Rylands Library Papyrus P52

New Testament manuscript infobox
form=Papyrus
number=P⁵²


caption=
name=
text=John 18:31-33.37-38
script=Greek
date=c. 125
found=Egypt
now at=John Rylands Library
cite=
size=fragment
type= not ascertainable
cat=I
hand=
note=

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 (9 by 6.4 cm) at its widest; and conserved at the John Rylands Library, Manchester, UK. The front (recto) contains lines from the Gospel of John 18:31-33, in Greek, and the back (verso) contains lines from verses 37-38.

Although Rylands P52 is generally accepted as the earliest extant record of a canonical New Testament text [See 7Q5 for an alternate candidate.] , the dating of the papyrus is by no means the subject of consensus among critical scholars. The style of the script is strongly Hadrianic, which would suggest a date somewhere between 125 and 160 CE. But the difficulty of fixing the date of a fragment based solely on paleographic evidence allows for a range of dates that extends from before 100 CE past 150 CE.

Greek text

The papyrus is written on both sides. The characters in bold style are the ones that can be seen in Papyrus P52.

"Gospel of John 18:31-33" (recto)

quote|...the Jews, "To us it is lawful to kill no one" so that the word of Jesus might be fulfilled which he said signifying by what sort of death he was about to die. He entered again into thePraetorium Pilate and called Jesus and said to him "Are you king of the Jews? ...

"Gospel of John 18:37-38" (verso)

quote|King am I. I for this reason have been born(and for this reason) I have come into the world so that I shall testifyto the truth. Everyone being of the truthhears my voice. Says to him Pilate, "What is truth?" and this saying, again he went out to the Jews and says to them, "I nothing ...

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 inadvertantly 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 folded papyrus sheets written on both sides); measuring approximately 21 by 20 cm when closed. 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).

History

The fragment of papyrus was among a group acquired on the Egyptian market in 1920 by Bernard Grenfell. [The papyrus may have come surreptitiously from Oxyrhyncus.] The original transcription and translation of the fragment of text was not done until 1934, by Colin H. Roberts. [Roberts, “An Unpublished Fragment of the Fourth Gospel in the John Rylands Library”, "Bulletin of the John Rylands Library" XX, 1936:45-55.] Roberts found comparator hands in papyri then dated between 50 CE and 150 CE, with the closest match of Hadrianic date. Since the contents would unlikely have been written before circa 100 CE [For the date of the text, see Gospel of John.] he proposed a date in the first half of the second century. Over the 70 years since Roberts' essay, the estimated ages of his particular comparator hands have been revised (in common with most other undated antique papyri) towards dates a couple of decades older; while other comparator hands have subsequently been discovered with possible dates ranging into the second half of the second century.

Date

The significance of P52 rests on both its early date, and its geographic dispersal from the presumed site of authorship. 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 P52. 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 circa 160 CE; but many New Testament scholars have argued from the proposed dating of P52 prior to this, that this Gospel must have been written rather earlier — and indeed close to the traditionally accepted date of circa 90 CE.

Skepticism about the use of P52 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 bound book not a roll. If it dates to the first half of the second century, this fragment would be amongst the earlier surviving examples of a codex (around 90 CE, Martial describes the codex form as then new to Rome). Nevertheless, while some experts in paleography have disputed the dating, it is agreed that this piece of papyrus is the earliest known fragment of any portion of the New Testament. [J.K. Elliott, "The Biblical Manuscripts of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester" "Bulletin of the John Rylands Library" 91(2) 7–8.] Its closest rival in date is the Egerton Gospel, a late-second-century fragment of a codex that records a gospel not identical to any of the canonical four, but which has closer parallels to "John" than with the synoptic gospels; and whose hand employs letter forms consistently rather later than those of P52. Thus the Egerton Gospel may represent a less-developed example of the Johannine gospel tradition (though in a manuscript of slightly later date).

In recent years the early date for P52 favoured by many New Testament scholars has been challenged by A. 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 [A. Schmidt, "Zwei Ammerkungen zu P. Ryl. III 457," "APF" 35 (1989:11–12).] . The ways both earlier and later dating tendencies have been used, are criticised by Brent Nongbri: [Nongbri, p. 48.] , who collected and published a wide range of dated comparitor manuscripts; demonstrating that, although the preponderance of hands most similar to P52 are found in the first three decades of the 2nd century, nevertheless there are other examples of hands with similar characteristics dated as late as 152 CE — and that a prudent margin of error must allow the possibility of P52 being younger still by several decades (or equally, as much as a century older).

Nevertheless, most biblical scholars continue to favour the earlier dating as being more probable, even though the possibility of a later date cannot be entirely discounted; such that John Rylands Library say of P52 that it "may with some confidence be dated in the first half of the second century A.D." [ [http://www.library.manchester.ac.uk/specialcollections/collections/stjohnfragment/ John Rylands Library] ]

If the early dating of the papyrus is in fact correct, then the fact that the fragment is from a codex 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. Since this fragment is small — about nine by five centimeters — it is uncertain whether 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. P52 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. [Tuckett 2001:544; [http://www.skypoint.com/~waltzmn/ManuscriptsPapyri.html#P52 New Testaments Manuscripts: Papyri] ; [http://www.historian.net/P52.html "The oldest New Testament: P52"] .] 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. 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 P52 are also witnessed in Bodmer Papyrus P66 — usually dated to the beginning of the 3rd century CE — but, in the amount of text preserved, it has not proved possible to determine whether P52 represents an example of the same proto-Alexandrian text-type.

ee also

*Papyrus 1
*Papyrus 46
*Papyrus 64
*Papyrus 66
*7Q5
*List of New Testament papyri
*List of New Testament uncials
*4Q108
*4QMMT
* (verso)

Notes

References

* Hurtado, Larry. W., 2003. "P52 (P.Rylands Gr 457) and the "Nomina Sacra"; Method and Probability." "Tynedale Bulletin" 54.1.
* Nongbri, Brent, 2005. "The Use and Abuse of P52: Papyrological Pitfalls in the Dating of the Fourth Gospel." "Harvard Theological Review" 98:23-52.
* Roberts, C.H., 1936. “An Unpublished Fragment of the Fourth Gospel in the John Rylands Library.” "Bulletin of the John Rylands Library" 20:45-55.
* Schnelle, Udo, 1998. "The History and Theology of the New Testament Writings".
* Tuckett, Christopher M., 2001. "P52 and "Nomina Sacra"." "New Testament Studies" 47:544-48.

External links

* [http://www.library.manchester.ac.uk/specialcollections/collections/stjohnfragment John Rylands Library: An Unpublished Fragment of the Fourth Gospel]
* [http://www.kchanson.com/ANCDOCS/greek/johnpap.html K. C. Hanson - P52: A Fragment of the Gospel of John]
* [http://www.historian.net/P52.html historian.net: P52]