Luigi Walt: On Scribal Performances and Bookish Milieus. Re-assessing the Importance of P.Oxy. 7.1010 for a Contextual Interpretation of 6 Ezra

• Centre for Advanced Studies
• Kommentare zur apokryphen Literatur

Since the second half of the 19th century, scholars have been wondering about the date, provenance, and religious matrix of the short oracular text commonly known as the ‘Sixth Book of Ezra’ (6 Ezra). The text survives in its entirety only in Latin, and was transmitted throughout the Middle Ages as part of a larger complex consisting of three originally independent works, usually labelled 4-5-6 Ezra. The strong codicological link between the three texts also heavily affected their scholarly reception, to the point that 5 and 6 Ezra have often been downplayed as mere ‘Christian appendices’ to the major (and more influential) text of the Jewish Apocalypse of Ezra (4 Ezra). To reassess the historical importance of 6 Ezra, this seminar will focus on the only extant fragment of the work in Greek, represented by the miniature vellum leaf of P.Oxy. 7.1010. The fragment is important not only for questions of textual criticism, but also for the light it may shed on the social and cultural context in which 6 Ezra was originally composed and initially received, before being consigned to the shadows through its textual association with 4 Ezra.