POxy-4009

Brent Nongbri, an international treasure, last weekend did a palaeography upon POxy-5575. Nongbri has concluded that #5575 isn't just in similar handwriting as #4009 - it is by the same hand. So: let us investigate #4009.

#4009 got some press in 1993 but the Jesus Seminar didn't pay attention to it, so I had no idea about it. The text is... slight; there's a recap at this forum. Its base-text requires much reconstruction, more so than #5575's; the most-popular reconstruction of the more-legible side is on the basis of 2 Clement. Since we are on topic . . .

This blog has suspected that 2 Clement was using a narrative independent (mostly) of the canon. The reconstruction of POxy-4009 implies, strongly I think, that this scrap is that narrative behind 2 Clement.

#4009 is in a first-person narrative which narrator is in Christ's inner circle. He corresponds to 2 Clement's Peter. There is some interconnexion with a "Western text" of Luke - in Luke-Acts studies usually that means Bezae, not the Claromontaine tradition.

I remain unsure that #4009 came out of the same book as did #5575. But. That these MSS were written out by the same person (male or female) suggests that these texts were, at least, in Christological alliance.