What did Paul write on?

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Eoghan

Puritan Board Senior
When Paul was writing to the churches what was he writing on? Parchment or velum? I seem to recall that part of Roman taxation on Egypt was levied in papyrus.

Just curious what he used and what the relative cost would have been.
 
Parchment and papyrus are the obvious choices. Vellum is an expensive subset of parchment, made from a young animal (think of calfskin and leather Bibles; the former is part of the latter group but distinguished as higher quality). It's not clear when the distinction was first made, but probably after biblical times. I suspect that in NT times letters would generally have been written on papyrus (see 2 John 1:12), while religious and other texts that would be consulted regularly would normally have been scrolls of parchment. But in 2 Tim 4:13 it is clear that not all of the scrolls were parchment (just the ones Paul was most interested in).
 
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