Papyrus Rylands 463 is a copy of the apocryphal
Gospel of Mary
The Gospel of Mary is a non-canonical text discovered in 1896 in a 5th-century papyrus codex written in Sahidic Coptic. This Berlin Codex was purchased in Cairo by German diplomat Carl Reinhardt.
Although the work is popularly known as the Go ...
in
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
. 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 printed or reproduced in ...
in roll form. The manuscript has been assigned
palaeographically to the 3rd century. It is one of the three manuscripts and one of the two Greek manuscripts of the Gospel of Mary. It is longer than
Papyrus Oxyrhynchus L 3525 (POxy 3525).
Description
Only a small fragment of a single sheet has survived. There is writing on both sides of the sheet, indicating that it was originally from a codex. The fragment is broken on all sides and contains the material contained in 7.4-19.5 of the Coptic manuscript. The reconstruction of the missing parts (especially the starts and ends of the lines) is not an easy task and depends on the Coptic text. The Greek text can only be conjectured on the basis of the Coptic version. The manuscript is fragmentary but shows two errors.
There are some differences between the Greek fragment and the Coptic text. The
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 ...
are written in abbreviated form. The text was edited by C. H. Roberts in 1938.
[Parsons, P. J. (1983) ''3525: Gospel of Mary''. London: Egypt Exploration Society] The manuscript currently is housed at the
John Rylands Library
The John Rylands Research Institute and Library is a Victorian era, late-Victorian Gothic Revival architecture, neo-Gothic building on Deansgate in Manchester, England. It is part of the University of Manchester. The library, which opened to t ...
(Gr. P. 463) at Manchester, England.
See also
*
Gospel of Mary
The Gospel of Mary is a non-canonical text discovered in 1896 in a 5th-century papyrus codex written in Sahidic Coptic. This Berlin Codex was purchased in Cairo by German diplomat Carl Reinhardt.
Although the work is popularly known as the Go ...
*
Papyrus Oxyrhynchus L 3525 – another Greek manuscript of the Gospel of Mary
References
Further reading
* Roberts, C. H. (1938) ''Gospel of Mary'' in: ''Catalogue of the Greek and Latin Papyri in the John Rylands Library, Manchester''.
* Lührmann, D. (1988) ''Die griechischen Fragmente des Mariaevangeliums POxy 3525 und PRyl 463'', in: ''Novum Testamentum''; 30 (1988), pp. 321-338.
External links
P. Ryl. 463- exact transcript
Christopher Tuckett, ''The Gospel of Mary'', Oxford 2007.
3rd-century manuscripts
Gnostic Gospels
{{NewTestament-apocrypha-stub