I am not a papyrologist or a classicist, rather I'm a computer scientist, so my expertise is unfortunately not in _what_ the scrolls say, rather how we get there. That being said I think and hope that there will be a trove of things that has no known provenance at all, completely lost works that elude the public memory.
replyYour response reminds me of Nigel Richards :)
replyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigel_Richards
Congratulations, and thank-you!
Well what were your first thoughts when you decoded the script, besides the obvious Eureka, after making some sense of the texts?
replyProbably a lot more texts of Epicurean philosophy and not a whole lot else unfortunately according to my papyrologist friend.
replyThat's what was thought, but maybe not -- only one of the three so far looks Epicurean, which is not what was expected. Maybe it's a fluke, but historians are buzzing a bit about whether it might be broader than expected.
replyWhy would Epicurean philosophy be unfortunate?
replyI was under the impression that there was almost nothing left of that school of thought, and that it’s writings had been destroyed.
What would you like to have instead?
The unfortunate part is the lack of anything else therein, not that it's Epicurean philosophy.
replyThe Jewish Talmud uses Epicurus's name as a term meaning "heretic".
replyHere's a list. The scrolls are from a library that burned in 79 AD.
replyWoah there was a lost Homer epic comedy about a bumbling fool named Margites?
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