Carbon-dating manuscripts

[Christian2]

A Muslim is claiming:

NO CARBON-DATING HAS BEEN ALLOWED to be done on any so-called oldest copies of the manuscripts. (of the NT)

I've googled and found nothing.

It is just too stupid to consider in my opinion. If the church refused to let the oldest NT manuscripts to be carbon-dated, there would be a loud cry heard around the world. He is not backing up his statement.

My questions are: Is the church refusing to carbon-date the oldest NT manscripts?

If yes, why?

How do scholars determine the date of a manuscript?

Thank you.

[cslewislover]

I'd need to refresh my memory on some of the dating issues, but probably some have been dated in this way. Other than that, some cannot be dated, I'm sure, because you'd have to destroy too much of the document in order to do it. Dating in that way destroys the material used.

[WConn]

I can't say if radiocarbon dating has been used to determine the age of any biblical manuscripts, but with a background in the nuclear sciences I can tell you that it can only give a range of dates. It is only good for biological substances such as plant or animal material if I remember correctly, so papyrus or animal skins on which manuscripts were written would therefore in theory be datable via radiocarbon dating. As mentioned previously though a piece of the document would have to be taken and physically destroyed to do the analysis, and this might be unacceptable to the holders of such ancient documents.

In addition, the accuracy of this process is good only back to about 50K years, although in the case of biblical manuscripts, this would be well within the range of accuracy, but again, it would only provide a range, not an exact year or date of any document. There are unfortunately limitations on most forms of age analysis. Always interesting to sit in on a lecture and hear two EXPERTS disagree on the answers.

W

[waynepii]

... and it gives the approximate date the plant or animal from which the sample is derived ceased to live, nothing about the document made from it. Thus a date of (say) 2,000 years ago does not mean the document is that old, just that the sheep papyrus, or whatever it was made from died that long ago.

[Jac3510]

P52, one of the oldest known NT manuscripts, has been carbon dated to the early second century (130 or so). It is a very small fragment containing the words found in the Gospel of John. Just one example.

Short answer: there has been plenty of carbon dating of the manuscripts. Besides that, there are other ways to tell how old a document is. Google "paleography" and you'll find quite a bit on it.

[Christian2]

P52, one of the oldest known NT manuscripts, has been carbon dated to the early second century (130 or so). It is a very small fragment containing the words found in the Gospel of John. Just one example.

Short answer: there has been plenty of carbon dating of the manuscripts. Besides that, there are other ways to tell how old a document is. Google "paleography" and you'll find quite a bit on it.

I am familiar with P52.

It is nice to know that it has been carbon-dated.

My understanding is because P52 was found in Egypt -- outside of the area when John wrote it -- the Gospel of John can be dated circa 85-90AD.

Which means since John is the last Gospel to be written, Matthew, Mark, and Luke had to have been written before 85-90AD.

I'll look up paleography. My question is going to be is paleography more accurate than carbon-dating?

[Christian2]

Thanks to all who have replied.

Have any of you read the book, "Redating the New Testament" by John A.T. Robinson?

He dates Acts: -57-62+

Matthew: 40-60+

Mark: 45-60

Luke: -57-60+

John: -40-65+

I know even carbon-dating cannot be precise -- close is good enough.

Thanks.

[Christian2]

P52, one of the oldest known NT manuscripts, has been carbon dated to the early second century (130 or so). It is a very small fragment containing the words found in the Gospel of John. Just one example.

Short answer: there has been plenty of carbon dating of the manuscripts. Besides that, there are other ways to tell how old a document is. Google "paleography" and you'll find quite a bit on it.

Jac, I've been reading up on carbon-dating and now I am surprised that P52 would have been carbon dated because the scrape was so small. Carbon dating required that a portion of the scrape be examined and carbon dating would have destroyed too much of the text for it to be worthwhile.

[Jac3510]

Christian,

You are correct. I rechecked my sources, and they apparently mistook paleological dating for carbon dating. There have been manuscripts carbon dated (i.e., the Khaburis manuscript, but none of the earliest, see below), but P52 does not seem to have been. The dating methods there rely on the style of the handwriting (which, apparently, is very accurate), the material used, the fact that it was part of a codex rather than a scroll, etc.

Against all this:

Interestingly, carbon dating and other chemical methods are rarely used in determining the age of manuscripts. Instead, a paleographer analyzes the handwriting of the text, which yields a much more precise date than carbon dating would. A paleographer "cannot establish the exact date but he can confidently place one handwriting in the 30's and another in the 80's."

(source) So, paleography is the method of choice among scholars. Still, c-14 dating might prove interseting, so another source (which does not at all appear to be Christian):

Our response to this mass of paleographic dating before the time of Constantine is to urge a carbon dating process to be undertaken on any of these purported NT fragments or manuscripts. This will either lend support to the existing paleopgraphic dating, or it will not.
To my knowledge (2006) there has been no results published in respect of any carbon dating test of a manuscript or fragment of the new testament canon.

The two extant C14 citations in the field are both in respect of non canonical texts: (1) 348 CE (+/- 60 years for the NHC Gospel of Thomas) and (2) 290 CE (+/- 60 years) for the Ahkim Codex containing the Gospel of Judas. It should be noted that in the latter case, most of the members of the investigative teams prefers a date in the fourth century.

This provides us with the opportunity of making a prediction, namely that the carbon dating of any NT manuscript or fragment will yield a date no earlier than Constantine.

In any case, the question is the validity of the methods employed. It certainly appears we have opportunities here. As individuals, we can do further research on manuscripts that have been dated and compare them with C-14. That, however, is more than I have time for now!

Sorry for the earlier misstatement.

[Christian2]

Jac,

Thank you for the clarification.

I found that Muslim scholars also use paleography to determine the date of their manuscripts. LOL

[Kurieuo]

A Muslim is claiming:

NO CARBON-DATING HAS BEEN ALLOWED to be done on any so-called oldest copies of the manuscripts. (of the NT)

I've googled and found nothing.

It is just too stupid to consider in my opinion. If the church refused to let the oldest NT manuscripts to be carbon-dated, there would be a loud cry heard around the world. He is not backing up his statement.

My questions are: Is the church refusing to carbon-date the oldest NT manscripts?

If yes, why?

How do scholars determine the date of a manuscript?

Thank you.

Off-topic, but Christian2, you are always asking questions here to provide thorough responses to non-Christians you are obviously discussing with elsewhere. You treat them so seriously. I would just consider them to ultimately be smokescreens and respond in kind with something substantial but very brief.

In the past I use to respond to every single challenge 100% to the best of my ability. Over time I became frustrated and fed up with my responses being ignored and being taken around in circles. I just don't know how you have kept it up over the past several years. You must learn a hellova lot. Much kudos to you for your effort.

[Christian2]

A Muslim is claiming:

NO CARBON-DATING HAS BEEN ALLOWED to be done on any so-called oldest copies of the manuscripts. (of the NT)

I've googled and found nothing.

It is just too stupid to consider in my opinion. If the church refused to let the oldest NT manuscripts to be carbon-dated, there would be a loud cry heard around the world. He is not backing up his statement.

My questions are: Is the church refusing to carbon-date the oldest NT manscripts?

If yes, why?

How do scholars determine the date of a manuscript?

Thank you.

Off-topic, but Christian2, you are always asking questions here to provide thorough responses to non-Christians you are obviously discussing with elsewhere. You treat them so seriously. I would just consider them to ultimately be smokescreens and respond in kind with something substantial but very brief.

In the past I use to respond to every single challenge 100% to the best of my ability. Over time I became frustrated and fed up with my responses being ignored and being taken around in circles. I just don't know how you have kept it up over the past several years. You must learn a hellova lot. Much kudos to you for your effort.

Thanks, Kurieuo.

Yes, you are right. I have ongoing conversations with people and sometimes need help and I come here. I concentrate on Islam and Muslims. I posted the "how do you explain person" on another Christian board, trying to gather as much information I could in order to be sure how to answer my Jewish opponent. I must say for the most part, I get more quality help on G&S than other Christian discussion boards and that is why I keep coming back. So kudos to all of you, too.

I don't know how I have kept it up over so many years either Kurieuo. I do get down sometimes, frustrated and just plain fed up at times. A couple of days ago I was so down I wanted to quite altogether. I pray over it. Taking a day off helps too.

As far as learning a lot. I think I have. I do a lot of reading and have accumulated a lot of good books, written by top-notch scholars. I keep asking Muslims and Jews questions. I have been doing this ever since 9/11.

Thanks.

[dayage]

A very good book about dating the Biblical manuscripts and how it is done is Encountering The Manuscripts, by Philip Comfort. One of the things they do is take old Greek writings from known times and compare the style of the individual letters, because the Greek language like the rest evolved over time.

I got a photocopy of P4 from the National Museum in France. It is the oldest copy cantaining Luke 3:36. It is dated at about 150 A.D. I collected it when I was doing a study on the "2nd Cainan." It seems like most Paleographers will give dates +-25 years.

There is a lot more to it, but I have not read it in a while. That book is a really good one.

[ricalyn03]

Honestly speaking, I don't have an idea if church refused or accept to carbon-date the oldest NT manuscripts? But for me, they should refuse the carbon-date because by carbon-dating those manuscripts, they will know the how old the manuscript is.