EARLY BIBLE MANUSCRIPTS DONATED TO UNIVERSITY OF MÜNSTER BIBLE MUSEUM

Dr Martin Schøyen today announced that he has donated all the Biblical manuscripts on loan to the Bible Museum at the University of Münster to the museum’s owner, the Hermann Kunst-Stiftung zur Förderung der Neutestamentlichen Textforschung.

Now in his 80s, Dr Schøyen has decided to donate all the manuscripts, which include the earliest examples of important Biblical texts, for permanent exhibit. The deed of gift was signed by Dr Schøyen and Professor Holger Strutwolf, Director of the the Hermann Kunst -Stiftung zur Förderung der Neutestamentlichen Textforschung, on 6 November 2023.

5 metre long 14th century Torah Genesis is among the MSS donated to the University of Münster Bible Museum

For 25 years the Schøyen Collection has placed 15 very early Bible manuscripts on long term loan in the Bible Museum at the University of Münster in Germany. During this time, Dr Martin Schøyen collaborated with the Hermann Kunst-Stiftung zur Förderung der Neutestamentlichen Textforschung.

Dr Schøyen, who has been a member of the foundation’s board of trustees under its chairman, Bundespräsident Dr. Frank-Walter Steinmeier, said: “These manuscripts add substantially to the Bible Museum’s holdings of mainly Greek Gospels from 10th to 15th century, and printed Bibles. It is a privilege to add my manuscripts to one of the best Bible museums in the world.”

Dr Schøyen worked closely with Professor Barbara Aland and Dr Michael Welte in cataloguing the manuscripts being donated.

The most recent of these contributed manuscripts include a Spanish Tora roll of Genesis (MS 2640), and a Samaritan Pentateuch of Exodus (MS 2196/1), both from the 14th century. The rest of the MSS are significantly older and include:

• MS 1367 is uncial 0301 in Aland’s catalogue with John 17:1-4 from a miniature codex on vellum of the 5th century.
• MS 2634/2 is a papyrus of the rare Origenes commentary book III to Genesis 1:14 from 4th century. Origenes famous commentary from 230-240 in 50 volumes is lost, except for two excerpts. This fragment written in a beautiful professional uncial script is the earliest witness to the text.
• MS 2634/1 is a papyrus of the Acts of Paul and Thecla 10-13, an apocryphal text from 3rd century, and is the earliest known example of this text.
• MS 2634/3 is not Biblical, but is instead a papyrus with Hippokrates, Epidemics II 6 from the 2nd- 1st century BC. This is the oldest manuscript of any part the entire Hippocrates corpus yet published.
• MS 1815/2 is a clay brick from the Tower of Babel, with a stamped inscription by Nebuchadnezzar II (604-562 BC). The black bitumen on the back of the brick is specifically mentioned in Genesis 11:3: "- for mortar they used bitumen“. The Bible museum has done extensive analyses of the bitumen, which confirmed a date around 6th century BC.
• MS 2423/2 first believed to contain the Sumerian creation story dated circa 1900 BC, which is over a millennium before the Creation story in the Bible. However, further research revealed the text to be Enhedu’Anna: Hymn C to Inanna, the Goddess of Love. Enhedu’Anna was daughter of king Sargon of Akkad (2334-2279 BC), the first named and historical author on record and widely published in anthologies of women’s literature.

BACKGROUND:

• Another inscribed brick (MS 1876/3) with the name of Hammurabi (1792-1750 BC) was donated to the British Museum in 1994 upon their kind request. This famous king was not represented on a brick in this institution’s incomparable holdings, while the Schøyen Collection held three copies.
• A unique cylinder seal (MS 2645) with 22nd century BC Old Akkadian art combined with five Indus Valley signs was loaned to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 1999 and subsequently donated to the museum.
• Shortly before this announcement, the Tower of Babel Stele (MS 2063) was donated to the Iraq Museum. See The Tower of Babel Stele: A Gift to the World.