I realize I'm late to the show here but I finally got around to listening to this episode yesterday and I was wondering if anyone knows if these Oxford researchers are making any use of software to reassemble any of the fragments mentioned?

Seems like it would be *much* faster than trying to figure it out by hand.

Something like this (albeit much less grisly of a topic): http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/puzzling-together-the-past-new-computer-program-to-reassemble-shredded-stasi-files-a-482136.html

I am quite surprised - Shtein and honor! :)

http://www.igod.co.il/bible

You were both so shocked to find out that the number of the beast in this fragment was 616 instead of 666. Actually, that fact has been known to Bible scholars for years. I remember as a child that my pastor explained that some manuscripts list the number as 616. It wasn't until last night, however, that I learned why. At the time, almost everyone knew that the number referred to Nero, or possibly to Domition, who was referred to as the "new Nero." In the Hebrew, the name Nero was actually "Neron." If you add up the letter values of Neron, it comes to 666. However, in Greek, the name was Nero. The Greek scribes who were copying this this would not have understood 666, so they assumed it was a mistake, so they "corrected" it to 616.

The professor's name is spelled wrong- it is Dirk Obbink (two b's). http://www.lsa.umich.edu/classics/directory/departmentalfaculty

Thanks Jad and Robert. Great show!

@Paul: I found this on the referenced website:

http://www.papyrology.ox.ac.uk/POxy/beast/beast616.html

It seems to be the papyrus to which they are referring.

If I understand the various articles I read after clicking around...

Whether the number was 666 or 616 has been a long-running scholarly discussion - this is just a very early and clear example of the text that weights in on the 616 side...

Found this segment interesting, however, wanted to challenge radio lab journalists to be more thoughtful with their research. The story begins with Jad proposing that the document in the trash heap presents a different Jesus than the Jesus of the New Testament, with such phrases as "the kingdom of heaven is near". However, this is a saying that is also found in the New Testament, in Matthew 4:17, among other places. It is easy to rely on the particular western-american christian strand of "understanding" that we are all familiar with, rather than do our own research of the actual biblical text- which is much more "eastern", as well.

Thanks to Radio Lab for such interesting and fresh radio journalism!

Does anyone know anything more about the "satirical porn" that has Jad's number one? I'm doing a paper about the history of media, which a chapter on porn, and this would be a great historical point.

The online database isn't much help, but very interesting:
http://163.1.169.40/cgi-bin/library?site-=localhost&a=p&p=about&c=POxy&ct=0&l=en&w=utf-8

There is also no reference to it on the exhaustive wikipedia page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxyrhynchus_Papyri

After digging around a bit on the Oxford site, I found the original Logia Iesou, translated with commentary by Grenfell and Hunt in 1897 on the Internet Archive.

http://www.archive.org/details/sayingsofourlord00egypiala

Very interesting read.

I listened to this podcast today and enjoyed it as I do all of them. I must say however, I have a bible called "The Way" that I recieved from my Mother in the late '70's. In Revelations where it references the number of the Beast, it does have an asterisk that says some texts say 616. Just thought you should know.

Please keep up the fantastic work!

This is just Amazing..!

As a lover of ancient history and someone who is married to another lover of ancient history, I would love to be able to see the original text of the three pieces mentioned. Does anyone have a reference to where I might locate them within the Oxford database?

A really edifying segment, thank you.