Martial's Epigrams and Small Codices in the First Century
In preparing for the Tyndale House podcast: "What does a manuscript look like?" —
I (wrongly) assumed first century manuscripts would have been scrolls, but Dirk Jongkind pointed out that the Roman poet Martial talks about small codices in the late first century (~mid 80s) in his Epigrams (Loeb vol. 94; Book I, section 2):
Is it possible that the New Testament writers used them?
Paul tells Timothy to “bring the books (βιβλία), especially the parchments” (2 Tim 4:13), although the word βιβλίον can be scroll or codex/book.
In Luke 4:17, “the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to [Jesus]. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it is written…” (ESV)