Rylands Library Papyrus P52
Encyclopedia
The Rylands Library Papyrus P52, also known as the St John's fragment, is a fragment from a papyrus
codex
, measuring only 3.5 by 2.5 inches (8.9 by 6 cm) at its widest; and conserved with the Rylands Papyri
at the John Rylands University Library
(Gr. P. 457), Manchester
, UK
. The front (recto) contains parts of seven lines from the Gospel of John
18:31–33, in Greek
, and the back (verso) contains parts of seven lines from verses 37–38. Since 2007, the papyrus has been on permanent display in the library's
Deansgate building.
Although Rylands
52 is generally accepted as the earliest extant record of a canonical New Testament
text, the dating of the papyrus is by no means the subject of consensus among critical scholars. The style of the script is strongly Hadrian
ic, which would suggest a most probable date somewhere between 117 CE and 138 CE. But the difficulty of fixing the date of a fragment based solely on paleographic evidence allows a much wider range, potentially extending from before 100 CE past 150 CE.
The fragment of papyrus was among a group acquired on the Egyptian market in 1920 by Bernard Grenfell. The original transcription and translation of the fragment of text was not done until 1934, by Colin H. Roberts. Roberts found comparator hands in papyri then dated between the mid 1st and mid 2nd centuries, with the closest match of Hadrian
ic date. Since this gospel text would be unlikely to have reached Egypt before c. 100 CE he proposed a date in the first half of the 2nd century. Over the 70 years since Roberts' essay, the estimated ages of his comparator undated literary hands have been revised (in common with most other undated antique papyri) towards dates a couple of decades older; while other dated comparator hands have subsequently been suggested with dates ranging into the second half of the 2nd century.
The papyrus is written on both sides, and the surviving portion also includes part of the top and inner margins of the page. The characters in bold style are the ones that can be seen in Papyrus 
52.
Gospel of John
18:31-33 (recto)
Gospel of John
18:37-38 (verso)
There appears insufficient room for the repeated phrase (ΕΙΣ ΤΟΥΤΟ) in the second line of the verso, and it is suggested that these words were inadvertently dropped through haplography
.
The writing is generously scaled – letter forms vary between 0.3 and 0.4 cm in height, lines are spaced approximately 0.5 cm apart, and there is a margin of 2 cm at the top. C.H. Roberts commented; ".. to judge from the spacing and the size of the text, it is unlikely that the format was affected by considerations of economy". This is consistent with the manuscript being intended for public reading. If the original codex did indeed contain the entire text of the canonical Gospel of John, it would have constituted a single quire book of around 130 pages (i.e. 33 large folded papyrus sheets written on both sides); measuring approximately 21 by 20 cm when closed. Roberts noted a glued vertical join in the papyrus slightly inside the inner margin and visible on the verso, indicating that the large sheets used for the codex were likely to have been specially prepared for the purpose, each having been constructed from two standard sized sheets measuring approximately 21 cm by 16 cm, with a central narrower sheet approximately 21 cm by 8 cm constituting the spine. Roberts describes the handwriting as "heavy, rounded and rather elaborate", but nevertheless not the work of "a practised scribe" (i.e. not a professional bookhand). Roberts notes comments that had recently been made by the editors of the Egerton Gospel
; and says similarly it could be said of
52 that it "has a somewhat informal air about it and with no claims to fine writing is yet a careful piece of work".
A total of 114 legible letters are visible on the two sides of the fragment, representing 18 out of the 24 letters of the Greek Alphabet
; beta, zeta, xi, phi, chi, and psi being missing. Roberts noted that the writing is painstaking and rather laboured, with individual letters apparently inked twice (e.g. sigma at line 3 of the recto); and that several letters are inclined to stray away from the notional upper and lower writing lines. One peculiarity is that there are two distinct forms of the letter alpha; most being formed from a separate diagonal stroke and loop, but on the fourth line of the verso, there is an alpha formed by single spiralling loop. These observations support the supposition that the scribe was an educated person writing carefully, rather than a professional scribe writing to order.
In 1977, Roberts surveyed fourteen Christian papyri, comprising all the Christian manuscripts then commonly assessed as possibly having a 2nd century date - and including
52. He considered only three of these texts to have a calligraphic bookhand, such as was then standard in formal manuscripts of Greek literature, or in most Graeco-Jewish biblical scrolls. Of the other eleven, including 
52, he states that their scribes were:
It may be added that the codex of
52, with its good quality papyrus, wide margins, large clear upright letters, short lines, and bilinear writing, would have presented an overall appearance not far from that of professionally written books such as 
64 or 
77, even though its actual letter forms are not as fine, and are closer to documentary exemplars.
52 rests both upon its proposed early dating and upon its geographic dispersal from the presumed site of authorship; traditionally thought to have been Ephesus
. As the fragment is removed from the autograph by at least one step of transmission, the date of authorship for the Gospel of John must be at least a few years prior to the dating of
52. The location of the fragment in Egypt extends that time even further, allowing for the dispersal of the documents from the point of authorship and transmission to the point of discovery. The Gospel of John is perhaps quoted by Justin Martyr
, and hence is highly likely to have been written before c. 160
CE; but many New Testament scholars have argued from the proposed dating of
52 prior to this, that this Gospel must have been written earlier still – indeed not much later than the traditionally accepted date of c. 90 CE, or even before that.
Skepticism about the use of
52 to date the Gospel of John (not about the fragment's authenticity) is based on two issues. First, the papyrus has been rather narrowly dated based on the handwriting alone, without the support of textual evidence. Secondly, in common with every other surviving early Gospel manuscript, this fragment is not from a scroll but from a codex
; a sewn and folded book not a roll. If it dates to the first half of the 2nd century, this fragment would be amongst the earlier surviving examples of a literary codex (around 90
CE, Martial
circulated his poems in codex form, presenting this as a novelty). The year before Roberts published
52, the British Museum
library had acquired papyrus fragments of the Egerton Gospel
(also a codex), and these were published in 1935. Since the text of
52 is that of the canonical Gospel of John
, whereas the Egerton Gospel is not, there was considerable interest amongst biblical scholars as to whether
52 could be dated as the earlier of the two papyri.
52 is a literary text and, in common with almost all such papyri, has no explicit indicator of date. Proposing a date for it required comparison with dated texts, which tend to be documentary (contracts, petitions, letters) and, unlike 
52, are often the work of professional scribes. Roberts proposed four dated papyri as close comparitors: Abb 34 (ca. 110-117 CE), P. Fayum 110 (94 CE), P. London 2078 (81-96 CE), and P. Oslo 22 (127 CE). Of these, P. Fayum 110 is the only one that shares the characteristic dual form of alpha found in 
52; while P. Oslo 22 is most similar in some of the more distinctive letter forms, e.g. eta, mu and iota. Roberts also suggested two literary texts as comparitors; P. Berol. 6845 (a fragment of the Iliad
estimated to date around 100 CE) which he suggested that, other than in the form of the letter alpha, was "the closest parallel to our text that I have been able to find"; and the Egerton Gospel itself (then estimated to date around 150 CE), which he stated had "most of the characteristics of our hand.. though in a less accentuated form". Roberts circulated his assessment to three fellow paleographers; Frederic G. Kenyon
, W. Shubart and HI Bell; who all concurred with his dating of
52 in the first half of the 2nd century. Kenyon suggested another dated comparitor in P. Flor I (153 CE); but Roberts did not consider the similarity to be very close, other than for particular letters, as the overall style of that hand was cursive
. In the same year 1935, Roberts' assessment of date was supported by the independent studies of A. Deissmann, who, while producing no actual evidence, suggested a date in the reigns of Trajan (98-117) or Hadrian (117-138); and in 1936 this dating was supported by Ulrich Wilcken
, on the basis of a comparison between the hand of P52 and those of papyri in the extensive Apollonius archive (dated 113-120).
Subsequently, a number of other comparitor papyri have been suggested, notably P.Oxy. 2533, where a literary text dated to the early 2nd century in a hand very close to
52, has been written on the back of a re-used document in a late 1st century business hand. In addition, the discovery of several other papyrus codices of the early 2nd century, suggested that this form of book was less unusual for literary texts at this date than had previously been assumed. Consequently, until the 1990s, the tendency was to suggest a date for 
52 towards the earlier half of the range suggested by Roberts and his correspondents. However, a cautionary note was raised by the discovery that a papyrus fragment in Cologne constitutes part of the Egerton Gospel. In this fragment the letters gamma and kappa are separated by an apostrophe, a feature very rare in dated 2nd century papyri; which accordingly implies a date for the Egerton Gospel closer to 200 CE - and indicates the perils of ascribing a date for a papyrus text, of which only a small part of two pages survives.
In recent years the early date for
52 favoured by many New Testament
scholars has been challenged by Andreas Schmidt, who favours a date around 170 AD, plus or minus twenty-five years; on the basis of a comparison with Chester Beatty Papyrus X
and with the redated Egerton Gospel. Brent Nongbri has criticized all attempts to establish a paleographic date for papyri like
52 within such narrow ranges. Nongbri collected and published a wide range of dated comparitor manuscripts; demonstrating that, although there are plentiful examples of hands similar to that of 
52 in the early 2nd century, two later dated papyri also had similar hands (P. Mich. inv. 5336, dated to 152 CE; and P.Amh. 2.78, an example first suggested by E.G. Turner, that dates to 184 CE). Nongbri suggested that this implied that older styles of handwriting might persist much longer than some scholars had assumed, and that a prudent margin of error must allow a still wider range of possible dates for the papyrus:
Nevertheless, most biblical scholars continue to favour the earlier dating, though the possibility of a later date cannot be entirely discounted; John Rylands Library continues to maintain Roberts's assessment of the date of
52, that it "may with some confidence be dated in the first half of the second century A.D.", and the date is given as c. 125 in standard reference works.
rather than a scroll
would testify to the very early adoption of this mode of writing amongst Christians, in stark contrast to the invariable practice of contemporary Judaism
. Furthermore, an assessment of the length of 'missing' text between the recto and verso readings corresponds with that in the counterpart canonical Gospel of John; and hence confirms that there are unlikely to have been substantial additions or deletions in this whole portion. Other than two itacisms, and in the probable omission of the second ΕΙΣ ΤΟΥΤΟ from line 2 of the verso,
52 agrees with the Alexandrian text base. In lines 4 and 5 of the recto the reconstructed text reads ΠΑΛΙΝ ΕΙΣ ΤΟ ΠΡΑΙΤΩΡΙΟΝ in agreement with 
66
and with the Codex Vaticanus whereas the Codex Sinaiticus
, Codex Alexandrinus
and the Majority Text all have the alternative word order; ΕΙΣ ΤΟ ΠΡΑΙΤΩΡΙΟΝ ΠΑΛΙΝ, but this is hardly a significant variant. Since this fragment is small – about nine by six centimeters – it cannot be stated that it comes from a full copy of the John that we know; but it may be presumed that the original text must have been of near full gospel length to be worth the extra care and time required in writing in codex form.
52 is small, and although a plausible reconstruction can be attempted for most of the fourteen lines represented, nevertheless the proportion of the text of the Gospel of John for which it provides a direct witness is necessarily limited, so it is rarely cited in textual debate. There has however, been some contention as to whether the name ΙΗΣΟΥ (Jesus) in the 'missing' portions of recto lines 2 and 5 was originally written as nomina sacra
; and hence contracted to ΙΣ or ΙΗΣ in accordance with otherwise universal Christian practice in surviving early Gospel manuscripts, including the Egerton Gospel. Roberts originally considered that the divine name was more likely to have been spelled out in full; but later changed his mind, and this is also the view of Larry W. Hurtado
; with C.M. Tuckett maintaining Roberts' original opinion. The verses included in
52 are also witnessed in Bodmer Papyrus 
66 – usually dated to the beginning of the 3rd century CE – there is also some overlap with 
60 and 
90 of the 7th and 2nd centuries respectively. No two of the four contain the same exact text as reconstructed for John 18:31-38, but 
52 seems to represent an example of the same proto-Alexandrian text-type
. Aland
described it as a "Normal text", and placed it in Category I (because of its age).
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....
codex
Codex
A codex is a book in the format used for modern books, with multiple quires or gatherings typically bound together and given a cover.Developed by the Romans from wooden writing tablets, its gradual replacement...
, measuring only 3.5 by 2.5 inches (8.9 by 6 cm) at its widest; and conserved with the Rylands Papyri
Rylands Papyri
The Rylands Papyri are a collection of thousands of papyrus fragments and documents from North Africa and Greece housed at the John Rylands University Library, Manchester, UK...
at the John Rylands University Library
John Rylands University Library
The John Rylands University Library is the University of Manchester's library and information service. It was formed in July 1972 from the merger of the library of the Victoria University of Manchester with the John Rylands Library...
(Gr. P. 457), Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
, UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
. The front (recto) contains parts of seven lines from 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...
18:31–33, 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;...
, and the back (verso) contains parts of seven lines from verses 37–38. Since 2007, the papyrus has been on permanent display in the library's
John Rylands Library
The John Rylands Library is a Victorian Gothic building on Deansgate in Manchester, England. The library, which opened to the public in 1900, was founded by Mrs Enriqueta Augustina Rylands in memory of her late husband, John Rylands...
Deansgate building.
Although Rylands
52 is generally accepted as the earliest extant record of a canonical New TestamentNew Testament
The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....
text, the dating of the papyrus is by no means the subject of consensus among critical scholars. The style of the script is strongly Hadrian
Hadrian
Hadrian , was Roman Emperor from 117 to 138. He is best known for building Hadrian's Wall, which marked the northern limit of Roman Britain. In Rome, he re-built the Pantheon and constructed the Temple of Venus and Roma. In addition to being emperor, Hadrian was a humanist and was philhellene in...
ic, which would suggest a most probable date somewhere between 117 CE and 138 CE. But the difficulty of fixing the date of a fragment based solely on paleographic evidence allows a much wider range, potentially extending from before 100 CE past 150 CE.
The fragment of papyrus was among a group acquired on the Egyptian market in 1920 by Bernard Grenfell. The original transcription and translation of the fragment of text was not done until 1934, by Colin H. Roberts. Roberts found comparator hands in papyri then dated between the mid 1st and mid 2nd centuries, with the closest match of Hadrian
Hadrian
Hadrian , was Roman Emperor from 117 to 138. He is best known for building Hadrian's Wall, which marked the northern limit of Roman Britain. In Rome, he re-built the Pantheon and constructed the Temple of Venus and Roma. In addition to being emperor, Hadrian was a humanist and was philhellene in...
ic date. Since this gospel text would be unlikely to have reached Egypt before c. 100 CE he proposed a date in the first half of the 2nd century. Over the 70 years since Roberts' essay, the estimated ages of his comparator undated literary hands have been revised (in common with most other undated antique papyri) towards dates a couple of decades older; while other dated comparator hands have subsequently been suggested with dates ranging into the second half of the 2nd century.
Greek text
52.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...
18:31-33 (recto)
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...
18:37-38 (verso)
There appears insufficient room for the repeated phrase (ΕΙΣ ΤΟΥΤΟ) in the second line of the verso, and it is suggested that these words were inadvertently dropped through haplography
Haplography
Haplography is the act of writing once what should be written twice. For example, the English word idolatry, the worship of idols, comes from the Greek eidololatreia, but one syllable has been lost through haplography. Other examples are "endontics" for endodontics, and "voraphilia" for...
.
The writing is generously scaled – letter forms vary between 0.3 and 0.4 cm in height, lines are spaced approximately 0.5 cm apart, and there is a margin of 2 cm at the top. C.H. Roberts commented; ".. to judge from the spacing and the size of the text, it is unlikely that the format was affected by considerations of economy". This is consistent with the manuscript being intended for public reading. If the original codex did indeed contain the entire text of the canonical Gospel of John, it would have constituted a single quire book of around 130 pages (i.e. 33 large folded papyrus sheets written on both sides); measuring approximately 21 by 20 cm when closed. Roberts noted a glued vertical join in the papyrus slightly inside the inner margin and visible on the verso, indicating that the large sheets used for the codex were likely to have been specially prepared for the purpose, each having been constructed from two standard sized sheets measuring approximately 21 cm by 16 cm, with a central narrower sheet approximately 21 cm by 8 cm constituting the spine. Roberts describes the handwriting as "heavy, rounded and rather elaborate", but nevertheless not the work of "a practised scribe" (i.e. not a professional bookhand). Roberts notes comments that had recently been made by the editors of the Egerton Gospel
Egerton Gospel
The Egerton Gospel refers to a group of papyrus fragments of a codex of a previously unknown gospel, found in Egypt and sold to the British Museum in 1934; the physical fragments are now dated to the very end of the 2nd century AD, although the date of composition is less clear – perhaps 50-100 AD...
; and says similarly it could be said of
52 that it "has a somewhat informal air about it and with no claims to fine writing is yet a careful piece of work".A total of 114 legible letters are visible on the two sides of the fragment, representing 18 out of the 24 letters of the Greek Alphabet
Greek alphabet
The Greek alphabet is the script that has been used to write the Greek language since at least 730 BC . The alphabet in its classical and modern form consists of 24 letters ordered in sequence from alpha to omega...
; beta, zeta, xi, phi, chi, and psi being missing. Roberts noted that the writing is painstaking and rather laboured, with individual letters apparently inked twice (e.g. sigma at line 3 of the recto); and that several letters are inclined to stray away from the notional upper and lower writing lines. One peculiarity is that there are two distinct forms of the letter alpha; most being formed from a separate diagonal stroke and loop, but on the fourth line of the verso, there is an alpha formed by single spiralling loop. These observations support the supposition that the scribe was an educated person writing carefully, rather than a professional scribe writing to order.
In 1977, Roberts surveyed fourteen Christian papyri, comprising all the Christian manuscripts then commonly assessed as possibly having a 2nd century date - and including
52. He considered only three of these texts to have a calligraphic bookhand, such as was then standard in formal manuscripts of Greek literature, or in most Graeco-Jewish biblical scrolls. Of the other eleven, including 52, he states that their scribes were:It may be added that the codex of
52, with its good quality papyrus, wide margins, large clear upright letters, short lines, and bilinear writing, would have presented an overall appearance not far from that of professionally written books such as 64 or 77, even though its actual letter forms are not as fine, and are closer to documentary exemplars.Date
The significance of52 rests both upon its proposed early dating and upon its geographic dispersal from the presumed site of authorship; traditionally thought to have been EphesusEphesus
Ephesus was an ancient Greek city, and later a major Roman city, on the west coast of Asia Minor, near present-day Selçuk, Izmir Province, Turkey. It was one of the twelve cities of the Ionian League during the Classical Greek era...
. As the fragment is removed from the autograph by at least one step of transmission, the date of authorship for the Gospel of John must be at least a few years prior to the dating of
52. The location of the fragment in Egypt extends that time even further, allowing for the dispersal of the documents from the point of authorship and transmission to the point of discovery. The Gospel of John is perhaps quoted by Justin MartyrJustin Martyr
Justin Martyr, also known as just Saint Justin , was an early Christian apologist. Most of his works are lost, but two apologies and a dialogue survive. He is considered a saint by the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church....
, and hence is highly likely to have been written before c. 160
160
Year 160 was a leap year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Atilius and Vibius...
CE; but many New Testament scholars have argued from the proposed dating of
52 prior to this, that this Gospel must have been written earlier still – indeed not much later than the traditionally accepted date of c. 90 CE, or even before that.Skepticism about the use of
52 to date the Gospel of John (not about the fragment's authenticity) is based on two issues. First, the papyrus has been rather narrowly dated based on the handwriting alone, without the support of textual evidence. Secondly, in common with every other surviving early Gospel manuscript, this fragment is not from a scroll but from a codexCodex
A codex is a book in the format used for modern books, with multiple quires or gatherings typically bound together and given a cover.Developed by the Romans from wooden writing tablets, its gradual replacement...
; a sewn and folded book not a roll. If it dates to the first half of the 2nd century, this fragment would be amongst the earlier surviving examples of a literary codex (around 90
90
Year 90 was a common year starting on Friday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Augustus and Nerva...
CE, Martial
Martial
Marcus Valerius Martialis , was a Latin poet from Hispania best known for his twelve books of Epigrams, published in Rome between AD 86 and 103, during the reigns of the emperors Domitian, Nerva and Trajan...
circulated his poems in codex form, presenting this as a novelty). The year before Roberts published
52, the British MuseumBritish Museum
The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...
library had acquired papyrus fragments of the Egerton Gospel
Egerton Gospel
The Egerton Gospel refers to a group of papyrus fragments of a codex of a previously unknown gospel, found in Egypt and sold to the British Museum in 1934; the physical fragments are now dated to the very end of the 2nd century AD, although the date of composition is less clear – perhaps 50-100 AD...
(also a codex), and these were published in 1935. Since the text of
52 is that of the canonical Gospel of JohnGospel 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...
, whereas the Egerton Gospel is not, there was considerable interest amongst biblical scholars as to whether
52 could be dated as the earlier of the two papyri.52 is a literary text and, in common with almost all such papyri, has no explicit indicator of date. Proposing a date for it required comparison with dated texts, which tend to be documentary (contracts, petitions, letters) and, unlike 52, are often the work of professional scribes. Roberts proposed four dated papyri as close comparitors: Abb 34 (ca. 110-117 CE), P. Fayum 110 (94 CE), P. London 2078 (81-96 CE), and P. Oslo 22 (127 CE). Of these, P. Fayum 110 is the only one that shares the characteristic dual form of alpha found in 52; while P. Oslo 22 is most similar in some of the more distinctive letter forms, e.g. eta, mu and iota. Roberts also suggested two literary texts as comparitors; P. Berol. 6845 (a fragment of the IliadIliad
The Iliad is an epic poem in dactylic hexameters, traditionally attributed to Homer. Set during the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles...
estimated to date around 100 CE) which he suggested that, other than in the form of the letter alpha, was "the closest parallel to our text that I have been able to find"; and the Egerton Gospel itself (then estimated to date around 150 CE), which he stated had "most of the characteristics of our hand.. though in a less accentuated form". Roberts circulated his assessment to three fellow paleographers; Frederic 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...
, W. Shubart and HI Bell; who all concurred with his dating of
52 in the first half of the 2nd century. Kenyon suggested another dated comparitor in P. Flor I (153 CE); but Roberts did not consider the similarity to be very close, other than for particular letters, as the overall style of that hand was cursiveCursive
Cursive, also known as joined-up writing, joint writing, or running writing, is any style of handwriting in which the symbols of the language are written in a simplified and/or flowing manner, generally for the purpose of making writing easier or faster...
. In the same year 1935, Roberts' assessment of date was supported by the independent studies of A. Deissmann, who, while producing no actual evidence, suggested a date in the reigns of Trajan (98-117) or Hadrian (117-138); and in 1936 this dating was supported by Ulrich Wilcken
Ulrich Wilcken
Ulrich Wilcken was a German historian and papyrologist who was a native of Stettin.Wilcken studied ancient history and Oriental studies in Leipzig, Tübingen and Berlin. He was a disciple of historian Theodor Mommsen, who encouraged Wilcken to take a position as cataloguer of papyri following...
, on the basis of a comparison between the hand of P52 and those of papyri in the extensive Apollonius archive (dated 113-120).
Subsequently, a number of other comparitor papyri have been suggested, notably P.Oxy. 2533, where a literary text dated to the early 2nd century in a hand very close to
52, has been written on the back of a re-used document in a late 1st century business hand. In addition, the discovery of several other papyrus codices of the early 2nd century, suggested that this form of book was less unusual for literary texts at this date than had previously been assumed. Consequently, until the 1990s, the tendency was to suggest a date for 52 towards the earlier half of the range suggested by Roberts and his correspondents. However, a cautionary note was raised by the discovery that a papyrus fragment in Cologne constitutes part of the Egerton Gospel. In this fragment the letters gamma and kappa are separated by an apostrophe, a feature very rare in dated 2nd century papyri; which accordingly implies a date for the Egerton Gospel closer to 200 CE - and indicates the perils of ascribing a date for a papyrus text, of which only a small part of two pages survives.In recent years the early date for
52 favoured by many New TestamentNew Testament
The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....
scholars has been challenged by Andreas Schmidt, who favours a date around 170 AD, plus or minus twenty-five years; on the basis of a comparison with Chester Beatty Papyrus X
Chester Beatty Papyri
The Chester Beatty Biblical Papyri or simply the Chester Beatty Papyri are a group of early papyrus manuscripts of biblical texts. The manuscripts are in Greek and are of Christian origin. There are eleven manuscripts in the group, seven consisting of portions of Old Testament books, three...
and with the redated Egerton Gospel. Brent Nongbri has criticized all attempts to establish a paleographic date for papyri like
52 within such narrow ranges. Nongbri collected and published a wide range of dated comparitor manuscripts; demonstrating that, although there are plentiful examples of hands similar to that of 52 in the early 2nd century, two later dated papyri also had similar hands (P. Mich. inv. 5336, dated to 152 CE; and P.Amh. 2.78, an example first suggested by E.G. Turner, that dates to 184 CE). Nongbri suggested that this implied that older styles of handwriting might persist much longer than some scholars had assumed, and that a prudent margin of error must allow a still wider range of possible dates for the papyrus:Nevertheless, most biblical scholars continue to favour the earlier dating, though the possibility of a later date cannot be entirely discounted; John Rylands Library continues to maintain Roberts's assessment of the date of
52, that it "may with some confidence be dated in the first half of the second century A.D.", and the date is given as c. 125 in standard reference works.Text Critical Significance
If the early dating of the papyrus is in fact correct, then the fact that the fragment is from a codexCodex
A codex is a book in the format used for modern books, with multiple quires or gatherings typically bound together and given a cover.Developed by the Romans from wooden writing tablets, its gradual replacement...
rather than a scroll
Scroll
A scroll is a roll of parchment, papyrus, or paper, which has been drawn or written upon.Scroll may also refer to:*Scroll , the decoratively curved end of the pegbox of string instruments such as violins...
would testify to the very early adoption of this mode of writing amongst Christians, in stark contrast to the invariable practice of contemporary Judaism
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...
. Furthermore, an assessment of the length of 'missing' text between the recto and verso readings corresponds with that in the counterpart canonical Gospel of John; and hence confirms that there are unlikely to have been substantial additions or deletions in this whole portion. Other than two itacisms, and in the probable omission of the second ΕΙΣ ΤΟΥΤΟ from line 2 of the verso,
52 agrees with the Alexandrian text base. In lines 4 and 5 of the recto the reconstructed text reads ΠΑΛΙΝ ΕΙΣ ΤΟ ΠΡΑΙΤΩΡΙΟΝ in agreement with 66Papyrus 66
Papyrus 66 is a near complete codex of the Gospel of John, and part of the collection known as the Bodmer Papyri.-Description:...
and with the Codex Vaticanus whereas the 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...
, 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 the Majority Text all have the alternative word order; ΕΙΣ ΤΟ ΠΡΑΙΤΩΡΙΟΝ ΠΑΛΙΝ, but this is hardly a significant variant. Since this fragment is small – about nine by six centimeters – it cannot be stated that it comes from a full copy of the John that we know; but it may be presumed that the original text must have been of near full gospel length to be worth the extra care and time required in writing in codex form.
52 is small, and although a plausible reconstruction can be attempted for most of the fourteen lines represented, nevertheless the proportion of the text of the Gospel of John for which it provides a direct witness is necessarily limited, so it is rarely cited in textual debate. There has however, been some contention as to whether the name ΙΗΣΟΥ (Jesus) in the 'missing' portions of recto lines 2 and 5 was originally written as nomina sacraNomina 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...
; and hence contracted to ΙΣ or ΙΗΣ in accordance with otherwise universal Christian practice in surviving early Gospel manuscripts, including the Egerton Gospel. Roberts originally considered that the divine name was more likely to have been spelled out in full; but later changed his mind, and this is also the view of Larry W. Hurtado
Larry W. Hurtado
Larry Hurtado is a scholar of early Christianity and Emeritus Professor of New Testament Language, Literature and Theology in The University of Edinburgh, Scotland...
; with C.M. Tuckett maintaining Roberts' original opinion. The verses included in
52 are also witnessed in Bodmer Papyrus 66 – usually dated to the beginning of the 3rd century CE – there is also some overlap with 60 and 90 of the 7th and 2nd centuries respectively. No two of the four contain the same exact text as reconstructed for John 18:31-38, but 52 seems to represent an example of the same proto-Alexandrian text-typeAlexandrian 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...
described it as a "Normal text", and placed it in Category I (because of its age).
See also
- 7Q57Q5Among the Dead Sea scrolls, 7Q5 is the designation for a small papyrus fragment discovered in Qumran Cave 7. The significance of this fragment is derived from an argument made by Jose O´Callaghan in his work ¿Papiros neotestamentarios en la cueva 7 de Qumrân? in 1972, later reasserted and expanded...
- List of New Testament papyri
- List of New Testament uncials
- 4Q1084Q1084Q108 is a fragment containing a portion of the Song of Songs in Hebrew. Fragments from three such scrolls were found in Cave 4 at Qumran...
- 4QMMT4QMMT4QMMT , also known as the Halakhic Letter, is one of the Dead Sea Scrolls that were discovered at Qumran in the West Bank. The manuscript is mainly concerned with the issue of the purity of liquid streams, a matter of great debate between the Pharisees and the Sadducees in later rabbinic...
- John 18:38John 18:38John chapter 18, verse 38 of the Gospel of John, is often referred to as "jesting Pilate" or "Truth? What is truth?", of Latin Quid est veritas?...
(verso)
52.'