Papyrus 37 designated by 𝔓³⁷ (in the Gregory-Aland numbering) is an early copy of the New Testament in Greek. It is a

papyrus Papyrus ( ) is a material similar to thick paper that was used in ancient times as a writing surface. It was made from the pith of the papyrus plant, '' Cyperus papyrus'', a wetland sedge. ''Papyrus'' (plural: ''papyri'') can also refer to a ...

manuscript A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand – or, once practical typewriters became available, typewritten – as opposed to mechanically printing, printed or repr ...

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 ...

dating to the 3rd century, sometime around 250-260 CE, due to its affinities with 𝔓⁵³ (dated to 260 CE), The correspondence of Heroninos (dated shortly before or after 260 CE) and a letter by Kopres (P. Greco-Egizi 208, dated 256 CE).Philip W Comfort and David P Barrett. ''The Text of the Earliest New Testament Greek Manuscripts''. Wheaton, Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers Incorporated, 2001, pp. 141, 369.

Description

It is currently housed at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor Library (inventory #1570), and was purchased in Cairo, Egypt, in 1924. Its exact origin is unknown, but it most likely came from Egypt. The manuscript is a fragment of a single leaf consisting of one column of 33 lines (40 to 50 characters per line), roughly 12.1 cm by 22.4 cm. The fragment is damaged on all sides with considerable lacunae and was probably originally 15 cm by 25.5 cm. The surviving text of Matthew are verses 26:19-52. This portion of Matthew depicts the

Last Supper Image:The Last Supper - Leonardo Da Vinci - High Resolution 32x16.jpg, 400px, alt=''The Last Supper'' by Leonardo da Vinci - Clickable Image, Depictions of the Last Supper in Christian art have been undertaken by artistic masters for centuries, ...

, the betrayal by Judas, and the beginning of the

Arrest of Jesus The arrest of Jesus was a pivotal event in Christianity recorded in the canonical gospels. It occurred shortly after the Last Supper (during which Jesus gave his final sermon), and immediately after the kiss of Judas, which is traditionally sai ...

The papyrus uses a legible, cursive-like script with irregular character linking. The cursive letters resemble the cursive that was common between the years 200 and 350. There are many variations in the letters, which makes a precise dating based on

paleography Palaeography ( UK) or paleography ( US; ultimately from grc-gre, , ''palaiós'', "old", and , ''gráphein'', "to write") is the study of historic writing systems and the deciphering and dating of historical manuscripts, including the analysi ...

difficult. The writer was most likely literate and educated because the letters do not appear crude or imitative, but the irregularities suggest the writer was not an experienced

scribe A scribe is a person who serves as a professional copyist, especially one who made copies of manuscripts before the invention of automatic printing. The profession of the scribe, previously widespread across cultures, lost most of its promi ...

. The handwriting is similar to personal letters and documents from the mid 3rd century. Certain

nomina sacra In Christian scribal practice, nomina sacra (singular: ''nomen sacrum'' from Latin ''sacred name'') is the abbreviation of several frequently occurring divine names or titles, especially in Greek manuscripts of the Bible. A nomen sacrum consists ...

(ΚΕ ΙΗΣ ΠΝΑ ΙΗΣΥ) are employed in the text. There are no punctuation or accent marks. There are, however, dots that appear in irregular intervals, placed in the text by a later hand, apparently to help reading. This suggests that the manuscript was used at one point in church. Because the manuscript is so short, it is difficult to gauge the regularity of the dots, or their purpose for certain. The text-type mostly follows

Western Western may refer to: Places *Western, Nebraska, a village in the US *Western, New York, a town in the US *Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western world, countries that id ...

readings. By Sander's count, there are 85 extant variants in this portion of Matthew. 18 of those readings are supported by nearly all manuscripts. 11 are unique to the manuscript. The remaining 56 fall within Western, Alexandrian, and

Caesarean Caesarean section, also known as C-section or caesarean delivery, is the surgical procedure by which one or more babies are delivered through an incision in the mother's abdomen, often performed because vaginal delivery would put the baby or mo ...

text-types. The text has to be reconstructed in places of lacuna by comparing the amount of space missing to the number of letters in various readings. Based on the reading variations, the text most likely originated in Egypt. Aland placed this manuscript in Category I.

References

External links

University of Michigan Library entry, with scanned images:
recto

verso
{{DEFAULTSORT:Papyrus 0037 New Testament papyri Papyrus 037 Gospel of Matthew papyri

Description

See also

References

Further reading

External links