Papyrus 4

New Testament manuscript infobox
form=Papyrus
number=4


caption=
name=
sign=P⁴
text=Luke 1-6 (extensive parts of,)
script=Greek
date= Late 2nd/3rd century
found=Coptos, Egypt
now at=Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, Suppl. Gr. 1120
cite=
size=
type=
cat=I
hand=
note=

Papyrus 4 (P⁴, part of "Suppl. Gr." 1120) is an early New Testament papyri of the Gospel of Luke in Greek. It is dated as being a late 2nd/early 3rd century manuscript. It is one the earliest manuscripts (along with P⁷⁵)Gregory (2003) p.28] of the Gospel of Luke and contains extensive sections of its first six chaptersWilker] . It is currently housed in the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris.

P⁴ was used as stuffing for the binding of “a codex of Philo, written in the later third century and found in a jar which had been walled up in a house at Coptos [in 250] .” [Roberts (1979) p. 8] .

Philip Comfort and David Barret in their book "Text of the Earliest NT Greek Manuscripts" argue that P⁴ came from the same codex as P^64/67, the Magdalen papyrus, and date the texts to 150-175. [Comfort (2001) pp. 50-53, see also Comfort (1999)] . Wieland tentatively agrees stating 'The [3rd century] dating given is that of NA. Some date it into the 2nd CE (e.g. Roberts and Comfort). This is quite probable considering the use as binding material for a 3rd CE codex'. Comfort and Barret also show that P⁴ and P⁶⁴⁺⁶⁷ have affinities with a number of late second century papyri [i.e. "P. Oxy." 224, 661, 2334, 2404 2750, "P. Ryl." 16, 547, and "P. Vindob G" 29784] . Roberts (1979), Skeat (1997) Gregory (2003), p.30] , Wieland and Stanton [Stanton (1997) p. 327] also date the text to the late 2nd century, leading Gregory to conclude that ' [t] here is good reason to believe that P⁴ ... may have been written late in the second century...'. Most recently Charlesworth has concluded 'that P⁶⁴⁺⁶⁷ and P⁴, though written by the same scribe, are not from the same ... codex.' [Charlesworth (2007), p.604]

See also

* List of New Testament papyri

Notes

References

* Charlesworth, SD (2007) "T. C. Skeat, P64+67 and P4, and the Problem of Fibre Orientation in Codicological Reconstruction", New Test. Stud. Vol.53, pp. 582–604, DOI|10.1017/S002868850700029X
* Comfort, Philip W. " [http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0048-1009%28199907%2941%3A3%3C214%3ANRAION%3E2.0.CO%3B2-P New Reconstructions and Identifications of New Testament Papyri,"] "Novum Testamentum", Vol. 41, Fasc. 3., (Jul., 1999) pp. 214-230.
* Comfort, Philip W. and Barrett, David P. "The Text of the Earliest New Testament Greek Manuscripts" Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House. (2001) pp. 50-53
* Gregory, A. "The Reception of Luke and Acts in the Period Before Irenaeus", Mohr Siebeck, (2003) ISBN 3161480864, p.28
* Head, PM (2005), "Is P4, P64 and P67 the Oldest Manuscript of the Four Gospels? A Response to T. C. Skeat", New Test. Stud. 51, pp. 450–457, doi|10.1017/S0028688505000238
* Roberts, Colin. "Manuscript, Society, and Belief in Early Christian Egypt" Longwood (June 1979) ISBN 0856727105 pp.8+23
* Skeat, TC (1997), "The Oldest Manuscript of the Four Gospels?", New Test. Stud. 43, p.1-34
* Stanton, G. N. (1997), "The Fourfold Gospel", New Test. Stud. 43, p.327
* Willker, Wieland. " [http://www-user.uni-bremen.de/~wie/TCG/Fragmentary-Papyri.pdf A Textual Commentary on the Greek Gospels] ", (undated+unfinished)