of Solomon (earlier Jewish religious poetry that is often bound with the later Odes) follow, until the beginning of Psalm 17:38 and the end of the manuscript has been lost. However, the Harris manuscript is a late copy — certainly no earlier than the 15th century. In 1912, F. C. Burkitt discovered an older manuscript of the Odes of Solomon in the British Museum (now British Library Add MS 14538). The Codex Nitriensis came from the Monastery of the Syrian in Wadi El Natrun, sixty miles west of Cairo. It presents Ode 17:7b to the end of Ode 42, followed by the Psalms of Solomon in one continuous numbering. Nitriensis is written in far denser script than the Harris manuscript, which often makes it illegible. However, Nitriensis is earlier than Harris by about five centuries (although Mingana dated it to the 13th century). In 1955–6, Martin Bodmer acquired a number of manuscripts. Papyrus Bodmer XI appears to be a Greek scrap-book of Christian religious literature compiled in Egypt in the 3rd century. It includes the entirety of Ode 11 (headed ΩΔΗ ΣΟΛΟΜΩΝΤΟϹ), which includes a short section in the middle of the Ode that does not occur in the Harris version of it. Internal evidence suggests that this additional material is original to the Ode, and that the later Harris manuscript has omitted it. Authorship Language and date Although earlier scholars thought the Odes were originally written in Greek or Hebrew, there is now a consensus that Syriac/Aramaic was the original language. Their place of origin seems likely to have been the region of Syria. Estimates of the date of composition range from the first to the third century AD, with many settling on the second century. Some have claimed that Ode 4 discusses the closing of the temple at Leontopolis in Egypt which would date this writing about 73 CE. One of the strong arguments for an early date is the discovery of references to, and perhaps even quotations from, the Odes in the writings of St. Ignatius of Antioch. Possible allusions were also made by Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, which also supports an early date. The Odes have clear similarities to the Gospel of John, which suggests the writer was in the same community as where the book was written. There is wide agreement that the Odes are related to the Gospel of John and the Dead Sea