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"What is Truth?" John 18:38 These are the words that Pontius Pilate used when interrogating Jesus at His trial. It was a cynical response to Our Lord’s declaration as a witness to God’s truth. Such cynicism is a feature of those who still question Christ and His claims today. When I was an undergraduate student of Biblical Studies in the 1970's it was a time when everything in theology was questioned. Liberalism was in the ascendancy. At that time it was not just fashionable to question ones faith and its Biblical and Ecclesiastical structures, it was almost compulsory. Those who held a conservative or traditional understanding of the Bible were dismissed as being outdated. My favourite Gospel of St. John came under scrutiny and was presented by the western Biblical theologians of the day as a product of theological evolution, the result of Gnostic heretical thought and too late to be considered reliable. The prevalent and pernicious heresy that somehow Christ’s divinity was a late invention of the Church still haunts universities and theological colleges today. Yet elsewhere in scripture St. Paul was claiming the same truth about Christ as St. John. Writing to the Colossians in A.D.61 he says: "He (Christ) is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him." Col.1: 15,16 One leading liberal scholar of the 1970’s later reversed much of his thinking over the date of St. John’s Gospel. An amazing piece of evidence containing the words of Pilate: "What is Truth?" set the theological world on fire when it was dated to A.D.130.This little fragment measuring 8.9 cm. X 5.8 cm. resides in the John Rylands Library in Manchester. It was acquired in 1917 as part of a large collection of ancient manuscripts but its significance was not realised until relatively recently. The fragment is part of a leaf of papyrus codex 457 and conforms to the universal Christian custom of writing on both sides of papyrus to form a book; rather than the Hebrew custom of writing on a scroll. We can estimate, based on the number of letters on each line that it would have consisted of 288 leaves to include all four gospels. However, the indications suggest that this formed a part of just the Gospel of St. John. The handwriting is fine and careful though not calligraphic in style. There is no breathing or punctuation in the words or any trace of numeration for the verses. Again, based on the calculation of the average number of letters on each line, since margin depth is consistent, we can maintain that the name Jesus was written in full rather than being abbreviated. The provenance of this fragment is probably Oxyrhynchus or Fayum in Egypt since both had early Christian communities. The significance of this is great. We have St. John’s gospel being read in Egypt by a Christian community as early as A.D.130.The text is exactly the same as much later gospels. This fragment from a codex written within half a century of the composition of the Gospel presents us with the fact that this it was a copy found distantly from its place of origin. This little piece of paper places St. John’s Gospel clearly in the first century A.D. and can be seen in the John Ryelands Library in Manchester, England. "What is Truth?" "Your word is Truth" John 17:17. It seems that it was not I that was outdated after all! Fr. Jonathan Hemmings |
