
was brought for shipment down the river. At
this place some old documents have been
discovered which are of great interest to
us. Among other things contained in
them we find the names of persons men- '^3
tinned in the Bible, who were contemporary
with Ezra and Nehemiah, one of
whom was still living when the documents
were written. Sanballat. the nhief cnipmv
of Nehemiah and his people, is represent1
> the "sons of Sanballat, the governor |H
of Samaria," and Jehohanan, mentioned |j|
in Neh. 12, 22 and 23, is appealed to as
"Jehohanan, the high priest of Jerusalem."
As the document is distinctly dated
by the year of the Persian monarch
and the day of the Persian and Egyptian B
month, we have a contemporary confirma- |j|
tion of the historical accuracy of Ezra
and of Nehemiah.
This document is in Aramaic, a derivative
of the Hebrew language. But, interesting
as it is, what I wish to present
in the present paner is an account of some I
' ; l letters found at tnotiuf town in I
the Xile valley, nearer the mouth of the H
river. Oxyrhynchus, said to be named
from a kind of fish (sharp-nosed) venerated
there, was a flourishing city inRoman
days, and one of the chief centers H
of early Christianity in Egypt. But it. l^B
declined rapidly after the Arabian conquest
in the seventh century, and its
modern representative is a mere hamlet. Syn
Hie Egypt Exploration Fund has main- at 1
tained excavation work here for some
time, and in the rubbish heaps of the
town have been found large quantities of
Papyri, chiefly Greek, ranging in date from
300 B. C. to about 800 A. D., and on every
variety of subject. Fortunately these trash
niLo
were allowed to stand, instead of being
educed to ashes, as they would he in one
of onr cities. About fifteen years ago attention
was called to this place by the publication
of the Sayings of our Lord. In turning
?ver the leaves some one noticed the word Kanbhos,
translated "mote" in our Bible. This
ted to the immediate publication of this one leaf
f>rs. Grcnfell and Hunt, two English schol
*D. NEW ORLEANS, ATLANTA, MAY
I OF OLD
(Greek Papyri)
en before the University Club oj Southern Presbi
are, who have been especially active in discovering
and deciphering these documents.
It may foe of interest to glance briefly at the
material of which these documents are made.
The inner part of the papyrus-plant is taken
and cut into long strips, which are laid down
parallel to each other and over these another
set is placed at right angles to the former.
These two layers are then glued together, and
when the surface is dry, it is rubbed smooth
and is then ready for writing. These sheets
were about 5 x 10 inches, and when more space
1
^H::'^^A: V^|
^hh m
BKs < lSv^^^H
W^ AI
I REK THOS. S. CLYCE, D. D.
mderalor of the General Assembly, a Member of i
BoJ of Tenix nnei Pr,.iA^t nf a?<iin_C^Jl**i* L^J
- ?? VVUI.5&, (VCUI
Sherman. Dr. Clyce is the third Moderator which i
embly has chosen from the Synod of Texas, one of i
igest and strongest Sydnods in the Southern Church.
was needed, a number of sheets were fastened
together at the sides, making a role or volume.
The papyrus is a durable material when not exposed
to the dampness or to much handling;
so the dry climate of Egypt and the burial in
the sand have preserved many of these documents,
while elsewhere they have almost disappeared.
* 4 v
A few of these papyri became known in the
eighteenth century, but it was not until 1877
that any large number attracted attention. The
work of discovery and interpretation is still in
S^MAW
UjJSBliX
western Presbyter/a/})
>al Presbyter/an
r/iern Presbyter/an
29, 1912. NO. 22.
LETTERS
/terian University, Clarf^esville, Tenn.)
progress. Of those now available, only a comparatively
small number are literary, the Odes
of Bacchylides, Aristotle's Constitution of Athens,
parts of four plays of Menaudor and the
Mimes of Ilerodas being the most important.
The non-literary texts are much more numerous,
and their variety is as remarkable as their num
ber. Many are official or semi-official documents,
isuch as wills, contracts, census and property
leturns, etc. Besides these there are a number
of private letters, which often throw a clear
light on the domestic and social relations of the
people. The introductions and the closing
I greetings generally follow a stereotyped
form, and the essential part of the letter
is usually stated briefly and simply. But
the fact that they were not intended to
be read by others than those to whom
they \yere written, gives them an interest
which would not attach to more formal
and elaborate documents.
But the personal interest of these letters
is not by any means their only value.
They offer a continuous chain of documents,
extending over a period of more
than a thousand years, many of them
exactly dated by year and month and day,
by which the whole history of book-making
in antiquity can be traced. One result
of this line of study is the assurance that
Ithe books of the New Testament were
probably written originally on papyrus,
and in a role of this material, as we see
it in these newly-discovered papyri, we
have the original form of one of Paul's
Epistles, as far as outward form is concerned.
Parts of some of the books of
the New Testament have been found, and
these agree in the main with the great
uncial texts on which the edition of Westcott
and Ilort is based. Beside these
larger results there are indirect aids offered
for the interpretation of the Greek
,i Bible. In 1863 Bishop Lightfoot made
tej this statement in one of his lectures:
'he "You are not to suppose that some New
he Testament word, which has its only classical
authority in Herodotus, had fallen out
of use in the interval, only that it had not
been used in the books which remain to us; probably
it had been part of the common speech all
along. * If we could only recover letters that
ordinary people wrote toea eh other without any
thought of being literary, we should have the
greatest possible ihelp for the understanding of
the language of the New Testament generally."
This help is just what is afforded by the&e
papyri. The sacred writers deepened and enriched
the significance of many every day words,
and employed them in altogether new connections.
At the same time the best way to get at