Colin Henderson Roberts

Colin Henderson Roberts (1909-1990) was a classical scholar, publisher and Secretary to the Delegates of Oxford University Press. He received the 1973 Birthday Honours for services to papyrology. He was born on 8 June 1909 in Queen Elizabeth Walk, Stoke Newington, London.

Works

• Manuscript, Society and Belief in Early Christian Egypt, C. H. Roberts, Hon. D. Litt., 1977.
• Birth of the Codex, by Colin Henderson Roberts, Theodore Cressy Skeat. First published in 1954, this book examines the process by which the Codex--the traditional form of the western book--replaced the scroll as the primary vehicle for literature. Drawing upon evidence accumulated in the last thirty years, this edition gives fresh insight into the remarkable role the early Christian church played in the transformation of the printed word. C.H. Roberts studied the process by which in the early centuries of our era the roll as the vehicle for literature was replaced by the codex, which has remained the format of the book ever since. New evidence that has accumulated in the last thirty years has set some of the problems in a new light and in this book, published here for the first time in paperback, the authors re-examine these and offer a different explanation for the remarkable part in the transformation played by the early Church.
• Two Biblical Papyri in the John Rylands Library, Manchester, 1936.
• The Antinoopolis Papyri ... Edited with translations and notes,1950, by C. H. Robers, etc. With plates, by John Wintour Baldwin Barns, Colin Henderson Roberts
• Oxford Palaeographical Handbooks, 1955. General editors: R. W. Hunt, C. H. Roberts, F. Wormald

Criticism to Birth of the Codex

"This is certainly a book on a specialist subject, but it has all the qualities of a good detective story and will fascinate its readers"

— Joseph Robinson Church Times

"The book is written in a lucid and readable style and the major arguments are clear even to the uninformed reader"

— Christian Week

"of primary importance to students of the formation of the New Testament and the development of the early church"

— Journal of Theological Studies

External links

• Biography of C. H. Roberts