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The Reading Culture of Early Christianity

Papyrus P⁴⁷


Text	Book of Revelation 9:10-17:2 †
Date	200-250 C.E.
Script	Greek
Found	Egypt
Now at	Chester Beatty Library
Cite	F. G. Kenyon, The Chester Beatty Biblical Papyri III, (London, 1934).
Type	Alexandrian text-type
Category	I
Note	close to Sinaiticus, 0308

Papyrus 47 (Gregory-Aland) (LDAB 2778), signed by P⁴⁷, is an early copy of the New Testament in Greek. It is a papyrus manuscript of the Book of Revelation which contains Rev. 9:10-11:3; 11:5-16:15; 16:17-17:2. The manuscript has been assigned paleographically the 200-250 C.E.

The Greek text of this codex is a representative of the Alexandrian text-type.[1] Aland [2] ascribed it as a Normal text, and placed it in Category I.[3] The text of this manuscript is closest to Codex Sinaiticus,[4] and they are witnesses for one of the early textual types of the Book of Revelation.^[3] Another type is represented by manuscripts Papyrus 115, Codex Alexandrinus,[5] and Codex Ephraemi.[6]

It is currently housed at the Chester Beatty Library[7] (Inv. 14. 1. 527) in Dublin.[8]

Philip W. Comfort,

Textual Character Closest to א

Kenyon dated P47 to the second half of the third century on the basis of the formation of its letters (particularly alpha, beta, epsilon, mu, sigma, and omega). This manuscript bears resemblance to two other manuscripts of Revelation: P18 and P24, both dated to the late third century.

When this manuscript was first examined by Kenyon, he said, “It is on the whole closest to א and C, with P next, and A rather further away.” Further study of P47 has shown that it “is allied to א, but not to A or to C, which are of a different text type.” We know that A, C, and P115 (see comments there) form one early group for Revelation, while P47 and א form another.^[1]

^[1] Philip Wesley Comfort and David P. Barrett, The Text of the Earliest New Testament Greek Manuscripts (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 2001), 335.