Christian History Home > Issue 43 > Discovering the Oldest New Testaments
Discovering the Oldest New Testaments
The bizarre stories behind the great Greek manuscripts.
H. G. G. Herklots was a professor of exegetical theology at St. John's College in Canada and a rector in Flaxton, Manchester, in England. He wrote How Our Bible Came to Us (Oxford/A&C Black), from which this article is adapted. | posted 7/01/1994 12:00AM
There have been many crises in the history of Christianity. Few have been greater than that initiated by the emperor Diocletian on February 23, 303. This last great persecution by the Roman Empire was slow in coming, and it was some time before its full seriousness was felt. Then it had become violent.
The main enemy the state had to face was neither the Christian buildings nor even the Christians themselves but the books they possessed. If these were not destroyed, they might be like buried seeds and put forth new life later on. Thus, many copies of the Scriptures were destroyed.
When the persecution died down and discipline was restored to the church, the most important moral problem was what should be done about the traditores, those who had “handed over” sacred books for destruction. (Biblical studies are poorer in the material at their disposal because of the persecution of Diocletian.) But not all Christians were traditores. Copies of the Scriptures were buried and hidden and then ... To view this item, you must be a member of ChristianHistory.net.
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