📜 Manuscript

Papyrus P52: the oldest fragment of the New Testament

A fragment the size of a credit card with John 18 — the oldest known copy of a passage from the New Testament.

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Front of P52: excerpts from John 18:31-33.Papyrologist Bernard Grenfell (1920), as preserved at the John Rylands Library. Photo: courtesy of JRUL. — domínio público (Wikimedia Commons)

Front of P52: excerpts from John 18:31-33.Papyrologist Bernard Grenfell (1920), as preserved at the John Rylands Library. Photo: courtesy of JRUL. — domínio público (Wikimedia Commons)

Date: c. 125–175 AD
Found in: Egypt (purchased on the antiquities market in 1920)
Where it is: John Rylands Library, Manchester (England)

In 1920, the papyrologist Bernard Grenfell bought a batch of papyri in Egypt for the John Rylands Library in Manchester. Only in 1934 did the researcher C. H. Roberts, organizing the material, notice that a little piece measuring 8.9 by 6 centimeters contained phrases from the Gospel of John. He published the find in 1935.

On one side are parts of John 18:31-33 (Jesus before Pilate); on the other, of John 18:37-38 ("What is truth?"). Since the text continues on the reverse, the sheet was from a codex — a book with pages, and not from a scroll. The first Christians adopted the codex very early for copying the Scriptures.

The date comes from the shape of the letters (paleography). Roberts suggested between 100 and 150 A.D.; a more recent study (Orsini and Clarysse) proposes 125–175 A.D., and there are those who stretch the range to the third century. Even at the later date, it remains among the oldest manuscripts of the New Testament.

Why it matters: the Gospel of John, traditionally the last to be written (end of the first century), was already circulating and being copied in Egypt, far from where it was written, just a few decades later. This weighs against the idea that the gospels would be much later compositions.

Pilate told them, "Take him yourselves and judge him according to your law." The Jews said to him, "It is not lawful for us to put anyone to death."

John 18:31 — own translation. The fragment preserves only bits of these lines; the rest is completed by the text of the gospel.

In the Bible

📖 John 18:31-33 📖 John 18:37-38

Sources to check

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