Scholarly Reflections
Pick, Bernhard. "Chapter Nine: The Oxyrhynchus-finds." Paralipomena: Remains of Gospels and Sayings of Christ. Chicago: Open Court Publishing Company, 1908, 31-40.
Here Pick gathers two different gospel fragments, discovered in 1903 and 1905, published in 1904 and 1908 respectively, as well as a collection of sayings discovered in 1897 and 1903 (Pick 1908, 31). The dates emphasize the current nature of scholarshiop in Pick's book, itself published in 1908. These were all recent finds. The gospel fragments Pick takes to be Egyptian, before 150 A.D. In the first, Jesus speaks of his provision for his disciples. When they ask him when they will see him, Jesus says that they should not be ashamed and that they have hidden the key of knowledge (Pick 1908, 32).
The second Gospel fragment is longer than the first, but still relatively brief. In this narrative Jesus and his disciples are walking in the temple's place of purification but are defiled. Jesus confronts the Pharisees and accuses them of washing in defiled waters and being unclean, compared to himself and the disciples, who have been washed "in the waters of eternal life" (Pick 1908, 33).
The Logia are a collection of seven sayings from one source and six from another. They appear to be relatively self-contained statements (Pick 1908, 34ff). The logia are difficult to interpret but tend to endorse a law-based view of life in which the true believer is dedicated to particular forms of outward and inward piety.