Christian Publishing House Blog
Apologetic Defense of the faith, the Bible, and Christianity
In the case of the New Testament papyri manuscripts, our early evidence for the Greek New Testament, size is irrelevant. They range from centimeters encompassing a couple of verses to a codex with many books of the New Testament. But all of them add something significant.
Papyrus 26 designated by P26, is an early copy of the New Testament Greek. It is a papyrus manuscript of the Epistle to the Romans. It contains only Romans 1:1-16. The manuscript paleographically has been assigned to c. 600 C.E.
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.
Papyrus 17 (P17) is an early copy of the New Testament in Greek. It is a papyrus manuscript of the Epistle to the Hebrews, but only contains verses 9:12-19.
One could argue that many of the manuscripts have been looked at over the past 140 years. However, many in comparison to hundreds of thousands mean nothing really. Let's look a little deeper as to how they have helped and why some may have been reluctant to invest time into working their way through this treasure.