Papyrus 1


Papyrus 1 is an early papyrus manuscript of one chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in Greek. It is designated by the siglum in the Gregory-Aland numbering of New Testament manuscripts, and as ε 01 in the von Soden numbering of New Testament manuscripts. Using the study of comparative writing styles, it is dated to the early 3rd century. It was discovered in Oxyrhynchus, Egypt. It is currently housed at the University of Pennsylvania Museum.

Description

The manuscript was likely a codex, of which a fragment of one leaf has survived. The text is written in one column per page, 27–29 lines per page, roughly sized by. The original codex was arranged in two leaves in quire form.
The surviving text of Matthew are verses 1:1–9,12 and 13,14–20. The words are written continuously without separation. Accents and breathings are absent, except two breathings which are a smooth breathing on fifth letter in line 14 of the verso and a rough breathing on the fourth letter to last letter in line 14 of the recto.
The manuscript includes the nomina sacra, of which the following are witnessed::,,,, .

Text

The Greek text of this codex is considered to be a representative of the Alexandrian. Biblical scholar Kurt Aland placed it in Categories of [New Testament manuscripts#Category I|Category I] of his New Testament manuscript classification system.
According to scholars, has close agreement with Codex Vaticanus. It supports Vaticanus in 1:3 in reading ζαρε. Ten of the variants are in the spelling of names in the genealogy of Jesus Christ. Biblical scholar Herman C. Hoskier, who found 17–20 word variations, denied close agreement with Vaticanus.
; Text according to Comfort
Recto
Verso
; Disagreement with Vaticanus

History

Papyrologists Bernard Pyne Grenfell and Arthur Surridge Hunt discovered this papyrus at Oxyrhynchus in Egypt, on the third or fourth day of excavation, January 13 or 14, 1897. Their findings were published in the first volume of The Oxyrhynchus Papyri in 1898. The manuscript was examined by Francis Crawford Burkitt, Herman C. Hoskier, Comfort, and many other scholars.
Grenfell and Hunt collated its text against the Textus Receptus and against the text of Westcott-Hort. They found that the manuscript belongs to the same class as the Sinaiticus and Vaticanus codices, and has no Western or Byzantine proclivities. Usually it agrees with these two codices, where they are in agreement. Where they differ, the manuscript is near to Vaticanus, except in one important case, where it agrees with Sinaiticus. It was the earliest known manuscript of the New Testament until the discovery of Papyrus 45.