Carbon-14 and Palaeographical Dating of Papyri

Originally posted on Larry Hurtado's Blog:

I returned yesterday from an invitational conference in Oklahoma City on dating papyri (sponsored by the Green Scholars Initiative, hereafter GSI).   Out of respect for the presenters of papers, I won’t pre-empt publication by giving details.  But I can say that I found the presentations on Carbon-dating especially informative and also of some significant import.

Essentially the GSI has access to the Green Collection of manuscripts & Bibles, and several papyri were chosen for rigorous Carbon-dating.  The papyri in question had been dated first palaeographically, and then very small snippets were submitted to three respected laboratories in the USA for independent dating by Carbon-14 processes.

Many major libraries (e.g., the British Library) have a policy that does not permit any destruction of an item in any measure.  So, since Carbon-dating requires that a tiny piece of an item be cut off and burned, hardly ever are we going to…

View original 216 more words