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From the Heb. verb gnz, “keep, enclose,” the genizah is a side room in a synagogue (usually a cellar or attic) in which to keep old, discarded, damaged, or in some way unserviceable MSS. Because these writings contain the name of God, they are not to be destroyed. Older Judaism also placed heretical texts in the genizah. Most of the older synagogues had a genizah. The most famous genizah was found in Old Cairo, on the second floor of the Ezra Synagogue, built in a.d. 882. Discovered as early as 1753 by Simon of Geldern, it was made famous by Solomon Schechter, who in May 1896…

“Agrapha” is a term used for sayings of Jesus not recorded in the NT Gospels. The word means “unwritten things” and presupposes that such sayings come from oral tradition that is independent of the canonical writings. 1. The following ancient sources contain agrapha: (1) some textual variants of the NT Bible MSS (e.g., D after Luke 6:5); (2) NT writings outside the Gospels (e.g., Acts 20:35); (3) early apostolic and patristic works up to the third century (e.g., Clement of Alexandria Strom.  1.24.158); (4) papyrus fragments outside the NT (e.g., OxyPap  1224); and (5) later Jew…