Scripture as Trash in Roman Oxyrhynchus

 

Excavations in the trash mounds at Oxyrhynchus

 

A number of years ago AnneMarie Luijendijk (a professor at Princeton University) wrote an article addressing the state of biblical manuscripts discovered in the trash heaps of Roman Oxyrhynchus.

 AnneMarie Luijendijk, "Sacred Scriptures as Trash: Biblical Papyri from Oxyrhynchus," Vigiliae Christianae 64 (2010): 217-254.

In this article she notes that many complete manuscripts of both secular classical literature and Christian literature were discarded as trash, often torn up into several pieces before being thrown away (Luijendijk, "Sacred Scriptures," 244). The fact that these seemingly useful manuscripts were intentionally torn up before discarding is noted as far back as the original excavation reports at Oxyrhynchus by Grenfell and Hunt (Grenfell and Hunt, “Excavations at Oxyrhynchus," 361). Don Barker has also noted that many of the book fragments found at Oxyrhynchus give evidence of being torn up before being discarded (Barker, “Codex, Roll, and Libraries in Oxyrhynchus,” 140, n33). It is nearly impossible to know the exact circumstances of why these papyri were torn up. Luijendijk gives an insightful answer at the end of the article, comparing the late antique practice of destroying sacred icons before discarding them as a way of breaking the sacred image away from the physical icon.

"I consider it quite likely that people, in this case early Christians from Oxyrhynchus, purposely shredded sacred scriptures when they discarded them in order to definitely break the link between sacred text and sacred manuscript." (Luijendijk, "Sacred Scriptures," 249)

At the end of the article Luijendijk lists out several copies of New Testament writings (and a few of the Shepherd of Hermas) that where likely thrown out as whole or nearly whole manuscripts, yet torn up into smaller fragments before being tossed into the trash mound. Why would Christians feel the necessity to throw away a copy of their scriptures, even if they were damaged? Luijendijk, indirectly gives an answer, a likely scenario is that these papyrus copies of the New Testament (and the Shepherd of Hermas) were replaced by new parchment copies (Luijendijk, "Sacred Scriptures," 230-231). Jerome informs us that at one point, an extensive project was undertaken at the Cesarean Library to restore the aging papyrus manuscripts onto parchment codices.

"Euzoius was educated as a young man at Caesarea along with Gregory, the bishop of Nazianzus, under the rhetor Thespesius and later became bishop of the same city; with very great toil he attempted to restore on parchment the library of Origen and Pamphilus that had been damaged." (Jerome, Vir ill. 113; translation taken from Carriker, p. 23, n. 70)

This possibility becomes more likely when considering that there was a manufacturer of manuscript parchment located in Oxyrhychus. Luijendijk argues this fact in another work, suggesting that Sotas, the third century bishop of Oxyrhynchus was likely involved in the production of books, noting that he wrote two letters on fragments of parchment, rather than papyrus. This was highly unusual and indicates that scraps of parchment left over from book production were available for use in letter writing (Luijendijk, "Greetings in the Lord," 144-151).

There are two implications that can be drawn from this evidence concerning the early Christian view of scripture, at least as it was held in Roman Oxyrhynchus at the time these manuscripts were discarded. First, Christians seem to have viewed the “text” of their scripture, the message that they conveyed, as more important than the physical objects of the scriptures. They did not hold onto their physical books as sacred relics to be worshiped, rather, they valued the message that the texts conveyed.

Second, related to this idea, these Christians did not seem to give greater value to the these more ancient books for their closer proximity in time to the “autographs.” In other words, they saw no need to hold onto and preserve these older copies of the New Testament writings as if they would help to safeguard the New Testament from textual corruption. Once good copies of these manuscripts were made, the old ones could be discarded.

Though admittedly speculative, these observations push hard against the idea that the “autographs” of the New Testament survived for centuries. As I have noted in a previous post, it is highly likely that early copies of at least some of the New Testament books lasted for many years. Yet, if the attitudes of Christians at Oxyrhynchus can be extrapolated more broadly in the early Christian community, it is likely that many of the “autographs and first copies” (to borrow Craig Evans’s language) of the New Testament writings were tossed into the trash heaps once good copies were made. It wasn't the guarding and keeping of the "autographs" that preserved the New Testament so amazingly well, it was the early and widespread abundant copying of the New Testament that ensured its preservation.

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AnneMarie Luijendijk, Greetings in the Lord: Early Christians and the Oxyrhynchus Papyri. Cambridge/Massachusetts:Harvard University Press, 2008.

  

AnneMarie Luijendijk, "Sacred Scriptures as Trash: Biblical Papyri from Oxyrhynchus," Vigiliae Christianae 64 (2010): 217-254.

 

Andrew James Carriker. The Library of Eusebius of Caesarea. VCsup 67. Leiden: Brill, 2003.

 

Craig A. Evans, “How Long were Late Antique Books in Use? Possible Implications for New Testament Textual Criticism,” Bulletin for Biblical Research 25.1 (2015): 23-37.

 

Don C. Barker, “Codex, Roll, and Libraries in Oxyrhynchus,”Tyndale Bulletin 57.1 (2006): 131-148.

 

Bernard Grenfell and Arthur Hunt, “Excavations at Oxyrhynchus: Fifth Season (1905-6).

Paul's Autographs, Inspiration, and an Early Letter Collection

Many years ago, I published the following JETS article, "What are the NT Autographs?" the paper proposed that,

"in reference to the NT, the "autograph," as often discussed in biblical inerrancy doctrinal statements, should be defined as the completed authorial work which was released by the author for circulation and copying, not earlier draft versions or layers of composition." (see previous post here)

One of the wonderful things about online venues such as social media and blogs is that one can receive almost immediate feedback to published articles. One particular line of feedback that kept surfacing was "what about Paul's epistles? Perhaps Paul edited his letters and published them into a collection, would these be 'inspired autographs'? How would my definition handle this particular situation?"

I had originally intended to include a section discussing a Pauline letter collection but quickly realized that this topic moved the article in a new direction, away from the thesis and opted instead to excise the discussion all together and address the question more directly in a future publication (E. Randolph Richards has addressed some of these issues in his excellent work “Paul and First-Century Letter Writing"). I had written the article in order to specifically address the process leading up to publication and release, and not the collection/reception process, which is really where the discussion of an “inspired” Pauline letter collection belongs. It seems to me that speaking of an “inspired” or “inerrant” letter (or Gospel) collection conflates the inspiration of the scriptures as they were composed, with the reception and collection of these writings in the canonical process. Perhaps some see these developments as the same, but in my understanding, these are two very different phenomena. I see that the inspiration event concerns the inscripturation of God’s revelation to man and the canonical process concerns the reception, collection, and circulation of this revelation. 

With that said, Richards has argued that Paul archived his own letters in a personal notebook (pg. 218-223). I think that, considering what we know about ancient letter writing, this was highly likely (we are dealing with probabilities here and not absolute certainty). As people requested copies of Paul’s letters, either asking Paul directly, or asking his associates, then copies would have been made at that time from these archived copies (See this occurring in real time with Ignatius's letters in Polycarp, Phil 13.2). More than likely, an “official edition” of Paul’s letters, created from these archived copies, would have been “published” posthumously (Richards, pg. 223). This would account for the varying manner in which his letters were gathered (single letters, varying order of collection, etc.) In my mind, releasing a collection in this way is not “composition" rather it is fully in the realm of copying and circulation. Thus, I think that it falls outside the composition/inspiration process (the inscripturation of God’s revelation to man). Again, referring back to Richards’s discussion of inspiration (pg. 224-229), I think that it is more accurate to envision inspiration as an event or process over a period of time, one that includes the unique circumstances that each particular Christian community was experiencing, and Paul’s unique, letter addressing these issues. Therefore, even if Paul did gather a collection and polish them up, and release them at a later date, I am not sure that we can call this an “inspiration event,” if you will. This is where one’s theological leanings come into play. If one believes that Paul was dissatisfied with his letters and wanted to [edit:“correct them"] "polish them up" before publication, then the first versions did not perfectly convey the message that God intended his Church to read (i.e., they were not "inerrant").

If Paul did have a personal hand in collecting his letters and editing them into a more polished collection, then there raises the possibility of multiple versions of Paul's letters being in circulation. Benjamin Laird proposes this very possibility, suggesting that there were at least three different copes of the letter to the Romans made with three distinctive endings (Laird, "Creating the Canon," 61-62). There are several historical and textual problems with this suggestion, as I indicated in a previous book review. Setting these technical problems aside, if this were the case then there could be a situation in which there were three different versions of the letter to the Romans, each copied under the authority of Paul. In my suggestion above, only one of those letters would be truly "inspired," the version that Paul had made for the Church in Rome, the version that was made for the "inspiration event" (to use the conception of Richards). The other two versions of Romans would then be the products of copying, and the excised (or added) text would not be inspired in this understanding of the process.

The problem for modern scholars and theologians would be untangling this copying history. There would be no way to know with absolute certainty which version was the "first," intended for the original audience (such as Rome in the example above). Even though this textual history is complex, it does not mean that the text of Romans was never divinely inspired or inerrant, it means that our access to this text is limited by our finite human knowledge.

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Benjamin P. Laird, Creating the Canon: Composition, Controversy, and the Authority of the New Testament (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2023)

E. Randolph Richards, Paul and First-Century Letter Writing: Secretaries, Composition and Collection (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2004)

How Marginal Comments Can Corrupt a Text in Transmission

A leaf from P.Mich.inv. 6238 (P46) showing the

end of Romans and the beginning and title of Hebrews

P.Mich.inv. 6238 / Recto | Advanced Papyrological Information System (APIS UM) | University of Michigan Library Digital Collections (umich.edu)

A number of years ago Michael W. Holmes wrote a book chapter in which he argued that several variations in the text of Romans in P46 were evidence of marginal comments entering into the body of text. This occurred, Holmes argued, when a copyist confused a marginal comment for a correction to be entered into the body of text (Holmes pg. 202-205).

"What now appear only as variant readings in the text originally were, I suggest, comments in the margins about the text—the earliest “commentary” (in the sense of activity, rather than genre) on the text of Romans." (Holmes pg. 205)

Though Holmes gave no examples from antiquity, there are two instances in which an ancient author mentions this phenomenon occurring during the copying of a text. 

The second century physician Galen in his commentary on Hippocrates "Epidemics" gives two explanations for a corruption in the text of Hippocrates. The first explanation Galen gives is that Hippocrates gave a parenthetical statement in order to point out the difference between two types of patients currently being discussed in the work. Galen makes the following comment for the second.

“The other explanation is something you often observe in many books: we sometimes write two expressions for the same thing, putting it in two different ways, and place one of them in the text body and the other in the margin of the book so as to pick the better of the two at leisure when we want to edit the book. It seems that Hippocrates did the same in this place. The first editor of this book then copied both expressions together into the book’s text. We then did not look at and consider it again, pause and fix this error. Many people passed on the copy of the book, and it remained uncorrected.” (In Hipp. epid. comm. I, 1.36) (Vagelpohl pg. 167)

Here Galen describes a practice in which the author of a work gives an explanatory note in the margin of their "autograph." When the text is initially edited and copied, the scribe would think that the marginal note was meant to be entered into the text as a correction. The result is that the book was then widely copied and circulated with the error uncorrected.

Another instance of this phenomenon is mentioned by Jerome. In about 403 CE Jerome received a letter from two men asking for an explanation as to why there were so many differences between the Septuagint LXX these men were using, and the Latin Psalter Jerome had produced many years before in about 383 CE. Along with this letter, these men sent a long list of passages where there were differences in the text between the LXX and the Latin Psalter. For one of the variations in the text, Jerome gave the following explanation.

"I wonder why some rash fellow has thought that the note: “the correct form is not καταπαύσωμεν, as some think, but κατακαύσωμεν, that is, incendamus,” which was placed by me for the guidance of the reader into the margin, should be put into the body of the text." (Ep. 106.46)

Apparently, in the first edition of Jerome's Psalter he had placed an explanatory comment in the margin. A later copyist confused this entry as a correction to be entered into the body of text. Thus, all subsequent copies of his Psalter had this variation transmitted in the text.

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Corpus Medicorum Graecorum 5.10.1. English translation taken from, Galen, Commentary on Hippocrates’ Epidemics Book I: Parts I-III (Translated by Uwe Vagelpohl. Corpus Medicrum Graecorum Supplementum Orientale V1. Berlin: Walter De Gruyter, 2014).

Holmes, Michael W. “The Text of P46: Evidence of the Earliest ‘Commentary’ on Romans?” In New Testament Manuscripts: Their Text and Their World (ed. by Tobias Nicklas; Leiden: Brill, 2006) 189-206.

Translation of Jerome's Epistle 106 by Michael Metlen, The Journal of English and Germanic Philology, Vol. 36, No. 4 (Oct., 1937), pp. 515-542.

Cicero: Making Duplicates of Letters

Scholars have often recognized the ancient practice of writers keeping copies of their own letters. One example from Cicero (54 BC), illuminates the many difficulties that arise out of the practice of communicating through letters. Writing to his brother Quintus,

"I forgot to write to you about Caesar; for I see what sort of a letter you have been expecting. But he wrote to Balbus and told him that the whole packet of letters, in which were mine and Balbus's, was so soaked with water when he received it that he did not even know there was any letter from me. He had, however, made out a few words in Balbus's letter, to which he replied in the following words : "I see that you have written something about Cicero, which I could not understand, but as far as I could conjecture, it was the sort of thing that I thought more to be desired than hoped for." So later on I sent Caesar an exact duplicate of my letter." (Ep. ad Quint. Frat. 2.12)

There are a few interesting incidental details that reveal the problems associated with letter writing. First, there was an entire packet of letters delivered to Caesar all at once. The phrase in Latin here is "fasciculum ilium epistularium," which is just referring to a packet or parcel of letters. It seems to imply a loose bundle of individual leaves rather than anything that was bound together like a codex. One can infer that these letters, though written likely over a span of several days, were delivered to Caesar at one time, indicating that it may have taken some time to deliver them.

Second, the material, either papyrus or parchment, was damaged by inclement weather. Either the pages were so stuck together that they couldn't be separated and the writing made out, or the ink had been completely washed away by the rain (or likely both). This reveals the precarious nature of the material written upon. It is a miracle that there are any documents that have survived from the ancient world at all.

Third, this side note by Cicero reveals that a common practice was for letter writers to keep a duplicate copy of their correspondence on file for just such a circumstance. Cicero was able to make another copy of the letter and re-send it to Caesar.

Finally, this anecdote presents an example of social networks preventing the loss or corruption of texts. In this instance, it was not the deliberate alteration or misuse of a written text that was being guarded against, but the loss of text through damage by rain and moisture. It looks like Balbus, upon receiving his reply from Caesar, notified Cicero that his letter to Caesar had been damaged and lost and Cicero was able to re-write the letter and thus allowing the transmission of the message or information to be completed.

This example brings together a few themes from the ancient world that often surface. First, that the written material was highly volatile and susceptible to environmental damage or loss (such as this example from Arsinoites in Egypt during the first and second centuries AD). As in the story of the worn archival documents at Arsinoites, the only insurance against the loss of these documents was in having duplicates of these texts, in this case, the duplicates of Cicero's letters. And second, one aspect of this preservation against the loss or corruption of texts was through social networks guarding against this loss.

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Cicero, Letters to his Friends. M. Cary trans. LCL. Vol 3. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960. Page 523.

Aristotle's Long Lasting Library

A first century copy of Aristotle's Constitutions. Papyrus 131

In connection with his academy it is known from ancient sources that Aristotle possessed a collection of books, a combination of his own, student's, and other philosopher's writings. Aristotle handed down this library on to his successor Theophrastus, who then bequeathed the collection to his follower Neleus. After Neleus failed to step in the leadership role of the Academy, he moved the collection to Skepsis (in Asia Minor). After this time the library was poorly cared for, at one point being buried in a trench! Years later the library was acquired by Apellicon, an Athenian collector and the books were moved to Athens. Strabo (quoted at length in full below), notes that Apellicon attempted to restore these works, without success, by filling in the lacuna now present in these copies due to decay. Later Sulla took (stole) the entire library and took it to Rome. Here booksellers gained access to these works and poorly transcribed them and circulated these poor copies widely. At this time, Aristotle's and Theophrastus's books would have been some 250 years old (Gamble, "Books and Readers in the Early Church," 177). Following is Strabo's account in full;

"From Scepsis came the Socratic philosophers Erastus and Coriscus and Neleus the son of Corsica's, this last a man who not only was a pupil of Aristotle and Theophrastus, but also inherited the library of Theophrastus, which included that of Aristotle. At any rate, Aristotle bequeathed his own library to Theophrastus, to whom he also left his school; and he is the first man, so far as I know, to have collected books and to have taught the kings in Egypt how to arrange a library. Theophrastus bequeathed it to Neleus; and Neleus took it to Scepsis and bequeathed it to his heirs, ordinary people, who kept the books locked up and not even carefully stored. But when they heard bow zealously the Attalic kings to whom the city was subject were searching for books to build up the library in Pergamum, they hid their books underground in a kind of trench. But much later, when the books had been damaged by moisture and moths, their descendants sold them to Apellicon of Teos for a large sum of money, both the books of Aristotle and those of Theophrastus. But Apellicon was a bibliophile rather than a philosopher; and therefore, seeking a restoration of the parts that had been eaten through, he made new copies of the text, filling up the gaps incorrectly, and published the books full of errors. The result was that the earlier school of Peripatetics who came after Theophrastus had no books at all, with the exception of only a few, mostly exoteric works, and were therefore able to philosophize about nothing in a practical way, but only to talk bombast about commonplace propositions, whereas the later school, from the time the books in question appeared, though better able to philosophise and Aristotelise, were forced to call most of their statements probabilities, because of the large number of errors. Rome also contributed much to this; for, immediately after the death of Apellicon, Sulla, who had captured Athens, carried off Apellicon's library to Rome, where Tyrannion the grammarian, who was fond of Aristotle, got it in his hands by paying court to the librarian, as did also certain booksellers who used bad copyists and would not collate the texts—a thing that also takes place in the case of the other books that are copied for selling, both here and at Alexandria. However, this is enough about these men." (Strabo, Geogr. 13.1.54; translation taken from Perseus)

 There are several intriguing features of this account that should be drawn out.

• This library contained copies of Aristotle's and Theophrastus's works that were made under their direction, yet, because of the decay of long years, the transcriptions made directly from these copies were poorly done and thus interjected textual corruptions early in the history of transmission, both during Apellicon's time and years later when Sulla possessed the library in Rome.
• These books did last for at least 250 years or so (supporting Houston's conclusion that books in antiquity had a useful life of 100-300 years), however, these authorial copies of Aristotle's and Theophrastus's works were not always available for use because at some point the collection was buried in a trench!
• The collection, though preserved over two centuries by the time it came to Rome, passed into many different hands and was transported across a wide geographical region. Different communities with their own agendas and priorities controlled access to these texts.

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Gamble, Harry Y. Books and Readers in the Early Church: A History of Early Christian Texts. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995.

Houston, George W. Inside Roman Libraries: Book Collections and Their Management in Antiquity. Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 2014.

Cicero and his "Original Copy"

In a letter to his long time friend Atticus, Cicero informs his friend that he had finished revising an essay and was sending it his way for publication;

"I am glad that you were not disappointed in that expectation: but nevertheless I am sending you the same essay somewhat more carefully revised—and it is indeed the original copy (ἀρχέτυπον) itself with interlineations and corrections in many places. Get this copied on large paper (macrocollum) and read it privately to your guests, but, as you love me, when they are cheerful and have had a good dinner, lest they vent their wrath on me, though really angry with you." (At. 16.3)

This letter was previously discussed in an earlier post (here) that interacts with Cicero's mention of "large paper" (macrocollum). What I wanted to highlight today is Cicero's mention of an "original copy" or ἀρχέτυπον. In this context, it sems to function as a synonym for "autograph." This is mainly because this "source copy" of Cicero's composition contains his own interlinear corrections and must be the corrected original-composition. I find it interesting that, even though the authorial copy is in view (the autograph), the text was under some amount of flux as Cicero continued to revise and polish the work. As long as the autograph remained under Cicero's control, the text was subject to change. As soon as Atticus receives this ἀρχέτυπον, copies it onto a macrocollum, and begins to distribute it widely, Cicero would effectively loose control over the textual form and the composition would be fixed.
Cicero understands this fact of publication well for he is afraid that his composition will circulate and be distributed out of his control. In a previous letter to Atticus he wrote concerning the same work,

"I am sending you my de Gloria. You will therefore please to keep it under lock and key as usual: but let select passages be marked for Salvius at least to read when he has got some fitting hearers at a dinner party." (At. 16.2)

Here Cicero is concerned that his piece will be released before he is finished with it so he implores Atticus to keep it under lock and key. It also reveals the potential fluidity of the text at this point as Cicero desires only select portions to be read by a close friend at a diner party. This would provide opportunity for his work to receive some initial exposure while at the same time remaining under Cicero's control.
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English translation:( http://perseus.uchicago.edu/perseus-cgi/citequery3.pl?dbname=PerseusLatinTexts&getid=1&query=Cic.%20Att.%2016.3.)


Latin text: (http://perseus.uchicago.edu/perseus-cgi/citequery3.pl?dbname=PerseusLatinTexts&query=Cic.%20Att.%2016.3&getid=0)

What Are the New Testament Autographs?

I am privileged to have an article published in the June issue of the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society;

"What are the NT Autographs? An Examination of the Doctrine of Inspiration and Inerrancy in Light of Greco-Roman Publication." JETS 59/2 (June 2016): 287-308.

The abstract reads;

"This article explores the definition of the NT "autographs" as articulated in various inerrancy doctrinal statements. It begins by sketching the history of the doctrine of the inerrancy of the "autographs," followed by some modern criticisms of the doctrine. Greco-Roman publication composition and publication practices are surveyed by investigating three figures from the beginning of the Roman Imperial age through to its height: Cicero, Pliny the Younger, and Galen. Four extant examples of ancient papyrus "autographs" are examined, illustrating the draft and rewriting stages of composition. After analyzing Greco-Roman publication, a definition is proposed: in reference to the NT, the "autographs," as often discussed in biblical inerrancy doctrinal statements, should be defined as the completed authorial work which was released by the author for circulation and copying, not earlier draft versions or layers of composition."

A significant portion of the article focuses on select quotations from the letters and writings of Cicero, Pliny, and Galen illustrating that the writing process was often a long process which involved writing and rewriting. Friends and associates, scribes, and personal secretaries would often be a part of the editing process as well. All the while it was expected that these early draft stages of composition would not circulate beyond the immediate circle of associates who were offering feedback to these initial stages of composition. The key event that signaled the end of this process was the releasing of the work, by the author, for general circulation by the author's circle of acquaintances.
I also bring into the discussion a few extant examples of papyrus autographs. This is merely to illustrate that, usually, early stages of the writing process were characterized by rewriting, editing, deletions, and corrections. These papyrus copies were obviously not meant for wider circulation because they were incomplete. Of course, the event that would signal the completion of the composition process would be the releasing of the document for circulation by the author's associates.
Therefore, I think that, in light of this practice, the doctrinal statements should define the New Testament "autographs" in the same manner, that is, the completed form of the New Testament writings that were released for circulation.

Valentin de Boulogne, Apostle Paul Writing

Multiple Drafts, Multiple Autographs

There are only a few examples of authorial copies and first drafts (autographs) from antiquity. Sean Alexander Gurd in Work in Progress: Literary Revision as Social Performance in Ancient Rome, listed out several accepted examples of literary "autographs" from antiquity (note 44 pages 132-133).

P. Berol. 11632 (2nd cen. CE)

P. Köln VI 245 (3rd cen. CE)

PSI I 17 (3-5th cen CE)

P. Köln III 128 (1st cen. CE)

P. Ross. Georg. I 11 (3rd cen. CE)

P. Oxy VII 1015 (3rd cen. CE)

P. Berol. 10559A-B + P. Berol. 10558 (4th cen. CE)

Besides these literary "autographs," Gurd also mentioned several "documentary" drafts of letters, wills, and contracts. Maryline G. Parcia in Ptocheia, or, Odysseus in Disguise at Troy: P. Köln VI 245 (American Studies in Papyrology 31) also listed several literary "autographs" in note 7 pages 3-4 (I have not included the duplicate papyri that were already noted by Gurd above).

P. Giss. 3 (117 CE)

P. Cairo Cat J 67097 (6th cen. CE draft of Dioscorus of Aphrodite)

Heitsch I (1st cen. CE) text on wooden tablets

A. Carlini, "Nuovi papiiri fiorentini," ASNP 35 (1966), 5-11 (1st cen. CE)

P. Oxy XXXVII 2816 (3rd cen. CE)

P. Oxy L 3537 (3rd-4th cen. CE)

P. Oxy L 3539 (3rd-4th cen. CE)

P. Oxy LIII 3702 (2nd-3rd cen. CE)

P. Oxy LIV 3723 (2nd cen. CE)

P. Yale II 105 (1st cen. CE)

P. Lond. 137 (2nd cen. CE)

Each of these ancient examples of papyrus "autographs" (and other writing materials) have extensive marginal or interlinear corrections and re-writings. It is these markings (usually in the same hand as the main body of text) that indicate to papyrologists that these documents were unfinished and in the draft stage of composition. The assumption is that a completed work of literature would not have these types of extensive re-writings.These few examples give us a first hand glimpse of what the first-drafts of New Testament and other early Christian writings may have looked like before they were completed and released for copying and circulation.

P. Köln VI 245 (3rd cen. CE) Detail of interlinear alterations.

P. Oxy VII 1015 (3rd cen. CE) Authorial Draft of an Encomium.

P. Köln VI 245 (3rd cen. CE) Detail of interlinear alterations.

[UPDATE]
I published a paper in 2016 that utilized a couple of the autographs referenced here.

"What are the NT Autographs? An Examination of the Doctrine of Inspiration and Inerrancy in Light of Greco-Roman Publication." JETS 59/2 (June 2016): 287-308.