Top Qs
Timeline
Chat
Perspective

List of New Testament papyri

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

List of New Testament papyri
Remove ads

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]

Thumb
Verso of papyrus 𝔓37

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.

Remove ads

List of all registered New Testament papyri

Summarize
Perspective
  • The P-numbers are the standard system of Gregory-Aland.
  • Dates are estimated to the year range shown.
  • Content is given to the nearest chapter; verses are sometimes listed. Thus, many of the papyri are small fragments, not whole chapters. For instance, 𝔓52 contains 5 verses out of the 40 verses in John chapter 18.
Manuscripts in beige rows belong to the Oxyrhynchus Papyri (𝔓78, 𝔓90, 𝔓104, 𝔓115, 𝔓137)
Manuscripts in light cyan rows belong to the Bodmer Papyri (𝔓66, 𝔓72, 𝔓73, 𝔓74, 𝔓75)
Manuscripts in light pink rows belong to the Chester Beatty Papyri (𝔓45, 𝔓46, 𝔓47, 𝔓97, 𝔓99)
  • Digital images are referenced with direct links to the hosting web pages. The quality and accessibility of the images is as follows:
Gold color indicates high resolution color images available online.
Tan color indicates high resolution color images available locally, not online.
Light tan color indicates only a small fraction of manuscript pages with color images available online.
Light gray color indicates black/white or microfilm images available online.
Violet color indicates high resolution ultraviolet images available online.

Papyrus 1–50

More information Name, Date ...

Papyrus 51–100

More information Name, Date ...

Papyrus 101–

More information Name, Date ...
Remove ads

Distribution based on content

Summarize
Perspective
More information Book, Early ...

Note: "Early" manuscripts are manuscripts dated firmly from the fourth century or earlier. Roughly half of the papyri are "early". Some manuscripts contain content from more than one New Testament book, so the numbers above do not directly correspond to the total number of manuscripts.

Remove ads

See also

Lists
Other articles

Notes

References

Loading related searches...

Wikiwand - on

Seamless Wikipedia browsing. On steroids.

Remove ads