Signs Radio John Dickson brings an 1,800-year-old song back to life
You'd be forgiven for not having ever heard of P. Oxy. XV 1786, otherwise known as the "Oxyrhynchus hymn". It's a papyrus manuscript written in Greek and was discovered, alongside numerous other papyri, in the ancient buried city of Oxyrhynchus, Egypt in 1918. We don't have the entire hymn, but what we do have goes a little like this:
- Together all the eminent ones of God
- Night] nor day Let it/them be silent. Let the luminous stars not,
- [Let the rushings of winds, the sources] of all surging rivers [cease]. While we hymn
- Father and Son and Holy Spirit, let all the powers answer, Amen, amen, Strength, praise,
- [and glory forever to God], the sole giver of all good things. Amen, amen.
In part one of a two-part episode series, we speak to the two driving forces of a documentary that's bringing this fragment from our ancient past into the present in a brand-new way. Mark Hadley and John Dickson are two friends and collaborators who have just released The First Hymn, a documentary chronicling the discovery of this hymn fragment, then breathing new life into it thanks to modern scholarship, as well as modern songwriters.
In this episode, we speak to John Dickson. John is an academic, historian and advocate for faith in a secular world. He's also the host of the popular Undeceptions podcast, and host of The First Hymn.
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