The "Magdalen" papyrus was purchased in
Luxor
Luxor ( ar, الأقصر, al-ʾuqṣur, lit=the palaces) is a modern city in Upper (southern) Egypt which includes the site of the Ancient Egyptian city of ''Thebes''.
Luxor has frequently been characterized as the "world's greatest open-a ...
, Egypt in 1901 by Reverend
Charles Bousfield Huleatt (1863–1908), who identified the Greek fragments as portions of the ''
Gospel of Matthew
The Gospel of Matthew), or simply Matthew. It is most commonly abbreviated as "Matt." is the first book of the New Testament of the Bible and one of the three synoptic Gospels. It tells how Israel's Messiah, Jesus, comes to his people and for ...
'' (Chapter 26:23 and 31) and presented them to
Magdalen College
Magdalen College (, ) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford. It was founded in 1458 by William of Waynflete. Today, it is the fourth wealthiest college, with a financial endowment of £332.1 million as of 2019 and one of the st ...
, Oxford, where they are catalogued as ''P. Magdalen Greek 17'' (
Gregory-Aland 𝔓
64) and whence they have their name. When the fragments were finally published by
Colin Henderson Roberts
Colin Henderson Roberts (8 June 1909 – 11 February 1990) was a classical scholar and publisher. He was Secretary to the Delegates of Oxford University Press between 1954 and 1974.
Biography
Roberts was born on 8 June 1909 in Queen Eliza ...
in 1953, illustrated with a photograph, the hand was characterized as "an early predecessor of the so-called 'Biblical Uncial which began to emerge towards the end of the 2nd century. The uncial style is epitomised by the later biblical
Codex Vaticanus
The Codex Vaticanus ( The Vatican, Bibl. Vat., Vat. gr. 1209), designated by siglum B or 03 (in the Gregory-Aland numbering), δ 1 ( von Soden), is a fourth-century Christian manuscript of a Greek Bible, containing the majority of the Greek Old ...
and
Codex Sinaiticus
The Codex Sinaiticus (Shelfmark: London, British Library, Add MS 43725), designated by siglum [Aleph] or 01 (in the Gregory-Aland numbering of New Testament manuscripts), δ 2 (in the von Soden numbering of New Testament manuscripts) ...
. Comparative
paleographical analysis has remained the methodological key for dating the manuscript, but there is no consensus on the dating of the papyrus. Estimates have ranged from the 1st century to the 4th century AD.
The fragments are written on both sides, indicating they came from a
codex
The codex (plural codices ) was the historical ancestor of the modern book. Instead of being composed of sheets of paper, it used sheets of vellum, papyrus, or other materials. The term ''codex'' is often used for ancient manuscript books, with ...
rather than a scroll. More fragments, published in 1956 by Ramon Roca-Puig, cataloged as ''P. Barc. Inv. 1'' (Gregory-Aland 𝔓
67), were determined by Roca-Puig and Roberts to come from the same codex as the Magdalen fragments, a view which has remained the scholarly consensus.
Date
𝔓
64 was originally given a 3rd-century date by Charles Huleatt, who donated the Manuscript to Magdalen College. Papyrologist A. S. Hunt then studied the manuscript and dated it to the early 4th century. After initially preferring a 3rd or possibly 4th century dating for the papyrus, Colin Roberts published the manuscript and gave it a dating of , which was confirmed by three other leading papyrologists: Harold Bell,
T. C. Skeat
Theodore Cressy Skeat (15 February 1907 — 25 June 2003) was a librarian at the British Museum, where he worked as Assistant Keeper (from 1931), Deputy Keeper (from 1948), and Keeper of Manuscripts and Egerton Librarian (from 1961 to 1972).
Skeat ...
and
E. G. Turner.
In late 1994,
Carsten Peter Thiede
Carsten Peter Thiede OCF KStJ (8 August 1952 – 14 December 2004) was a German archaeologist and New Testament scholar. He was also a member of PEN and appointed a Knight of Justice of the Order of St John. He taught as Professor of New Testame ...
proposed redating the Magdalen papyrus to the middle of the 1st century (AD 37 to 70). This attracted considerable publicity, as journalists interpreted the claim optimistically. Thiede's official article appeared in ''Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik'' in 1995. A version edited for the layman was co-written with
Matthew d'Ancona
Matthew Robert Ralph d'Ancona (born 27 January 1968) is an English journalist. A former deputy editor of ''The Sunday Telegraph'', he was appointed editor of ''The Spectator'' in February 2006, a post he retained until August 2009.
Early life ...
and presented as ''The Jesus Papyrus'', Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1996. (also published as: ''Eyewitness to Jesus'', 1996, New York:
Doubleday). Thiede's redating of the papyrus was based on comparative analysis of the script with selected samples from Egypt and Palestine. He claimed to see similarities between the script of the Magdalen papyrus and that of dated documents from the 1st century CE, such as P.Oxy. II 246 (66 CE). Thiede's hypothesis has been viewed with scepticism by nearly all established papyrologists and biblical scholars.
Philip Comfort and David Barret in their book ''Text of the Earliest NT Greek Manuscripts'' argue for a more general date of 150–175 for the manuscript, and also for
𝔓4 and 𝔓
67, which they argue came from the same codex. 𝔓
4 was used as stuffing for the binding of “a codex of Philo, written in the later 3rd century and found in a jar which had been walled up in a house at Coptos
n 250” If 𝔓
4 was part of this codex, then the codex may have been written roughly 100 years prior or earlier. Comfort and Barret also show that this 𝔓
4/64/67 has affinities with a number of the late 2nd-century papyri.
![Magdalen Papyrus](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c9/Magdalen_Papyrus.jpg)
Comfort and Barret "tend to claim an earlier date for many manuscripts included in their volume than might be allowed by other palaeographers." The
Novum Testamentum Graece
(''The New Testament in Greek'') is a critical edition of the New Testament in its original Koine Greek, forming the basis of most modern Bible translations and biblical criticism. It is also known as the Nestle–Aland edition after its mos ...
, a standard reference for the Greek witnesses, lists
𝔓4 and 𝔓
64/67 separately, giving the former a date of the 3rd century, while the latter is assigned c. 200. Charlesworth has concluded 'that 𝔓
64+67 and 𝔓
4, though written by the same scribe, are not from the same ... codex.' The most recent and thorough palaeographic assessment of the papyrus concluded that "until further evidence is forthcoming perhaps a date from mid-II to mid-IV should be assigned to the codex."
[Barker, "The Dating of New Testament Papyri," 578]
See also
*
List of New Testament papyri
A New Testament papyrus is a copy of a portion of the New Testament made on papyrus. To date, over 140 such papyri are known. In general, they are considered the earliest witnesses to the original text of the New Testament.
This elite status amo ...
Notes
References
* Barker, Don. "The Dating of New Testament Papyri." ''New Testament Studies'' 57 (2011), 571–582,
* Charlesworth, S. D. "
T. C. Skeat
Theodore Cressy Skeat (15 February 1907 — 25 June 2003) was a librarian at the British Museum, where he worked as Assistant Keeper (from 1931), Deputy Keeper (from 1948), and Keeper of Manuscripts and Egerton Librarian (from 1961 to 1972).
Skeat ...
, P64+67 and P4, and the Problem of Fibre Orientation in Codicological Reconstruction," ''New Testament Studies'' 53, 582–604,
* Nongbri, Brent. ''God's Library: The Archaeology of the Earliest Christian Manuscripts''. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2018.
* Skeat, T. C. "The Oldest Manuscript Of The Four Gospels?" ''New Testament Studies'' 43 (1997), 1–34,
*
Images
*
*
External links
* Peter M. Head
"The date of the Magdalen Papyrus of Matthew: A Response to C. P. Thiede" published in ''
Tyndale Bulletin
The ''Tyndale Bulletin'' is an academic journal published by Tyndale House in Cambridge, England. The publication began life as ''The Tyndale House Bulletin'' in the Summer of 1956, edited by Tyndale House's Librarian Andrew Walls. Sixteen issues o ...
'' 46 (1995) pp. 251–285; the article suggests that he has both overestimated the amount of stylistic similarity between P64 and several Palestinian Greek manuscripts and underestimated the strength of the scholarly consensus of a date around AD 200.
University of Münster, New Testament Transcripts Prototype. Select P64/67 from 'manuscript descriptions' box* T. C. Skeat, ''The Oldest Manuscript of the Four Gospels?'', in: T. C. Skeat and J. K. Elliott
''The Collected Biblical Writings of T. C. Skeat'' Brill 2004, pp. 158–179.
*
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Papyrus 0064
New Testament papyri
2nd-century biblical manuscripts
Greek-language papyri
Early Greek manuscripts of the New Testament
Gospel of Matthew papyri