Going Around in Circles

The repeated discussions of paleographic opinions I have offered can generate a feeling of simply going around in circles. and, when paleographic analysis proceeds without reference to securely dated parallels, going around in circles is exactly what we are doing. This is not to say that useful insights cannot be garnered from the comparison of multiple manuscripts with unknown dates (Brent Nongbri, God’s Library: The Archaeology of the Earliest Christian Manuscripts, 154-155).