Papyrus 46

Papyrus 46 (also referred to with the Sigel 46) is one of the oldest existing manuscripts of the New Testament. The "most probable date [ the creation ] " is between the years 175 and 225 AD

The papyrus was once one of the Chester Beatty Papyri. According to the Bible Research website it contains (in order ) " the last eight chapters of Romans, the complete book of Hebrews, almost everything on 1 and 2 Corinthians, the full letters to the Ephesians, Galatians, Philippians and Colossians, and two chapters from first letter to the Thessalonians. All the leaves have lost due to aging some lines at the bottom. "

Content

46 contains the text of Paul's letters almost completely. Some leaves are missing while others are still in the Chester Beatty Library (CB) or at the University of Michigan (Mich. ) are found.

Page size

The sides have a size of about 28 × 16 cm and are described in a column by an average of 11.5 cm. On each side there are 26-32 lines of text, although both the line width and the number of lines increases towards the end. The lines at the bottom are damaged: 1-2 lines missing in the first quarter, 2-3 in the middle half and up to seven lines in the last quarter.

The lack of leaves

The seven missing leaves at the beginning obviously contained the beginning of Romans. However, the contents of the missing seven leaves at the end is not certain. It would be enough space for the 2nd Thessalonians and perhaps also for Philemon, but not for the Pastoral Epistles. Kenyon calculated that 2 Thessalonians would need two sheets, and thus five leaves or 10 pages would be left. In this font size 1 Timothy needed 8.25 pages, 2 Timothy 6 pages, Titus Philemon 3.5 pages and 1.5 pages - 19,25 together so pages, although only 10 are available.

Reading marks

In the books of Romans, Hebrews and the later chapters of 1 Corinthians there are small and thick lines or points. It is generally agreed that these were added by a reader of the manuscript later, because the color is always weaker than that of the text itself, these marks seem to be analogous organizations, as well as in today's Bibles in the form of chapters verses can be found. Such markings are also found in parts of 45 Thus, it is an indication that both codes have been used to read in the community.

Origin

The origin of 46 is unknown, although it is very likely that it was originally discovered in the ruins of an ancient Christian church or monastery. The discovery in Cairo, according to the manuscript was broken up by a dealer. Ten leaves were purchased from Chester Beatty in 1930, Michigan in 1931 and earned six leaves 24 more in 1933. 1935 acquired Chester Beatty again 46 leaves. His acquisitions now form the Chester Beatty Biblical papyri, consisting of eleven codices biblical material.

Dating

The dating of the manuscript solely on the basis of paleography is quite uncertain, as with other manuscripts. The first editor of parts of the Papyri HA Sanders suggested a possible date before the late second half of the third century. A later editor, FG Kenyon, on the other hand preferred a dating to the first half of the 3rd century. The manuscript is now sometimes dated to about 200. Young Kyu Kim suggested, however, before an exceptionally early date around 80 AD. Griffin criticized Kim's dating and ranked the "most probable " date below a 175-225, with a "95% confidence interval " for data between 150 and 250