Earliest Greek Parchment Texts
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Early Greek Writing 250 BCE
(September 25, 2023) The Septuagint (LXX) is the translation of the Hebrew Bible into Koine Greek, may have been produced at Alexandria, Egypt in stages, starting about 250 BCE. The Alexandrian community then included the largest community of Jews, including a group of scholars who prepared the translation. The Septuagint derives its name (derived from Latin septuaginta, 70, hence the abbreviation LXX). The oldest witnesses to the LXX include 2nd century BC fragments of Leviticus and Deuteronomy (Rahlfs nos. 801, 819, and 957), and 1st century BC fragments of Genesis, Exodus, Levitcus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, and the Minor Prophets (Rahlfs nos. 802, 803, 805, 848, 942, and 943).
Reference
Online at: https://iiif.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/iiif/viewer/?iiif-content=https://iiif.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/iiif/canvas/5d6142d0-7f93-4b44-8e80-913b1857dac0.json#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=18&r=0&xywh=464%2C1381%2C1450%2C808
The Clarke Plato, Oldest Surviving Manuscript of Plato's Tetralogies 895 CE
(September 25, 2023) Quote from Bodleian Library online site: "The 'Clarke Plato', one of the oldest and most important witnesses for the text of this author (Plato)."
Constantinople copied the "Clarke Plato" (Bodleian Library MS. E. D. Clarke 39) for Arethas of PatraeOffsite Link, later Bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia (Kayseri, TurkeyOffsite Link). The cost was 21 nomismata, or gold coins, for the copying and the parchment. Completed in November 895, this is the oldest surviving manuscript of Plato's Tetralogies 1-6 (Euthyphro-Meno).
Sometime between the inventory of 1382 and 1581-1582 the manuscript was purchased by the monastery of St. John the Theologian on the Island of Patmos. In 1801 E. D. Clarke purchased it from the monastery, and donated it to the Bodleian Library where it is preserved today.
Most early Greek philosophers are only known by references and short quotes found in later Hellenistic and Byzantine texts.
Reference
Hunt, R.W., The Survival of Ancient Literature. Oxford: Bodleian Library, 1975, No. 56.
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