Papyrus 47 signed by ⁴⁷, 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

Manuscript

A manuscript or handwrite is written information that has been manually created by someone or some people, such as a hand-written letter, as opposed to being printed or reproduced some other way...

 of the Book of Revelation

Book of Revelation

The Book of Revelation is the final book of the New Testament. The title came into usage from the first word of the book in Koine Greek: apokalupsis, meaning "unveiling" or "revelation"...

, it contains Rev. 9:10-11:3; 11:5-16:15; 16:17-17:2. 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 3rd century.

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...

. 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...

 ascribed it as a Normal text, and placed it in Category I.
The text of this manuscript is closest to Codex 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...

, and they are witnesses for one of early textual types of the Book of Revelation. Another type is represented by manuscripts Papyrus 115

Papyrus 115

Papyrus 115 is a fragmented manuscript of the New Testament written in Greek on papyrus. It consists of 12 fragments of a codex containing parts of the Book of Revelation. It dates to the 3rd century, ca. 225-275 AD...

, 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...

, and Codex Ephraemi.

It is currently housed at the Chester Beatty Library

Chester Beatty Library

The Chester Beatty Library was established in Dublin, Ireland in 1950, to house the collections of mining magnate, Sir Alfred Chester Beatty. The present library, on the grounds of Dublin Castle, opened on February 7, 2000, the 125th anniversary of Sir Alfred's birth and was named European Museum...

 (Inv. 14. 1. 527) in Dublin.

Further reading

• F. G. Kenyon
  Frederic G. Kenyon
  Sir Frederic George Kenyon GBE KCB TD FBA FSA was a British paleographer and biblical and classical scholar. He occupied from 1889 to 1931 a series of posts at the British Museum...
  
  , The Chester Beatty Biblical Papyri III, (London, 1934).

External links

• Image ⁴⁷ recto
• Image ⁴⁷ verso