PAPYRUS 23 P23 (P. Oxy. X 1229)

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James 1:15-18
Name	P. Oxy. X 1229
Text	James 1:10-12, 15-18
Date	175-225 A.D. (c. 200 A.D.)
Script	Greek
Found	Egypt
Now at	University of Illinois
Cite	B. P. Grenfell & A. S. Hunt, Oxyrhynchus Papyri’’ X, (London 1914), pp. 16-18
Size	12.1 x 11.2 cm
Type	Alexandrian text-type
Category	I

Papyrus 23 (in the Gregory-Aland numbering),[1] designated by P²³, is an early copy of the New Testament in Greek. It is a papyrus[2] manuscript of the Epistle of James, it contains only James 1:10-12,15-18. The manuscript paleographically[3] has been assigned to 175-225 A.D.[4]

Description

The Nomina Sacra[5] are written fully, abbreviations are used only at the end of lines.^[2] There has been noticed the occurrence of the ungrammatical αποσκιασματος found also in Codex Sinaiticus[6] and Codex Vaticanus[7] in James 1:17.

The Greek text of this codex is a representative of the Alexandrian text-type[8] (or rather proto-Alexandrian). Aland placed it in Category I.[9] This manuscript displays the greatest agreement with codices א A C,[10] which represent the best text of the general epistles,[11] and then with Codex Vaticanus and Papyrus 74.[12]

It is currently housed in the Spurlock Museum at the University of Illinois (G. P. 1229) in Urbana, Illinois.[13] 

Philip Comfort writes,

This fragment was originally dated to the fourth century by Grenfell and Hunt. The Alands redate it to the third century. Neither authority gives evidence from other manuscripts. A similar style can be seen in the first hand of P. Chester Beatty IX (Ezekiel), which should be dated to the third century. The style of P23 is earlier in that it exhibits small serifs in many letters (alpha, iota, lambda, mu, nu) and no small omicrons—all characteristics of the second century. Wilcken confirms this second-century date.* – Philip Wesley Comfort and David P. Barrett, The Text of the Earliest New Testament Greek Manuscripts (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 2001), 111.

* Ulrich Wilcken cited in Die Katholischen Briefe, ed. Klaus Junack and Winfried Grunewald, vol. 1 of Das Neue Testament auf Papyrus (Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 1986), 14.

Attribution: This article incorporates some text from the public domain: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, and Edward D. Andrews

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[1] A biblical manuscript is any handwritten copy of a portion of the text of the Bible. Biblical manuscripts vary in size from tiny scrolls containing individual verses of the Jewish scriptures (see Tefillin) to huge polyglot codices (multi-lingual books) containing both the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) and the New Testament, as well as extracanonical works.

[2] Papyrus ( pə-PY-rəs) 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.

[3] Palaeography (UK) or paleography (US; ultimately from Greek: παλαιός, palaiós, “old,” and γράφειν, gráphein, “to write”) is the study of historic writing systems and the deciphering and dating of historical manuscripts, including the analysis of historic handwriting. It is concerned with the forms and processes of writing, not the textual content of documents.

[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), 99-101.

[5] In Christian scribal practice, nomina sacra (singular: nomen sacrum from Latin sacred name) is the abbreviation of several frequently occurring divine names or titles, especially in Greek manuscripts of Holy Scripture. A nomen sacrum consists of two or more letters from the original word spanned by an overline.

[6] The Codex Sinaiticus (Shelfmark: London, British Library, Add MS 43725), designated by siglum א‎ [Aleph] or 01 (in the Gregory-Aland numbering), δ 2 (Soden), or “Sinai Bible”, is a fourth-century Christian manuscript of the Greek Bible, containing the majority of the Greek Old Testament, and the Greek New Testament written in uncial letters on parchment. It is one of the four great uncial codices.

[7] The Codex Vaticanus (The Vatican, Bibl. Vat., Vat. gr. 1209; no. B or 03 Gregory-Aland, δ 1 von Soden) is one of the oldest copies of the Bible, one of the four great uncial codices. The Codex is named after its place of conservation in the Vatican Library, where it has been kept since at least the 15th century. It is written on 759 leaves of vellum in uncial letters and has been dated palaeographically to 300-330 A.D.

[8] 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.

[9] New Testament manuscripts in Greek are categorized into five groups, according to a scheme introduced in 1981 by Kurt and Barbara Aland in The text of the New Testament. The categories are based on how each manuscript relates to the various text-types.

[10] א – The Codex Sinaiticus (Shelfmark: London, British Library, Add MS 43725), designated by siglum א‎ [Aleph] or 01 (in the Gregory-Aland numbering), δ 2 (Soden), or “Sinai Bible”, is a fourth-century Christian manuscript of the Greek Bible, containing the majority of the Greek Old Testament, and the Greek New Testament written in uncial letters on parchment. It is one of the four great uncial codices.

A – The Codex Alexandrinus (London, British Library, Royal MS 1. D. V-VIII), designated by the siglum A or 02 (in the Gregory-Aland numbering), δ 4 (von Soden), is a fifth-century Christian manuscript of a Greek Bible, containing the majority of the Greek Old Testament and the Greek New Testament.

C – The Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus (Paris, National Library of France, Greek 9; Gregory-Aland no. C or 04, von Soden δ 3) is a fifth-century Greek manuscript of the Bible, containing most of the New Testament and some Old Testament books, with sizeable lacunae.

[11] The catholic epistles (also called the general epistles) are seven epistles of the New Testament.

[12] Papyrus 74 (in the Gregory-Aland numbering), designated by P⁷⁴, is a copy of the New Testament in Greek. It is a papyrus manuscript of the Acts of the Apostles and Catholic epistles with lacunae.

[13] Aland, Kurt; Aland, Barbara (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. 97.

“Liste Handschriften”. Münster: Institute for New Testament Textual Research. Retrieved 23 August 2011.

“Oxyrhynchus Papyrus, P.Oxy X 1229: Excerpt, James 1: 15-18 (Fragment), Search the Collection, Spurlock Museum, U of I”.