The "Magdalen" papyrus (, )
was purchased in
Luxor
Luxor is a city in Upper Egypt. Luxor had a population of 263,109 in 2020, with an area of approximately and is the capital of the Luxor Governorate. It is among the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest continuously inhabited c ...
, Egypt in 1901 by Reverend
Charles Bousfield Huleatt (1863β1908), who identified the Greek fragments as portions of the ''
Gospel of Matthew
The Gospel of Matthew is the first book of the New Testament of the Bible and one of the three synoptic Gospels. It tells the story of who the author believes is Israel's messiah (Christ (title), Christ), Jesus, resurrection of Jesus, his res ...
'' (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 Bishop of Winchester William of Waynflete. It is one of the wealthiest Oxford colleges, as of 2022, and one of the strongest academically, se ...
, Oxford, where they are catalogued as ''P. Magdalen Greek 17'' (
Gregory-Aland π
64) from which they acquired their name. When the fragments were 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 Eliz ...
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), is a manuscript of the Greek Bible, containing the majority of the Old Testament and the majority of the New Testament. It is designated by siglum B or 03 in the Gregory-Aland numb ...
and
Codex Sinaiticus
The Codex Sinaiticus (; Shelfmark: London, British Library, Add MS 43725), also called the Sinai Bible, is a fourth-century Christian manuscript of a Greek Bible, containing the majority of the Greek Old Testament, including the deuterocanonica ...
. 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. Papyrologist
Orsolina Montevecchi, who was the President of the International Papyrologist Association, supported Carsten Thiede's dating of the Magdalen Papyrus to 66CE.
The fragments are written on both sides, indicating they came from a
codex
The codex (: codices ) was the historical ancestor format of the modern book. Technically, the vast majority of modern books use the codex format of a stack of pages bound at one edge, along the side of the text. But the term ''codex'' is now r ...
rather than a scroll. More fragments, published in 1956 by Ramon Roca-Puig, cataloged as ''P. Barc. Inv. 1'' (Gregory-Aland π
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
π
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 β 25 June 2003) was a British academic and librarian at the British Museum, where he worked as Assistant Keeper (from 1931), Deputy Keeper (from 1948), and Keeper of Manuscripts and Egerton Librarian ( ...
and
E. G. Turner.
In late 1994,
Carsten Peter Thiede 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 fΓΌr Papyrologie und Epigraphik'' in 1995. A version edited for the layman was co-written with
Matthew d'Ancona 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 150β175 for the manuscript, and also for
π4 and π
67, which they argue came from the same codex. π
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 π
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 π
4/64/67 has affinities with a number of the late 2nd-century papyri.

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 published by ''Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft'' (German Bible Society), forming the basis of most modern Bible translations and biblical crit ...
, a standard reference for the Greek witnesses, lists
π4 and π
64/67 together, giving them a date of c. 200. Charlesworth has concluded 'that π
64+67 and π
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."
Thiede's Re-dating to 66CE
Carsten Peter Thiede ran paleographical and then forensic scientific analysis on the Magdalen Papyrus to arrive at a date of 66CE.
The evidence for the date of about 66CE for the Magdalen Papyrus is based on a combination of styles that were uniquely used in exact form in the middle first century CE as well as a specific dated document from 66CE that uses that same combination of styles.
1) The Magdalen Papyrus is written in a style that was a precursor to the biblical uncial of the second century CE which is the letters being drawn equally thick horizontally and vertically and not alternating between thick and thin stroke common after the second century CE.
2) The letters touch or nearly touch one another which was a common style in the first century CE but not later centuries.
3) The document uses a form of Zierstil that went out of use after the middle of the first century CE.
4) Herculaneum style Eta's which were used until the middle of the first century CE that are used on papyri from that area, 7Q6, Aristophanes papyrus is also used on the Magdalen papyrus
5) The text is distinctly bilinear with 2 exception letters as was common until the first century CE.
6) The general appearance and individual letters match papyri from the first century CE.
7) Another document uses the same combination of styles as Magdalen papyrus and it dates to 66CE. For example P Oxy 246 letters are also equally thick vertically and horizontally, distinctly bi-linear with few exceptions, letters have similar amount of ligatures, zierstil or hooked style also individual letters, formation of letters and overall appearance match the Magdalen papyrus. This indicates the scribes who wrote both these texts around the same time when the exact same combination of styles was used and this is internally dated to 66CE.
Papyrologist
Orsolina Montevecchi the President of the International Papyrologist Association, backed Thiede's re-dating of the papyrus to 66CE. Furthermore, the results of Thiede's use of forensic science in re-dating the papyrus was met with unanimous approval at the 21st Congress of the International Papyrologist Association.
[https://books.google.com/books?id=ddGLDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA61&dq=thiede+%22unanimous+approval%22+magdalen&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&source=gb_mobile_search&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwirvJmrmJmNAxUNjokEHRF3EWIQ6AF6BAgFEAM#v=onepage&q=thiede%20%22unanimous%20approval%22%20magdalen&f=false]
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), 571β582,
* Charlesworth, S. D. "
T. C. Skeat
Theodore Cressy Skeat (15 February 1907 β 25 June 2003) was a British academic and librarian at the British Museum, where he worked as Assistant Keeper (from 1931), Deputy Keeper (from 1948), and Keeper of Manuscripts and Egerton Librarian ( ...
, P64+67 and P4, and the Problem of Fibre Orientation in Codicological Reconstruction," ''New Testament Studies'' 53, 582β604,
* 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), 1β34,
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Images
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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
Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county tow ...
'' 46 (1995) pp. 251β285; 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 MΓΌnster, 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. 158β179.
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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