From persecutions to the legalisation of Christianity, to the construction of the earliest monasteries, early Christianity was undergoing rapid transformations.
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Antisemitism had been growing for some time as Christianity gained more and more gentile (non-Jewish) followers, and Romans were no longer the “bad guys”.
Another scapegoat, other than Rome, needed to be found for the death of Jesus. Antisemitic ideas like Melito’s vicious accusations about Jews solved that problem for many Christian communities, as it seems to have for whoever compiled these diverse texts into a single book.
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Together, the works preserved in the the Crosby-Schøyen Codex shed light into a fascinating, dynamic period of early Christianity that indelibly marked the religion’s theology and culture.
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May 30, 2024
M J C Warren, University of Sheffield
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The Crosby-Schøyen Codex was discovered alongside more than 20 other codices near Dishna, Egypt, in 1952. These manuscripts are collectively known as “the Dishna Papers” or “the Bodmer Papyri,” after the Swiss collector Martin Bodmer.
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As an expert on early Christian reading practices, I consider the Dishna Papers an invaluable witness to the formation of the Christian Bible. This ancient library shows how, before the consolidation of the Bible, early Christians read canonical and non-canonical scriptures – as well as pagan classics – side by side.
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Ian Mills
