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A New Testament papyrus is a copy of a portion of the New Testament made on papyrus. To date, over 140 such papyri are known. In general, they are considered the earliest witnesses to the original text of the New Testament.[1]
This elite status among New Testament manuscripts only began in the 20th century. The grouping was first introduced by Caspar René Gregory, who assigned papyri texts the Blackletter character 𝔓 followed by a superscript number. This number refers not to the age of the papyrus, but to the order in which it was registered.[2] Before 1900, only 9 papyri manuscripts were known, and only one had been cited in a critical apparatus (𝔓11 by Constantin von Tischendorf). These 9 papyri were just single fragments, except for 𝔓15, which consisted of a single whole leaf.[3] The discoveries of the twentieth century brought about the earliest known New Testament manuscript fragments.[4] Kenyon in 1912 knew 14 papyri,[5] Aland in his first edition of Kurzgefasste... in 1963 enumerated 76 papyri, in 1989 there were 96 known papyri, and in 2008 124 papyri. As of 2021, a total of 141 papyri are known, although some of the numbers issued were later deemed to be fragments of the same original manuscript.
Among the most important are the Chester Beatty Papyri: 𝔓45, which contains the Gospels and Acts; 𝔓46, which contains the Pauline epistles; and 𝔓47, which contains the Book of Revelation. All of these are thought to date from sometime in the third century.[2]
Also significant are the Bodmer Papyri: 𝔓66, which contains the Gospel of John;[6] and 𝔓75, which contains the Gospels of Luke and John.[7] These early manuscripts are more complete, allowing scholars to better examine their textual character.[8]
Not all of the manuscripts are simply New Testament texts: 𝔓59, 𝔓60, 𝔓63, 𝔓80 are texts with commentaries; 𝔓2, 𝔓3, and 𝔓44 are lectionaries; 𝔓50, 𝔓55, and 𝔓78 are talismans; and 𝔓10, 𝔓12, 𝔓42, 𝔓43, 𝔓62, 𝔓72, and 𝔓99 belong to other miscellaneous texts, such as writing scraps, glossaries, or songs.[9]
Every papyrus is cited in Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece.
- ^ Nestle-Aland 1996
- ^ a b Law 2012, p. 95
- ^ Nestle-Aland 1996, pp. 83-84, 87
- ^ '𝔓52, 𝔓90, 𝔓98, and 𝔓104 all dating to the 2nd century
- ^ Kenyon, F. G., Handbook to the Textual Criticism of the New Testament, London2, 1912, p. 129.
- ^ Floyd V. Filson, A New Papyrus Manuscript of the Gospel of John, The Biblical Archeologist (Vol. XX), p. 54.
- ^ Aland and Aland, The Text of the New Testament (1989), p. 244
- ^ In fact, the preservation level of 𝔓66 surprised scholars because the first 26 leaves were basically fully intact, and even the stitching of the binding remained.
- ^ Nestle-Aland 1996, p. 85
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