Parchment

Biblical Text

Parchment appears in 2 Timothy 4:13. Paul asks Timothy to bring the cloak he had left at the house of Carpus in Troas. He adds that Timothy should also bring the books, "but especially the parchments" (KJV). Among Korean translations, the New Korean Revised Version renders the phrase as "leather paper," while the New Korean Standard Version and others render it as "parchment." Church tradition understands 2 Timothy as a letter Paul wrote from prison near the end of his life, so this verse is read as one of his last personal requests.

Background

The word in the Greek original is the plural of membrana (μεμβράνα), a loanword from the Latin membrana ("membrane, thin skin").

Parchment is not made by tanning animal skins. Instead, the hair and fat are removed, and the skin is stretched taut, dried, and then shaved thin. Although the Korean term contains the word for "sheep," goat and calf skins were also used. The English word parchment is etymologically connected to Pergamum (the Pergamos of the Bible), a city in Asia Minor. A story that parchment was developed in this city has been handed down since antiquity, but it has not been confirmed as historical fact.

The other writing material in wide use at the time was papyrus, made from processed reeds. Parchment was more expensive than papyrus but tougher and more durable. Both sides of a sheet could be written on, and the surface could be scraped clean and reused. In 2 John 1:12, the "paper" of "paper and ink" is commonly understood to be papyrus.

Parchment and the Transmission of Scripture

Parchment played a major role in the transmission of the biblical text. Most of the Dead Sea Scrolls were written on animal skin. In Judaism, the Torah scrolls read in the synagogue are still copied by hand on the skins of ritually clean animals. The great fourth-century manuscripts containing both the Old and New Testaments, such as Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus, are likewise books (codices) written on parchment. Second Timothy 4:13 is also cited as evidence that parchment was already in use as a writing material in the New Testament era.

Interpretation and Issues

The text does not say what the "books" and "parchments" Paul mentioned were. Scholars have proposed the following views:

• That they were copies of the Old Testament Scriptures
• That they were Paul's own writings or copies of his letters
• That they were blank parchment notebooks for notes

None of these views has been established. In addition, some scholars read the Greek word translated "especially" as meaning "that is." On this reading, the books and the parchments are not two different items; rather, the phrase explains that the books were parchment books. Accounts of what Paul intended to do with them are speculation beyond the text.

In the Korean Church

In Korean preaching, this verse is cited mainly in two ways. One holds up Paul, who asked for his books and parchments even while imprisoned and facing death, as a model of lifelong study and reading of the Word. The other points to his request for his cloak as an illustration of his lonely and destitute circumstances. The English preacher Charles Spurgeon's sermon on this verse is also widely known.