1 John 4:11-12,14-17 Name P. Oxy. 402 Text 1 John 4:11-12,14-17 Date 200-225 C.E. Script Greek Found Oxyrhynchus, Egypt Now at Houghton Library Cite Grenfell & A. S. Hunt, Oxyrhynchus Papyri III (1903), pp. 2-3 Size 8 x 5.2 c, [11 x 15] Type Alexandrian text-type Category I Hand irregular

Papyrus 9 (in the Gregory-Aland numbering), signed by P⁹, and named Oxyrhynchus papyri[1] 402, is an early copy of the New Testament in Greek. It is a papyrus[2] manuscript of the First Epistle of John, dating paleographically[3] to the early 3rd century.[4]

Description

Papyrus P⁹ was discovered by Bernard Pyne Grenfell and Arthur Surridge Hunt in Oxyrhynchus, Egypt. Papyrus P⁹ is currently housed at the Houghton Library, Harvard University, Semitic Museum Inv. 3736, Cambridge (Massachusetts).[5]

The surviving text is a fragment of one leaf containing 1 John 4:11-12,14-17, written in one column per page. The original codex had 16 lines per page. The text on the manuscript was written very carelessly, evidenced by the crude and irregular handwriting, and the manuscript contains some unintelligible spellings.[6]

Text of P⁹

The Greek text of this codex is representative of the Alexandrian text-type.[7] Kurt and Barbara Aland placed it in Category I.^[3] The manuscript is too brief for certainty.

References

Philip Wesley Comfort and David P. Barrett, THE TEXT OF THE EARLIEST NEW TESTAMENT MANUSCRIPTS: Papyri 1-72, Vol. 1 (English and Greek Edition) (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Academic, 2019), 61.

“Handschriftenliste”. Münster: Institute for New Testament Textual Research. Retrieved Wednesday, October 21, 2020.

Kurt and Barbara Aland (1995). The Text of the New Testament: An Introduction to the Critical Editions and to the Theory and Practice of Modern Textual Criticism. Erroll F. Rhodes (trans.). Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. p. 96. 

Further Reading

P., Grenfell; Hunt, A. S.(1898). Oxyrhynchus Papyri III. London. pp. 2–3.

Gregory, Caspar René (1908). Die griechischen Handschriften des Neuen Testament. Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs’sche Buchhandlung. p. 46.

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[1] The Oxyrhynchus Papyri are a group of manuscripts discovered during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by papyrologists Bernard Pyne Grenfell and Arthur Surridge Hunt at an ancient rubbish dump near Oxyrhynchus in Egypt.

[2] 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 can also refer to a document written on sheets of such material, joined together side by side, and rolled up into a scroll, an early form of a book.

[3] Palaeography (UK) or paleography is the study of ancient and historical handwriting. Included in the discipline is the practice of deciphering, reading, and dating historical manuscripts, and the cultural context of writing, including the methods with which writing and books were produced, and the history of scriptoria.

[4] Philip Wesley Comfort and David P. Barrett, THE TEXT OF THE EARLIEST NEW TESTAMENT MANUSCRIPTS: Papyri 1-72, Vol. 1 (English and Greek Edition) (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Academic, 2019), 61.

[5] IBID, 61

“Handschriftenliste”. Münster: Institute for New Testament Textual Research. Wednesday, October 21, 2020.

[6] Philip Wesley Comfort and David P. Barrett, THE TEXT OF THE EARLIEST NEW TESTAMENT MANUSCRIPTS: Papyri 1-72, Vol. 1 (English and Greek Edition) (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Academic, 2019), 61.

[7] The Alexandrian text-type is one of several text-types found among New Testament manuscripts. It is the text type favored by textual critics and it is the basis for modern Bible translations. The name of the text type comes from Codex Alexandrinus, a manuscript of this type.