ANIMADVERSIONES The figure of a blind man in the light of the papyrological evidence* Although the importance of papyrology for New Testament research is generally accepted today, the use of ancient documentary papyri, even if the first three commentaries have been already published in the series Papyrologische Kommentare zum Neuen Testament 1, is still not as popular in biblical commentaries as that of Jewish and Hellenistic literature. In this study, I would like in some way to fill this gap, focusing on the way in which the papyrological evidence illustrates the figure of a blind man 2. This study focuses on the historical and cultural context of the Bible, and so it uses social science criticism, the approach which focused origi- nally on three main groups: the elite, slaves and women, but since 1980 the interest has also extended to marginal groups (Randgruppen) 3 of which blind persons are an example. When the Bible refers to them, three charac- teristics are often present or implied: 1. he has no name (nearly all except Bartimaeus in Mark 10,46-52), 2. he acts (during the healing process of a miracle) passively (Matt 12,22-23; 15,30-31; Mark 2,22-26; John 9,1-7) and 3. he is a beggar (explicitly stated in Mark 10,46-52; Luke 18,35 and John 9,8). In what follows we will try to illustrate these characteristics and their relationship to the blindness using the evidence of the documentary papyri 4. * This paper is published with the support of the IGA foundation of Palac- ky University in Olomouc, Czech Republic, project nr. 436100014. P. ARZT-GRABNER, Philemon (Papyrologische Kommentare zum Neuen 1 Testament 1; Göttingen 2003), P. ARZT-GRABNER – R.E. KRITZER – A. PA- PATHOMAS – F. WINTER, 1. Korinther (Papyrologische Kommentare zum Neuen Testament 2; Göttingen 2006), C. KREINECKER, 2. Thessaloniker (Papyrologi- sche Kommentare zum Neuen Testament 3; Göttingen 2010). For details see “ Pa p y r o l o g i s c h e Kommentare zum Neuen Testament (PKNT)”, h t t p : / / www.uni-salzburg.at/bwkg/pknt (cited 10th May 2010). In this paper I will focus mainly on blind men, but because the situation 2 of blind women was to a great extent different its description would go beyond the scope of this study. Cf. H. GRASSL, “Grundsätzliches und Methodisches zur historischen 3 Randgruppenforschung ”, Soziale Randgruppen und Außenseiter im Altertum. Referate vom Symposion ‘Soziale Randgruppen und antike Sozialpolitik’ in Graz, 21.-23. 9. 1987 (eds. I. WEILER – H. GRASSL) (Graz 1988) 41. Among those “papyri” I also include writing on other materials (namely 4