Papyrus 47, also known as ''P. Chester Beatty'' III, is an early Greek

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 ...

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 ...

written 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 ...

, and is one of the manuscripts comprising 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 is designated by the

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 ...

in the Gregory-Aland numbering of New Testament manuscripts. Manuscripts among the

have had several places of discovery associated with them, the most likely being the Faiyum. Using the study of comparative writing styles (

palaeography Palaeography (American and British English spelling differences#ae and oe, UK) or paleography (American and British English spelling differences#ae and oe, US) (ultimately from , , 'old', and , , 'to write') is the study and academic disciplin ...

), it has been dated to the early 3rd century CE. The manuscript contains text from the

Book of Revelation The Book of Revelation, also known as the Book of the Apocalypse or the Apocalypse of John, is the final book of the New Testament, and therefore the final book of the Bible#Christian Bible, Christian Bible. Written in Greek language, Greek, ...

chapters 9 through 17. It is currently housed at the

Chester Beatty Library The Chester Beatty Library, now known as the Chester Beatty, is a museum and library in Dublin. It was established in Ireland in 1953, to house the collections of mining magnate, Sir Alfred Chester Beatty. The present museum, on the grounds of ...

(Inv. 14. 1. 527) in

Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...

. In November 2020, the

CSNTM The Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts (CSNTM) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization whose mission is to digitally preserve Greek New Testament manuscripts. Toward that end, CSNTM takes digital photographs of manuscripts at institu ...

in conjunction with

Hendrickson Publishers Hendrickson Publishers is an American academic and reference publishing house founded in 1980. It is based in Peabody, Massachusetts. History The company was established on 12 May 1980 and incorporated in Massachusetts. In 2021, Tyndale House ...

released a new 1:1 high-resolution imaged facsimile edition of on black and white backgrounds, along with and .

''CSNTM and Hendrickson Publishers to Publish Third-Century New Testament Papyri Facsimiles''
/ref>

Description

The manuscript is 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 ...

(precursor to the modern

book A book is a structured presentation of recorded information, primarily verbal and graphical, through a medium. Originally physical, electronic books and audiobooks are now existent. Physical books are objects that contain printed material, ...

format), written with black ink on papyrus. The manuscript is quite fragmented, containing the text of Revelation 9:10-11:3; 11:5-16:15; and 16:17-17:2. The extant part of the manuscript comprises 10 leaves arranged as a single quire. The original size of the pages was 24x14cm, with around 23-30 lines each page The writing column was quite small, comprising 19x10cm, with 1-4 lines lost at the top of each page. Due to the first five leaves facing back to front (also known as ''verso'' to ''recto''), and the last five leaves facing front to back (''recto'' to ''verso''), this is evidence the extant leaves are from the middle portion, and likely that only the book of Revelation was included in the manuscript. It is calculated that the manuscript likely had 30-32 leaves in total to house the text. Biblical scholar

Frederic Kenyon Sir Frederic George Kenyon (15 January 1863 – 23 August 1952) was an English palaeographer and biblical and classical scholar. He held a series of posts at the British Museum from 1889 to 1931. He was also the president of the British Academy ...

describes the writing as "rather rough in character, thick in formation, and with no pretensions to calligraphy." Based on the graphic style, he dated the manuscript to the 3rd century CE. The manuscript evidences the following

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

(names/titles considered sacred in

Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion, which states that Jesus in Christianity, Jesus is the Son of God (Christianity), Son of God and Resurrection of Jesus, rose from the dead after his Crucifixion of Jesus, crucifixion, whose ...

, which received suspended abbreviations with a horizontal line above): ( / ''man''), ( / ''God''), ( / ''Jesus''), ( / ''Lord/Master''), ( / ''spirit'' or ''spirits''), ( / ''father''), ( / ''Christ/Messiah''), ( / ''crucified'').

Text

The Greek text of this codex is considered 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 ...

. The text-types are groups of different manuscripts which share specific or generally related readings, which then differ from each other group, and thus the conflicting readings can separate out the groups, which are then used to determine the original text as published; there are three main groups with names: Alexandrian,

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 ...

, and

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...

. Biblical scholar

Kurt Aland Kurt Aland (28 March 1915 – 13 April 1994) was a German theologian and Biblical studies, biblical scholar who specialized in New Testament textual criticism. He founded the ''Institute for New Testament Textual Research, Institut für neutest ...

ascribed it as a ''Normal text'', and placed it in Category I of his New Testament manuscript classification system. The text of this manuscript is closest to

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 ...

(), and together they are witnesses for one of the early textual types of the Book of Revelation. Another type is represented by the manuscripts Papyrus 115 (),

Codex Alexandrinus The Codex Alexandrinus (London, British Library, Royal MS 1. D. V-VIII) is a manuscript of the Greek Bible,The Greek Bible in this context refers to the Bible used by Greek-speaking Christians who lived in Egypt and elsewhere during the early ...

(A), and

Codex Ephraemi The Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus (Paris, National Library of France, Greek 9) is a manuscript of the Greek Bible, written on parchment. It is designated by the siglum C or 04 in the Gregory-Aland numbering of New Testament manuscripts, and δ 3 (i ...

(C). The text in - is considered to be an inferior witness to the text of Revelation as opposed to that of -A-C.

Description

Text

See also

References

Further reading