Dura Parchment 24


Dura Parchment 24, designated as Uncial 0212, is a Greek uncial manuscript of the New Testament. The manuscript has been assigned to the 3rd century, palaeographically, though an earlier date cannot be excluded. It contains some unusual orthographic features, which have been found nowhere else.
It is possibly the only surviving manuscript of the Greek Diatessaron, unless Papyrus 25 is also a witness to that work. The text of the fragment was reconstructed by Kraeling and Welles. Dura Parchment 24 is currently housed at Yale University, New Haven catalogued there as Dura Parch. 10.

History of the manuscript

On March 5, 1933, during the excavations conducted by Clark Hopkins amongst the ruins of a Roman border-town, Dura-Europos, on the lower Euphrates, under the embankment which filled in the street inside the wall and also covered the Christian church and the Jewish synagogue, the parchment fragment now known as Dura Parchment 24 was found. Susan Hopkins was the first to recognize it as a portion of the Gospel.
The fragment was examined by Carl H. Kraeling, who published its text in 1935, with an extensive discussion. Kraeling concluded that the fragment was a copy of Tatian's Diatessaron. It was re-edited, with a minor corrections, by C. Bradford Welles in 1959.
According to Plooij "There is no reasonable doubt that the fragment is really Tatian".
According to Parker, Taylor, and Goodacre it is another harmony of the four Gospels, different to Diatessaron, and much closer to the text of the Gospels. Jan Joosten criticised the methods employed by Taylor, Goodacre, and Parker, according to him, these methods would have eliminated many other Tatianic witnesses because of diversity and variability in these witnesses. Dura Parchment does not constitute evidence of non-Diatessaronic composition.
The manuscript was added to the list of the New Testament manuscripts by Kurt Aland in 1953.

Description

It is not, strictly speaking, a manuscript of the New Testament — it contains only phrases from the text of the Gospels. On a single parchment leaf, the following texts were copied: Matthew 27:56–57; Mark 15:40,42; Luke 23:49,50,51; John 19:38. Generally, it has been regarded as a fragment of Tatian's Diatessaron.
Only one side of the leaf has been used, and may well have come from a scroll.
The text was written one column per page, 15 lines per page, 30–35 letters per line, in uncial letters.
Parts of the leaf have decayed, resulting in some loss from the text — approximately the first five to seven letters of each line. Additionally, some other letters are not legible.
Classic nomina sacra abbreviations were employed by the scribe, with the typical linear superscript.
The text is written in a good book-hand. There are three kinds of alpha: the older capital, the uncial, and the 3rd-century-cursive–type. The letters tau and eta have unusual characters, and were written with ligatures. The letter mu is characterized by a deep saddle.
The text of the manuscript has some unusual orthographic features, which have been found nowhere else. For example, the letter upsilon appears at several points in the text, but not connected with it in any way that has yet been understood.

Text

Textual character of 0212

In Luke 23:49 it contains a unique reading: "the wives of those who had been his disciples". In Matthew 27:57, the city Arimathea, normally spelled Αριμαθαια, is spelled Ερινμαθαια.
The text twice agrees with Codex Vaticanus and Bohairic against everything else.
There are two agreements with Codex Bezae, in line 4 it has ην δε η ημερα παρασκευη for και ημερα ην παρασκευη , in line 9 και ανηρ is omitted.
The fragment has two agreements with Syriac Sinaitic. First Syriac Sinaitic shares with Codex Bezae the reading ην δε η ημερα for και ημερα ην, and secondly it describes Arimathaea as "city of Judea" instead of "city of the Jews". The last reading is supported by other Syriac authorities, by Old-Latin Codex Veronensis, Vulgate, and the Arabic Harmony, against the entire Greek tradition. The fragment does not agree with the Syriac reading Ramtha for Arimethaea.
The text-type of this manuscript is no longer classifiable, because of the Diatessaric character of text. Even so, Aland placed it in Category III.

Kraeling's reconstruction

Greek TextTranslationReferences
Ζεβεδαίου / καὶ Σαλώμη / καὶ γυναικες... Zebedee and Salome and the wivesMatt. 27:56 / Mark 15:40 / Luke 23:49b-c
αἱ συνακολουθοῦσαι αὐτῷ ἀπὸ τῆςof those who had followed him from
Γαλιλαίας ὁρῶσαι ταῦτα / καὶGalilee to see the crucified. AndLuke 23:54
ἡμέρα ἦν παρασκευῆς καὶ σάββατον ἐπέϕω-the day was Preparation: the Sabbath was daw-
σκεν / ὀψίας δὲ γενομένης / ἐπεὶ ἠν παρασ-ning. And when it was evening, on the Prep-Matt. 27:57 Mark 15:42
κευή, ὅ ἐστι προσάββατον /aration, that is, the day before the Sabbath,
ἦλθεν ἄνθρωπος πλούσιος / βουλευτὴς ὑπάρχωνthere came up a man, ing a member of the council,Matt. 27:57 / Luke 23:50
ἀπὸ Ἀριμαθαίας / πόλεως τῶνfrom Arimathea, a city of / Luke 23:51
Ἰουδαίων / τοὔνομα Ἰωσὴϕ / ἀνὴρ ἄγαθος καὶ δί-Judea, by name Joseph, good and ri-Matt. 27:57 / Luke 23:50a / Luke 23:50c
καιος / ὣν μαθητὴς τοῦ Ἰησοῦ κε-ghteous man, being a disciple of Jesus, butJohn 19:38
κρυμμένος δὲ διὰ τὸν φόβον τῶνsecretly, for fear of the
Ἰουδαίων / καὶ αὐτὸς / προσεδέχετοJews. And he was looking forMatt. 27:57 / Luke 23:51b
τὴν βασιλείαν τοῦ θεοῦ, / οὗτος ούκthe kingdom of God. This man had notLuke 23:51a
ἦν συνκατατεθειμένος τῇ βουλῇconsented to their purpose…

Welles' reconstruction

Greek Text
Translation
References
...αι̣ο̣υ και Σαλωμη κι̣ α̣ι γ̣υ̣ν̣αικεςZebed]ee and Salome and the wivesMatt. 27:56 / Mark 15:40 / Luke 23:49b-c
ν̣ακολουθησανων α̣ω υ απο της had followed him from
α̣ς ορωσαι τον στα. υυυ ην δεe to see the crucified. AndLuke 23:54
α Παρασκευη. υ Σαββατον επεφω-y was Preparation: the Sabbath was daw-
ψ̣ιας δε γενομενης επι τ̣α̣ρσ-. And when it was evening, on the Prep-Matt. 27:57 Mark 15:42
, υ ο εστιν Προσαββατον, πρ̣ο̣σ-, that is, the day before the Sabbath,
ανθρωπος βουλευτη̣π̣α̣ρ- up a man, ing a member of the council,Matt. 27:57 / Luke 23:50
π̣ο Ερινμαθαια πλ̣ε̣ω̣ς τηςfrom Arimathea, a cty of / Luke 23:51
ας, ονομα Ιω, ααθος̣ δι-a, by name Jo, god and ri-Matt. 27:57 / Luke 23:50a / Luke 23:50c
, ων μαθητης τυ̣ Ιη, κ̣ε- υυυυ, being a disciple of Jesus, butJohn 19:38
μενος δε δια τ̣ο̣ν̣ φ̣ο̣βον τωνsely, for fear of the
ν, και αυτος προσεδεχτοs. And he was looking forMatt. 27:57 / Luke 23:51b
υ β̣ του̣ Θυ ο̣υτος ουκ k of God. This man notLuke 23:51a
ιθεμ̣εν̣ς̣ τη β̣sented to p...

Significance of the manuscript

The surviving leaf of the scroll or codex described here, was found in 1933, during excavations among the ruins of Dura-Europos, known to have been destroyed by Shapur I King of Persia in 256. This means the manuscript must have been written before 256. The time between Tatian's original composition and the production of this copy could not have been longer than 80 years.
Before this find, the only copies of the Diatessaron known to modern scholarship were translations into languages other than Greek—notably Latin, Arabic, and Armenian. This fragment is potentially much more direct evidence that Tatian composed his Diatessaron with great diligence. "Probably he worked from four separate manuscripts, one for each of the Gospels, and, as he brought together phrases, now from this Gospel and now that, he would no doubt cross out those phrases in the manuscripts from which he was copying."
The fragment does not help in the discussion of a Greek or Syriac origin of the Diatessaron. Burkitt pointed two differences between its text of Luke 23:51 and the Old Syriac manuscripts of the Gospels, in agreement with the accepted Greek text. Baumstark, on the other hand, identified several presumed Syriasms in the diction, as well as the unusual spelling of Arimathea, Ερινμαθαια, in terms of Syriac origin.

Citations