Papyrus 13, designated by

siglum Scribal abbreviations, or sigla (singular: siglum), are abbreviations used by ancient and medieval scribes writing in various languages, including Latin, Greek, Old English and Old Norse. In modern manuscript editing (substantive and mecha ...

𝔓¹³ or P¹³ in the Gregory-Aland numbering, is a fragmentary

manuscript A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand or typewritten, as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in some indirect or automated way. More recently, the term has ...

of the

New Testament The New Testament (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus, as well as events relating to Christianity in the 1st century, first-century Christianit ...

Greek Greek may refer to: 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 of all kno ...

. It was copied on

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'' or ''papyruses'') can a ...

in the 3rd century at approximately 225-250 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 83.

Description

Papyrus 13 was discovered by

Bernard Grenfell Bernard Pyne Grenfell FBA (16 December 1869 – 18 May 1926) was an English scientist and egyptologist. Excavations he did with Arthur Surridge Hunt uncovered manuscripts including the oldest Oxyrhynchus Papyri. Life Grenfell was the son ...

and Arthur Hunt in Oxyrhynchus, Egypt. It is currently housed at the

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. Based in London, it is one of the largest libraries in the world, with an estimated collection of between 170 and 200 million items from multiple countries. As a legal deposit li ...

, Inv. Nr. 1532, and

Egyptian Museum The Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, commonly known as the Egyptian Museum (, Egyptian Arabic: ) (also called the Cairo Museum), located in Cairo, Egypt, houses the largest collection of Ancient Egypt, Egyptian antiquities in the world. It hou ...

, SR 3796 25/1/55/2 (11), or PSI 1292. The surviving text is twelve columns, of 23 to 27 lines each, from a

scroll A scroll (from the Old French ''escroe'' or ''escroue''), also known as a roll, is a roll of papyrus, parchment, or paper containing writing. Structure A scroll is usually partitioned into pages, which are sometimes separate sheets of papyru ...

. This is all from the

Epistle to the Hebrews The Epistle to the Hebrews () is one of the books of the New Testament. The text does not mention the name of its author, but was traditionally attributed to Paul the Apostle; most of the Ancient Greek manuscripts, the Old Syriac Peshitto and ...

, namely 2:14-5:5; 10:8-22; 10:29-11:14; 11:28-12:17. Its presence of

pagination Pagination, also known as paging, is the process of dividing a document into discrete page (paper), pages, either electronic pages or printed pages. In reference to books produced without a computer, pagination can mean the consecutive page num ...

47-50 means that ''Hebrews'' was preceded by only one book in the original scroll, likely the

Epistle to the Romans The Epistle to the Romans is the sixth book in the New Testament, and the longest of the thirteen Pauline epistles. Biblical scholars agree that it was composed by Paul the Apostle to explain that Salvation (Christianity), salvation is offered ...

as in

Papyrus 46 Papyrus 46, also known as ''P. Chester Beatty II'', is an early Greek New Testament manuscript written on papyrus, and is one of the manuscripts comprising the Chester Beatty Papyri. It is designated by the siglum in the Gregory-Aland numberi ...

. It is the largest papyrus manuscript of the New Testament outside the

Chester Beatty Papyri The Chester Beatty Biblical Papyri or simply the Chester Beatty Papyri are a group of early papyrus manuscripts of biblical texts. The manuscripts are in Greek and are of Christian origin. There are eleven manuscripts in the group, seven con ...

. It was written on the back of a papyrus containing the

Epitome of Livy The ''History of Rome'', perhaps originally titled , and frequently referred to as (), is a monumental history of ancient Rome, written in Latin between 27 and 9 BC by the Roman historian Titus Livius, better known in English as "Livy". ...

and some scholars think the manuscript was possibly brought to Egypt by a Roman official and left behind when he left his post. It has errors of

itacism Iotacism (, ''iotakismos'') or itacism is the process of vowel shift by which a number of vowels and diphthongs converged towards the pronunciation in post-classical Greek and Modern Greek. The term "iotacism" refers to the letter iota, the orig ...

(ι and ει, ε and αι, υ and οι).C. R. Gregory, ''Textkritik des Neuen Testaments'' III (Leipzig: 1909), p. 1091.

Text

Papyrus 13 is a representative of the

Alexandrian text-type In textual criticism of the New Testament, the Alexandrian text-type is one of the main text types. It is the text type favored by the majority of modern textual critics and it is the basis for most modern (after 1900) Bible translations. Over 5,8 ...

. Aland placed it in Category I. It bears strong textual affinity with

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 also has an 80% agreement with

. It has numerous distinctive readings. Papyrus 13 is written recto-verso, with the verso (back) containing ''Hebrews'' and the recto (front) containing part of

Livy Titus Livius (; 59 BC – AD 17), known in English as Livy ( ), was a Roman historian. He wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people, titled , covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome before the traditional founding i ...

's ''

History of Rome The history of Rome includes the history of the city of Rome as well as the civilisation of ancient Rome. Roman history has been influential on the modern world, especially in the history of the Catholic Church, and Roman law has influenced m ...

'', dated to around 200 AD.

References

External links

* Aland, K and Aland, B (1995)
''The Text of the New Testament''
p. 97, Trans. Rhodes, EF, Pub. Wm. B. Eerdmans. * Robert B. Waltz

Image of P13 {{DEFAULTSORT:Papyrus 0013 3rd-century biblical manuscripts New Testament papyri 657 Early Greek manuscripts of the New Testament Epistle to the Hebrews papyri

Description

Text

See also

References

Further reading

External links