Comments on: A Page From A Medieval Greek Bible Is Now Mine – Huzzah!

By: Joey Gibson

Joey Gibson — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 11:12:05 +0000

I had not thought of it that way, but you have a valid point. After I bought it, it occurred to me that the seller had the book and was just selling it a page at a time, and I wished I had the whole thing. I hadn’t thought of it as a negative, though.

By: Ben

Ben — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 07:42:49 +0000

I guess it is too late now, but isn’t the purchase of book fragments creating perverse incentives — just like buying ivory products does harm to elephants?

An ancient book is often worth more (in terms of short term financial gain to the seller) when it is broken into pages and sold page-by-page, but in doing so, the long term cultural value of an intact artifact is being destroyed.

By: Joey Gibson

Joey Gibson — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 13:55:30 +0000

Right now, it’s inside a mylar bag, similar to what comic book collectors keep their comics in. I was planning on framing it and hanging it on my wall.

By: Andrew Fuqua

Andrew Fuqua — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 05:07:28 +0000

How is it preserved? How will you store it?

By: Joey Gibson

Joey Gibson — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 19:54:13 +0000

Interesting. I thought that the Septuagint was in Ancient Greek as opposed to Koine. As to the Arabic 7, I hadn’t noticed that until you pointed it out, but it clearly is a 7. That superscript ‘d’ you mention to me looks like a rough breathing mark and an acute accent sort of mashed together, with the acute essentially straight up. That’s the kind of thing I was talking about when I said “interesting” typography. :-) Thanks for your comments. I really appreciate your observations.

By: Daniel Buck

Daniel Buck — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 19:47:54 +0000

I noticed several things about this text.
1) It’s not in Ancient Greek, but Koine.
2) It’s marked in chapters and verses. Chapter 7 is clearly marked with an Arabic numeral, but the verses correspond to anywhere from one to several of ours.
3) In 7:5 there appears to be a textual variation from the present LXX text where OSTIS is written as OS, but with what looks like a d superscribed over the O.

By: Blake Helms

Blake Helms — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 01:10:55 +0000

That is so awesome! I’m very jealous. The oldest item I own is 1780′s so you have me beat by a mile! Plus yours is a piece of Christian history!