ANN046

Technical Requirements of Publishing in the First Century

This appendix explores the technical constraints of first-century publishing that explain certain omissions in the Gospels. Writing on expensive papyrus, the Egyptian monopoly on this material, and handwritten uncial script without spaces or punctuation forced the evangelists to make rigorous editorial choices. These material limits, and not historical gaps, explain why events such as the journey to Egypt are absent from some Gospel accounts.

7 min papyrus manuscripts uncial script gospels ancient publishing

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Introduction

The matter of the technical constraints of first-century publishing seems important to us, because it helps explain the lack of information that we sometimes encounter in the texts of the Gospel authors.

We had the opportunity to point this out concerning the journey to Egypt, which is not mentioned by Luke. This gives us the impression that Luke had initially planned to write a much longer and more detailed text. However, when finalizing his text, he had to remove certain passages in order to comply with the technical requirements of publishing in his day.

I. Writing in First-Century Israel

Publishing in the first century in Israel, as in the rest of the Roman Empire, was a complex and laborious process. Texts were generally written by hand on scrolls of papyrus or parchment, which limited the length of documents.

Moreover, the absence of modern printing technologies meant that each copy had to be reproduced by hand, which made the publishing process long and costly.

Furthermore, authors often had to deal with limits of space. Scrolls of papyrus and parchment were expensive and their size was limited, which meant that authors often had to shorten or condense their work so that it could fit on a single scroll.
This could explain why certain details or events were omitted or abridged in the texts of the period, and particularly in our Gospels.

It should be stressed that literacy was not widespread at that time, which restricted the potential audience for written works. Moreover, the linguistic diversity of the Roman Empire meant that texts frequently had to be translated into several languages in order to reach a wider audience.

Indeed, we observe a rapid translation of the texts of the Gospels, originally written in Aramaic, into Greek, which was then establishing itself as an international language.

Finally, it should be mentioned that publishing in the first century was not only a matter of technical constraints. Authors also had to navigate a complex cultural and political landscape, where questions of censorship, patronage and propaganda often played an important role.

It is therefore clear that publishing in first-century Israel was a complex process, subject to a variety of technical, cultural and political constraints.

II. The Two Great Technical Difficulties

It may be difficult for us, who today benefit from incredibly efficient writing methods accessible to everyone, as well as paper at a trifling price, to understand the constraints of first-century publishing. Nowadays, no one would think of erasing a sheet of paper in order to reuse it.

In the first century, people wrote on papyrus, made from a plant of the same name grown on the banks of the Nile. Egypt was therefore the main supplier. Its manufacture, complex for the time, made it a very expensive product. Moreover, Egypt's almost exclusive monopoly allowed it to impose its prices, which were not always reasonable. Some papyri were even erased by scraping, more or less effectively, so that they could be reused, so high were their costs.

It is therefore obvious that people wrote only what was important, and that these writings were carefully preserved. The biodegradable material of these papyri led to their destruction over time, despite the dry climate of the region. Fortunately, there are a few exceptions. The sheets of papyrus, of a size similar to our A4, were glued together and formed a scroll. It was unrolled only for reading. We are thus faced with a first constraint: the size of the medium, which determined the price. The longest papyrus ever found is 41 m long! This size remains very exceptional.

The second difficulty is the writing, which was done by hand. Each copy was therefore transcribed manually in uncial script, for the oldest manuscripts. It consists solely of capital letters with no gaps between words and no punctuation, which saved space. It was not very easy to read.

If we transcribe the well-known verse of John 3.16 in uncial script, we obtain:

John 3.16 (NEG)
CARDIEUATANTAIMELEMONDEQUILADONNESONFILS

UNIQUEAFINQUEQUICONQUECROITENLUINEPERISSE

PASMAISQUILAITLAVIEETERNELLE

We see that while we save space, we lose legibility. This is, moreover, the reason why readers existed at that time. Papyri were written only on the inside of the scroll.

III. The Political Context

It should be noted that the authors of the Gospels wrote their texts, in a way, in secrecy. The Jewish religious authorities of the time, as well as the , did not want such writings to circulate, regarding them as subversive.

Consequently, Matthew and the apostles did not launch an advertising campaign for the distribution of the first Gospel. These writings therefore emerged in secrecy. The only way to obtain a copy was to borrow the original and reproduce it by hand. In addition to this major difficulty, one had to acquire a roll of papyrus, whose cost was extremely high.

Conclusion

The biblical authors were constrained in their expression. They had to concentrate on essential information and avoid repetition. Thus, when reading a Gospel, one sometimes has the impression that certain details are missing, the author having judged it unnecessary to repeat what another had already written.

There is perhaps also another aspect to consider: the message of each Gospel forms a whole. The demonstration the author wished to make is valid only if we read his entire text. A text that was too long could have been divided into several sections to make copying easier, but in that case, the author's purpose would have been harder to understand.

It was therefore imperative to write a text that was short, but as exhaustive as possible. Matthew and Luke seem to have reached the maximum length, with 1071 and 1151 verses respectively. Mark has 678, while John has 879. If we count the number of pages in a Segond translation, without notes, we obtain the same ratio: 41 pages for Matthew, 43 for Luke, 32 for John and 26 for Mark.

We are therefore faced with short accounts, which leads us to conclude that these authors did everything they could to be as concise as possible, given the technical constraints of the time, which required that these writings be widely and easily distributable.