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 numbering of New Testament manuscripts. Manuscripts among the Chester Beatty Papyri have had several provenances associated with them, the most likely being the Faiyum. Using the study of comparative writing styles, it has been dated to between 175 and 225, or to the early 3rd century CE. It contains verses from the Pauline Epistles of Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, and Hebrews. Some leaves are part of the Chester Beatty Biblical Papyri, and others are in the University of Michigan Papyrus Collection.
In November 2020, the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts in conjunction with Hendrickson Publishers released a new 1:1 high-resolution imaged facsimile edition of on black and white backgrounds, along with and.
Description
The manuscript is a codex made from papyrus in single quire, with the folio size approximately. The text is written in single column, with the text-block averaging, between 26 and 32 lines of text per page, although both the width of the rows and the number of rows per page increase progressively. Lines containing text at the bottom of each page are damaged, with between 1–2 lines non-extant in the first quarter of the codex, 2–3 lines non-extant in the central half, and up to seven lines non-extant in the final quarter. Though unusual for ancient manuscripts, has each page numbered.Throughout Romans, Hebrews, and the latter chapters of 1 Corinthians, small and thick strokes or dots are found, usually agreed to be from the hand of a reader rather than the initial copyist, since the ink is always much paler than that of the text itself. They appear to mark sense divisions, and are also found in portions of, possibly evidence of reading in the community which held both codices. Edgar Ebojo made a case that these "reading marks" with or without space-intervals were an aid to readers, most likely in a liturgical context.
Nomina sacra
uses an extensive and well-developed system of nomina sacra. It contains the following nomina sacra : or .The use of nomina sacra has featured in discussions on the dating for, with scholar Bruce Griffin arguing against scholar Young Kyu Kim, in part, that such an extensive usage of the nomina sacra system nearly eliminates any possibility of the manuscript dating to the 1st century. He admitted, however, that Kim's dating cannot be ruled out on this basis alone, since the exact provenance of the nomina sacra system itself is not well-established.
On the other hand, papyrologist Philip Comfort notes indications the scribe's exemplar made limited use of nomina sacra or none at all. In several instances, the word for Spirit is written out in full where the context should require a nomen sacrum, suggesting the scribe was rendering nomina sacra where appropriate for the meaning but struggling with Spirit versus spirit, without guidance from the exemplar. The text also inconsistently uses either the short or the long contracted forms of Christ.
Contents
contains most of the Pauline epistles, though with some folios missing. It contains : the last eight chapters of Romans; Hebrews; 1–2 Corinthians; Ephesians; Galatians; Philippians; Colossians; and two chapters of 1 Thessalonians. All of the leaves have lost some lines at the bottom through deterioration.| Folio | Contents | Location |
| 1–7 | Romans 1:1–5:17 | Missing |
| 8 | Rom 5:17–6:14 | CB |
| 9-10 | Rom 6:14–8:15 | Missing |
| 11–15 | Rom 8:15–11:35 | CB |
| 16–17 | Rom 11:35–14:8 | Mich. |
| 18 | Rom 14:9–15:11 | CB |
| 19–28 | Rom 15:11–Hebrews 8:8 | Mich. |
| 29 | Heb 8:9–9:10 | CB |
| 30 | Heb 9:10–26 | Mich. |
| 31–39 | Heb 9:26–1 Corinthians 2:3 | CB |
| 40 | 1 Cor 2:3–3:5 | Mich. |
| 41–69 | 1 Cor 3:6–2 Corinthians 9:7 | CB |
| 70–85 | 2 Cor 9:7–end, Ephesians, Galatians 1:1–6:10 | Mich. |
| 86–94 | Gal 6:10–end, Philippians, Colossians, 1 Thessalonians 1:1–2:3 | CB |
| 95–96 | 1 Thess 2:3–5:5 | Missing |
| 97 | 1 Thess 5:5, 23–28 | CB |
| 98–104 | Thought to be 1 Thess 5:28–2 Thessalonians, and possibly Philemon; as for 1–2 Timothy, and Titus | Missing |
Missing contents
The contents of the seven missing leaves from the end is uncertain as they are lost. Kenyon calculated that 2 Thessalonians would require two leaves, leaving only five remaining leaves for the remaining canonical Pauline literature — 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus and Philemon — requiring ten leaves in total. Thus Kenyon concluded as originally constructed did not include the pastoral epistles.Overall, Kenyon was open to different possibilities regarding the contents of the lost leaves at the end of the codex. He entertained the idea that the last five leaves could have been left blank or that additional leaves could have been added to the quire to create space for the pastoral letters. In 1998, Jeremy Duff vigorously argued in favor of Kenyon's second suggestion, emphasizing that the scribe of was increasing the number of letters per page in the second half of the codex. Duff argued that this indicated that the scribe intended to include all of the traditional 14-letter collection and would most likely have added extra leaves if the original quire lacked sufficient space. Duff also pointed to several ancient codices that he considered as good evidence for the attachment of additional leaves to codices to allow for the inclusion of more material. The relevance of the ancient evidence that Duff presented has been challenged, but a survey of surviving examples of ancient single-quire codices does show evidence for the practice of leaving some blank pages at the end of a codex. However, this survey also showed that single-quire codices sometimes had more inscribed pages in the second half of the codex than in the first half. This leaves open the possibility that the original quire may have contained the traditional 14-letter collection after all. Brent Nongbri summarizes:
The question of the contents of the codex as originally constructed thus remains open.
Text
The text of the codex is considered a representative of the Alexandrian text-type. 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, and Byzantine. Biblical scholar Kurt Aland placed it in Category I of his New Testament manuscript classification system. Category I manuscripts are those "of a very special quality, i. e. manuscripts with a very high proportion of the early text... To this category have also been assigned all manuscripts to the beginning of the fourth century, regardless of further distinctions which should also be observed";Some notable readings
Romans 8:28
Provenance
The provenance of the papyrus is unknown. Kenyon believed this codex and the other Beatty Biblical Papyri came from the region of the Fayyum. The coptologist Carl Schmidt was told that the books were found in "‘Alâlme, a village on the east bank of the Nile in the area of Aṭfiḥ, ancient Aphroditopolis." However, the archaeologists who bought the University of Michigan's portion of the codex believed that it had come from Asyut. Thus, there is no consensus on the precise find spot.Date
As with all manuscripts dated solely by palaeography, the dating of is uncertain. H. A. Sanders, the first editor of parts of the papyrus, proposed a date possibly as late as the second half of the 3rd century. F. G. Kenyon, editor of the complete editio princeps, preferred a date in the first half of the 3rd century. The manuscript is now sometimes dated to about 200. Young Kyu Kim has argued for an exceptionally early date of c. 80. Kim's dating has been widely rejected. Griffin critiqued and disputed Kim's dating, placing the 'most probable date' between 175 and 225, with a '95% confidence interval' for a date between 150 and 250.Comfort and Barrett have claimed shares palaeographical affinities with the following:
- P. Oxy. 8,
- P. Oxy. 841,
- P. Oxy. 1622,
- P. Oxy. 2337,
- P. Oxy. 3721,
- P. Rylands III 550, and
- P. Berol. 9810.