The 'labelling' of scrolls by author

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Eoghan

Puritan Board Senior
I have been a Christian nigh on 40 years and only today do I read of the way that scrolls were stored with labels. This makes sense in as much as one scroll looks much like another. Labelling the scroll or affixing a label makes sense. These early labels do not form part of the text and so when there was a transition to books it didn't make the transition. Gospels were not published anonymously as we might suppose but were labelled and their authors known.

Thucydides and Herodotus did mention their name in the body of the text . Plutarch and Suetonius did not.

Anyone know where there is an article explaining this clearly?
 
I'm sure any text on textual criticism will mention it. Sometimes, though, as scrolls might have been written on both sides and then stacked together, the last page of Book 1 might be the first page on accident by Book 2 of a different author.
 
And while the gospels might have been labeled and stored, that labeling wasn't itself part of the "inspired process." "Kata Markon" wasn't written by Mark.
 
I think it should be explained in every sunday school! I grew up with the belief that Luke's Gospel was anonymous (liberal minister!) I think we need to understand the cultural context of texts written on scrolls. Discoveries such as Herculaneum help undermine the stigma of anonymity that liberal scholars revel in.
 
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