Weighing the Parts A Papyrological Perspective on the Parting of the Ways

A comparison of the ideological composition of the Qumran library and Christian libraries from ancient Egypt, reconstructed from pre-Constantinian papyri, reveals a profound difference in the amount of group-specific material: ca. 28% Qumran "sectarian" at Qumran vs. ca. 60% "Christia...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Novum Testamentum 2009-01, Vol.51 (2), p.168-186
Main Author: Ezra, Daniel Stökl Ben
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Bible
Christianity
Early christianity (1st-6th century)
EGYPT
History
History and sciences of religions
Humanities and Social Sciences
IDENTITY
Jewish identity
Jewish literature
JEWISH-CHRISTIAN RELATIONS
Judaism
LIBRARIES
Library and information sciences
Methods and statistics
PAPYRI
Papyrus
Primitive christianity and judeo-christianity
QUMRAN
Religions
Religious literature
Terminology
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Summary:A comparison of the ideological composition of the Qumran library and Christian libraries from ancient Egypt, reconstructed from pre-Constantinian papyri, reveals a profound difference in the amount of group-specific material: ca. 28% Qumran "sectarian" at Qumran vs. ca. 60% "Christian" books in ancient Egyptian Christian libraries. Even for the second century, where we have much less data, the divide is quite great. If we take Qumran as example for a Jewish sectarian library, still focused largely on the Hebrew Bible and writings shared with other Jews, Christian libraries portray an independent group-specific identity, quite early on.
ISSN:0048-1009
1568-5365
0048-1009
DOI:10.1163/156853608X323055