Archaeological Views: Early Christian Dilemma: Codex or Scroll?

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Why did early Christians prefer the codex, at a time when the bookroll reigned supreme in the wider culture? All through the first three centuries C.E., people overwhelmingly favored the bookroll (“scroll”) for literary texts.1 Indeed, it was the prestige book form of that time. But, from the earliest scraps of identifiably Christian manuscripts onward, it is clear that Christians differed in preferring the codex, especially for those texts that they most prized and used as “scriptures.” This is clear. But scholars continue to explore and debate why. Before we consider scholarly opinions, let’s take account of some key […]

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Endnotes

1.
For a fuller discussion, see my book The Earliest Christian Artifacts: Manuscripts and Christian Origins (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), pp. 43–93. See also Colin H. Roberts and T.C. Skeat, The Birth of the Codex (London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1983).

2.
www.trismegistos.org/LDAB/search.php.

3.
These percentages reflect only manuscripts identified by their editors as either bookrolls or codices, leaving out items classified as “sheets” or “fragments” (i.e., not identified as to book form).

4.
In the case of a small number of manuscripts of Old Testament writings, it is difficult to be sure whether they derive from a Christian or a Jewish provenance.

5.
Reused bookrolls (often termed “opisthographs”) typically have some kind of text on their inner writing surface. The new text is typically copied in an informal, less skilled hand.