Christian Publishing House Blog
Apologetic Defense of the faith, the Bible, and Christianity
Papyrus is a tall, aquatic reed, the pith of which is cut into strips, laid in a crosswork pattern, and glued together to make a page for writing. The papyrus rolls of Egypt have been used as a writing surface since the early third millennium BC.
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.
Contents: P46 contains most of the Pauline epistles, though with some folios missing. It contains (in order) “the last eight chapters of Romans; all of Hebrews; virtually all of 1–2 Corinthians; all of Ephesians, Galatians, Philippians, Colossians; and two chapters of 1 Thessalonians. All of the leaves have lost some lines at the bottom through deterioration.”
The papyri are documents written on papyrus, a material prepared in Ancient Egypt from the pithy stem of a water plant, used in sheets throughout the ancient Mediterranean world for writing. The early papyri of about 100+ manuscripts that date from 110-390 C.E. are said to be the most important for establishing the original.