Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 655 (P. Oxy. 655) 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'' or ''papyruses'') can a ...

fragment of the

logia The term ''logia'' (), plural of ''logion'' (), is used variously in ancient writings and modern scholarship in reference to communications of divine origin. In pagan contexts, the principal meaning was "oracles", while Jewish and Christian writi ...

of Jesus written in Greek. It is one of the

Oxyrhynchus Papyri The Oxyrhynchus Papyri are a group of manuscripts discovered during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by papyrology, papyrologists Bernard Pyne Grenfell and Arthur Surridge Hunt at an ancient Landfill, rubbish dump near Oxyrhync ...

discovered by Grenfell and

Hunt Hunting is the Human activity, human practice of seeking, pursuing, capturing, and killing wildlife or feral animals. The most common reasons for humans to hunt are to obtain the animal's body for meat and useful animal products (fur/hide (sk ...

between 1897 and 1904 in the Egyptian town of

Oxyrhynchus Oxyrhynchus ( ; , ; ; ), also known by its modern name Al-Bahnasa (), is a city in Middle Egypt located about 160 km south-southwest of Cairo in Minya Governorate. It is also an important archaeological site. Since the late 19th century, t ...

. The fragment is dated to the early 3rd century. It is one of only three Greek manuscripts of the

Gospel of Thomas The Gospel of Thomas (also known as the Coptic Gospel of Thomas) is a non-canonical Logia, sayings gospel. It was discovered near Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in 1945 among a group of books known as the Nag Hammadi library. Scholars speculate the works ...

Description

The manuscript was written on papyrus in

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 ...

form. The measurements of the original leaf were 82 mm by 83 mm. The text is written in uncial letters. It is well written

Larry Hurtado Larry Weir Hurtado (December 29, 1943 – November 25, 2019), was an American New Testament scholar, historian of early Christianity, and Emeritus Professor of New Testament Language, Literature, and Theology at the University of Edinburgh ( ...

, ''The Earliest Christian Artifacts'' (Wm. Eerdmans 2006), p. 228. in an informal book hand. There is no punctuation, no

rough breathing In the polytonic orthography of Ancient Greek, the rough breathing ( or ; ) character is a diacritical mark used to indicate the presence of an sound before a vowel, diphthong, or after rho. It remained in the polytonic orthography even af ...

s, no accents, no division between sayings, nor instances of using of the

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 ...

, ''The Earliest Christian Artifacts'' (Wm. Eerdmans 2006), p. 241. One correction was made in a

cursive Cursive (also known as joined-up writing) is any style of penmanship in which characters are written joined in a flowing manner, generally for the purpose of making writing faster, in contrast to block letters. It varies in functionality and m ...

hand. The fragment contains ''

'' (sayings) 36–39 of the Gospel of Thomas on the recto side of the leaf. Grenfell and Hunt also discovered another two fragments of this apocryphal Gospel: P. Oxy. 1 and P. Oxy. 654. According to Grenfell and Hunt, who identified this fragment as being from an uncanonical Gospel, it is very close to the

Synoptic Gospels The gospels of Gospel of Matthew, Matthew, Gospel of Mark, Mark, and Gospel of Luke, Luke are referred to as the synoptic Gospels because they include many of the same stories, often in a similar sequence and in similar or sometimes identical ...

. They observed some similarities to the

Gospel of Luke The Gospel of Luke is the third of the New Testament's four canonical Gospels. It tells of the origins, Nativity of Jesus, birth, Ministry of Jesus, ministry, Crucifixion of Jesus, death, Resurrection of Jesus, resurrection, and Ascension of ...

. According to them it could have belonged to the Gospel according to the Egyptians (as postulated by

Adolf Harnack Carl Gustav Adolf von Harnack (born Harnack; 7 May 1851 – 10 June 1930) was a Baltic German Lutheran theologian and prominent Church historian. He produced many religious publications from 1873 to 1912 (in which he is sometimes credited ...

), or a collections of Jesus's Sayings used in the

Second Epistle of Clement The Second Epistle of Clement (), often referred to as 2 Clement (pronounced "Second Clement"), is an early Christian writing. It was at one point possibly considered canonical by the Coptic Orthodox Church and Eastern Orthodox Church. 1 and 2 Cl ...

. Grenfell and Hunt observed some similarities to the P. Oxy. 654. The only complete copy of the Gospel of Thomas was found in 1945 when a Coptic version was discovered at

Nag Hammadi Nag Hammadi ( ; ) is a city and Markaz (administrative division), markaz in Upper Egypt. It is located on the west bank of the Nile in the Qena Governorate, about north-west of Luxor. The city had a population of close to 61,737 . History ...

with a collection of early Christian

Gnostic texts Gnosticism used a number of religious texts that are preserved, in part or whole, in ancient manuscripts, or lost but mentioned critically in Patristic writings. There is significant scholarly debate around what Gnosticism is, and therefore what ...

. In 1904, P. Oxy. 655 was given to

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

by the

Egypt Exploration Fund The Egypt Exploration Society (EES) is a British non-profit organization founded in 1882 for the purpose of financing and facilitating the exploration of significant archeological sites in Egypt and Sudan, founded by writer Amelia Edwards and coin ...

. The fragment is housed at the

Houghton Library Houghton Library, on the south side of Harvard Yard adjacent to Widener Library, Lamont Library, and Loeb House, is Harvard University's primary repository for rare books and manuscripts. It is part of the Harvard College Library, the library s ...

(SM Inv. 4367) 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 town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...

.Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 655

References

External links

Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 655

The Gospel of Thomas: Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 655

P. Oxy. 655

LDAB The Leuven Database of Ancient Books (LDAB) is a resource for all ancient written literary manuscripts, from 500 BC to AD 800. It currently lists more than 16.000 Greek, Latin, Coptic, Syriac and Demotic literary texts. It is said that it "attempt ...

{{Authority control

655 __NOTOC__ Year 655 ( DCLV) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Julian calendar. The denomination 655 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe ...

Gnostic Gospels 3rd-century manuscripts

Description

See also

References

Further reading

External links