How Old are the Oldest Christian Manuscripts? The Modern History of Ancient Christian Papyri and a New Approach to Establishing their Dates

来自埃及的古希腊纸莎草纸是我们对新约文本最重要的见证之一。纸莎草纸吸引了学者和普通大众，主要是因为笔迹或古文字学分析通常给出了它们的早期日期。然而，古文字学是一门不精确的科学，它只产生一系列可能的日期，而不是经常分配给圣经纸莎草纸的具体日期。该项目对新约最早的遗迹进行了新的调查，建立在确定文本年代的新方法基础上，并对它们在学术界和流行媒体中的使用进行了史学分析。其结果将是对我们所知的基督教圣经最早形式的彻底修改。

Ancient Greek papyri from Egypt are one of our most important witnesses to the text of the New Testament. The papyri fascinate both scholars and the general public, largely because of the early dates often assigned to them by the analysis of handwriting or palaeography. However, palaeography is an imprecise science that produces only ranges of possible dates, not the specific dates often assigned to biblical papyri. This project pairs a fresh investigation of the earliest remains of the New Testament, built on a new methodology for dating the texts, with an historiographical analysis of their use in the academic world and popular media. The result will be a thorough revision of what we know about the earliest form of the Christian Bible.