Papyrus 28
Encyclopedia
Papyrus 28 designated by 𝔓28, is an early copy of the New Testament
New Testament
The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....

 in Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

. It is a papyrus
Papyrus
Papyrus is a thick paper-like material produced from the pith of the papyrus plant, Cyperus papyrus, a wetland sedge that was once abundant in the Nile Delta of Egypt....

 manuscript
Biblical manuscript
A biblical manuscript is any handwritten copy of a portion of the text of the Bible. The word Bible comes from the Greek biblia ; manuscript comes from Latin manu and scriptum...

 of the Gospel of John
Gospel of John
The Gospel According to John , commonly referred to as the Gospel of John or simply John, and often referred to in New Testament scholarship as the Fourth Gospel, is an account of the public ministry of Jesus...

, it contains only one leaf with the text of the Gospel of John 6:8-12.17-22. The manuscript paleographically
Palaeography
Palaeography, also spelt paleography is the study of ancient writing. Included in the discipline is the practice of deciphering, reading, and dating historical manuscripts, and the cultural context of writing, including the methods with which writing and books were produced, and the history of...

 has been assigned to the late 3rd century.

Description

The text is written in medium sized semi-uncial. It is a single leaf, written in 12 lines per page (originally 25 lines). It uses the nomina sacra
Nomina sacra
Nomina sacra means "sacred names" in Latin, and can be used to refer to traditions of abbreviated writing of several frequently occurring divine names or titles in early Greek language Holy Scripture...

, but incomplete. The handwriting is quite similar to P. Oxy. 1358. Originally it had 13 cm by 20 cm. Text is written in 25 lines per page.

Text

The Greek text of this codex is a representative of the Alexandrian text-type
Alexandrian text-type
The Alexandrian text-type , associated with Alexandria, is one of several text-types used in New Testament textual criticism to describe and group the textual character of biblical manuscripts...

 (rather proto-Alexandrian). Aland
Kurt Aland
Kurt Aland was a German Theologian and Professor of New Testament Research and Church History. He founded the Institut für neutestamentliche Textforschung in Münster and served as its first director for many years...

 placed it in Category I. According to Aland it represents a "normal text". This manuscript displays a closest agreement with 𝔓75
Papyrus 75
Papyrus 75 is an early Greek New Testament papyrus.- Description :Originally '[it] contained about 144 pages ... of which 102 have survived, either in whole or in part.' It 'contains about half the text of ... two Gospels' – Luke and John in Greek...

 (in 7 out of 10 variants). According to Grenfell and Hunt it is closer to Vaticanus
Codex Vaticanus
The Codex Vaticanus , is one of the oldest extant manuscripts of the Greek Bible , one of the four great uncial codices. The Codex is named for the residence in the Vatican Library, where it has been stored since at least the 15th century...

 than to Sinaiticus
Codex Sinaiticus
Codex Sinaiticus is one of the four great uncial codices, an ancient, handwritten copy of the Greek Bible. It is an Alexandrian text-type manuscript written in the 4th century in uncial letters on parchment. Current scholarship considers the Codex Sinaiticus to be one of the best Greek texts of...

. Only in one case it supports Codex Alexandrinus
Codex Alexandrinus
The Codex Alexandrinus is a 5th century manuscript of the Greek Bible,The Greek Bible in this context refers to the Bible used by Greek-speaking Christians who lived in Egypt and elsewhere during the early history of Christianity...

 against Sinaiticus and Vaticanus (John 6:11). Grenfell and Hunt noted that text is not "very correctly spelled". It has five unique readings. In John 6:10 it has πεντακισ]χιλειοι, ελεβεν instead of ελαβεν, in 6:19 ενγυς instead of εγγυς, in 6:20 φοβεισθαι instead of φοβεισθε, in 6:22 ιδεν instead of ειδεν.

History

The manuscript was found together with 3rd-4th century documents.

It is currently housed at the Pacific School of Religion
Pacific School of Religion
Pacific School of Religion is an ecumenical seminary located in Berkeley, California. It maintains covenantal relationships with the United Church of Christ, the United Methodist Church and the Disciples of Christ, providing all necessary expectations for candidates to their ordained ministries....

 (Pap. 2) in Berkeley
Berkeley, California
Berkeley is a city on the east shore of the San Francisco Bay in Northern California, United States. Its neighbors to the south are the cities of Oakland and Emeryville. To the north is the city of Albany and the unincorporated community of Kensington...

.

Further reading

  • B. P. Grenfell
    Bernard Pyne Grenfell
    Bernard Pyne Grenfell was an English scientist and Egyptologist and a member of The Queen's College, Oxford.With his friend and colleague, Arthur Surridge Hunt, he took part in the archaeological dig of Oxyrhynchus and discovered many ancient manuscripts known as the Oxyrhynchus Papyri, including...

     & A. S. Hunt, Oxyrynchus Papyri OP XIII, (London 1919), pp. 8–10.

External links

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