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Papyrus 𝔓

New Testament manuscript
Name	P. Oxy. 208
Text	John 1; 16; 20 †
Date	~250
Script	Greek
Found	Oxyrhynchus, Egypt
Now at	British Library
Cite	Grenfell & Hunt, Oxyrhynchus Papyri II, 1899, pp. 1 ff; XV, pp. 8-12.
Size	12.5 cm by 25 cm
Type	Western text-type
Category	I
Hand	documentary hand
Note	close to Codex Sinaiticus

Papyrus 5 is an early copy of the New Testament in Greek. It is a papyrus manuscript of the Gospel of John. It is designated by the siglum 𝔓 in the Gregory-Aland numbering of New Testament manuscripts. Using the study of comparative writing styles (palaeography), it has been assigned to the early 3rd century. The papyrus is housed in the British Library. It has survived in a very fragmentary condition, which has resulted in differing ways of transcribing the text.

Description

The manuscript is a fragment of three leaves, written in one column per page, 27 lines per page. The surviving text of John are verses 1:23-31,33-40; 16:14-30; 20:11-17,19-20,22-25.

It was written in a documentary hand, in a round, upright uncial of medium size. It uses the nomina sacra throughout (sacred names, these being words/titles considered sacred in Christianity), with the following: (ΙΗΝ ΙΗΣ ΠΡ ΠΡΑ ΠΡΣ ΘΥ), though not for ανθρωπος.

There is a tendency to brevity, especially in omitting unnecessary pronouns and conjunctions.

Text

Transcription of the text according to the reconstruction of papyrologist and Biblical scholar Philip W. Comfort.

Scribes and Correctors

In John 1:38 "οι δε" was added superlineary; αυ was deleted by dots above the letters.

In John 16:19 "ο" was added superlineary.

In John 16:29 αυτω was added superlineary.

In John 20:19 και was added superlineary.

Textual character

Grenfell and Hunt

Bernard Grenfell		Arthur Hunt

In John 1:34 it reads ὁ ἐκλεκτός together with the manuscripts 𝔓, א, b, e, ff, syr.

In John 16:17 at line 7 of the recto of the second fragment there appears to be extra space which would require some additional material.

In John 16:20, λυπηθησεσθε originally read λουπηθησεσθε, to which the scribe corrected to λυπηθησεσθε. In 16:21, λυπην originally read λοιπην, to which the scribe corrected to λυπην. In 16:27, it singularly omits εγω. In 20:19 the scribe originally omitted και, but then added it superlinearly later on.

At line 19 of the third folio of the recto (John 20:16) the missing fragment is difficult for a reconstruction. Grenfell & Hunt remarked that there is no space for the ordinary reading ο λεγεται διδασκαλε because a line should have 34 letters, which is too long. Grenfell & Hunt rejected another possible reading κε διδασκαλε, which is found in Codex Bezae (possible conflation), and proposed κε alone, because Domine is found in Codex Vercellensis and in Codex Usserianus I, but in the reconstructed text of the manuscript they did not decide to include this proposed variant to the text:

αρω [λεγει αυτη ιης μαριαμ στραφει

[σα εκεινη λεγει αυτω εβραιστι ραβ

β[ουνι . . . . . . . . . . . λεγει αυτη ιης

All the editors agree that the space is insufficient for ο λεγεται διδασκαλε (John 20,16) but κε alone is too short and it is not supported by any Greek manuscript. Elliott & Parker have suggested ο λεγεται κε. It was supported by Biblical scholar Peter Head. Comfort proposed κε μου though this reading is not supported by any known Greek manuscript. It is close for κε διδασκαλε of Codex Bezae and Old-Latin Magister Domine or Domine.

The Greek text of this codex is considered a representative of the Western text-type. Biblical scholar Kurt Aland ascribed it as a "Normal text", and placed it in Category I of his New Testament manuscript classification system. It stays in close agreement with Codex Sinaiticus against Codex Vaticanus (e.g. John 1:27.34; 16:22.27.28; 20:25). "This agreement is unfortunately obscured by mutilation".

History

The manuscript was discovered at the end of the 19th century by Grenfell and Hunt in Oxyrhynchus, Egypt. The first and third leaves were published in Oxyrhynchus Papyri, Part II (1899), no. 208. Biblical scholar Caspar René Gregory classified it under number 5 on his list. The second leaf (John 16:14-30) was published in 1922 as Oxyrhynchus no. 1781.

It was examined by Grenfell, Hunt, Karl Wessely, Schofield, and Comfort.

It is currently housed at the British Library (Inv. nos. 782, 2484) in London.

See also

• John 1, John 16, John 20
• List of New Testament papyri
• Oxyrhynchus papyri
• Oxyrhynchus Papyri 159 through 207
• Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 209

References

1. ^ Comfort, Philip Wesley; David P. Barrett (2001). The Text of the Earliest New Testament Greek Manuscripts. Wheaton, Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers. p. 73. ISBN 978-0-8423-5265-9.
2. ^ Head, Peter M. (2004). "The Habits of New Testament Copyists Singular Readings in the Early Fragmentary Papyri of John". Biblica. 85: 404.
3. ^ Grenfell, Bernard Pyne; Hunt, Arthur Surridge (1899). The Oxyrynchus Papyri. Vol. 2. London: Oxford University Press. pp. 1–8.
4. Elliott & Parker, The New Testament in Greek IV. The Gospel according to St. John, volume 1, The Papyri (Leiden: Brill, 1995), 34.
5. UBS3, p. 410.
6. ^ Aland, Kurt; Aland, Barbara (1995). The Text of the New Testament: An Introduction to the Critical Editions and to the Theory and Practice of Modern Textual Criticism. Translated by Erroll F. Rhodes. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. p. 96. ISBN 978-0-8028-4098-1.
7. C. R. Gregory, Textkritik des Neuen Testaments III (Leipzig: 1909), p. 1085.
8. Frederic G. Kenyon, "Handbook to the Textual Criticism of the New Testament", London, 1912, p. 42.
9. Karl Wessely, Les plus anciens monuments du christianisme, PO 4/2 (1907), pp. 145–148.
10. "Liste Handschriften: Papyrus 5". Münster: Institute for New Testament Textual Research. Retrieved 13 August 2011.

Further reading

• Grenfell, Bernard Pyne; Hunt, Arthur Surridge (1922). The Oxyrynchus Papyri. Vol. XV. London: Oxford University Press. pp. 8–12.
• C. R. Gregory, "Textkritik des Neuen Testaments", Leipzig 1909, vol. 3, p. 1085.
• Gregory, Caspar René (1908). Die griechischen Handschriften des Neuen Testament. Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs. p. 45.
• Karl Wessely, Les plus anciens monuments du christianisme, PO 4/2 (1907), pp. 145–148.

External links

• Digital Images of 𝔓 online at the CSNTM

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