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The Rylands Library Papyrus P52, also known as the St. John's fragment and with an accession reference of Papyrus Rylands Greek 457, is a fragment from a papyrus codex, measuring only 3.5 by 2.5 inches (8.9 by 6 cm) at its widest; and conserved with the Rylands Papyri at the John Rylands University Library Manchester, UK. The front (recto) contains parts of seven lines from the Gospel of John 18:31–33, in Greek, and the back (verso) contains parts of seven lines from verses 37–38.〔; Kurt und Barbara Aland, ''Der Text des Neuen Testaments. Einführung in die wissenschaftlichen Ausgaben sowie in Theorie und Praxis der modernen Textkritik''. Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart 1989, S. 109. ISBN 3-438-06011-6〕 Since 2007, the papyrus has been on permanent display in the library's Deansgate building. Although Rylands 52 is generally accepted as the earliest extant record of a canonical New Testament text,〔See 7Q5 for an alternative candidate.〕 the dating of the papyrus is by no means the subject of consensus among scholars. The style of the script is Hadrianic,〔Deissmann, Adolf. "Ein Evangelienblatt aus den Tagen Hadrians." ''Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung''; 564, 3 Dezemb. 1935 (trans. in British Weekly December 12, 1935. )〕 which would suggest a most probable date somewhere between 117 CE and 138 CE. But the difficulty of fixing the date of a fragment based solely on paleographic evidence allows a much wider range such that "any serious consideration of the window of possible dates for P52 must include dates in the later second and early third centuries."〔Nongbri, p. 46.〕 The fragment of papyrus was among a group acquired on the Egyptian market in 1920 by Bernard Grenfell.〔The papyrus may have come surreptitiously from Oxyrhyncus.〕 The original transcription and translation of the fragment of text was not done until 1934, by Colin H. Roberts.〔Roberts(1935), p. 7.〕 Roberts found comparator hands in dated papyrus documents between the late 1st and mid 2nd centuries, with the largest concentration of Hadrianic date. Since this gospel text would be unlikely to have reached Egypt before c. 100 CE〔For the date of the text, see Gospel of John.〕 he proposed a date in the first half of the 2nd century. Roberts proposed the closest match to 52 as being an undated papyrus of the Iliad conserved in Berlin;〔Roberts(1935), p. 13.〕 and in the 70 years since Roberts's essay the estimated date of this primary comparator hand has been confirmed as being around 100 CE,〔Nongbri, p. 33.〕 but other dated comparator hands have also since been suggested, with dates ranging into the second half of the 2nd century, and even into the 3rd century.〔Barker, p. 574〕 ==Greek text== The papyrus is written on both sides and hence must be from a codex, a sewn and folded book, not a scroll, roll or isolated sheet; and the surviving portion also includes part of the top and inner margins of the page. The recto consequently preserves the top left corner of a right-hand page; while the verso preserves the top right corner of a left-hand page. The characters in bold style are the ones that can be seen in Papyrus 52. ''Gospel of John 18:31-33'' (recto) ''Gospel of John 18:37-38'' (verso) There appears insufficient room for the repeated phrase (ΕΙΣ ΤΟΥΤΟ) in the second line of the verso, and it is suggested that these words were inadvertently dropped through haplography.〔Roberts(1935), p. 29.〕 The writing is generously scaled – letter forms vary between 0.3 and 0.4 cm in height, lines are spaced approximately 0.5 cm apart, and there is a margin of 2 cm at the top.〔Hurtado, p. 3.〕 C. H. Roberts commented: ".. to judge from the spacing and the size of the text, it is unlikely that the format was affected by considerations of economy".〔Roberts(1935), p. 24.〕 There are no apparent punctuation marks or breathings shown in the fragment;〔Roberts(1935), p. 17.〕 but the diaeresis is applied to an initial iota at both the second line of the recto and the second line of the verso; and possibly too on the first line of the recto.〔Hurtado, p. 3.〕 Taken together with the over-scaled writing, this suggests that the manuscript may have been intended for congregational reading.〔Hurtado, L. W. ''Early Christian Manuscripts as Artifacts'' in ''Jewish and Christian Scriptures as Artifact and Canon'' ed. C.A. Evans and A.D. Zecharias, New York: T & T Clark, 2009, p. 78〕 If the original codex did indeed contain the entire text of the canonical Gospel of John, it would have constituted a single quire book of around 130 pages (i.e. 33 large folded papyrus sheets written on both sides); measuring approximately 21 by 20 cm when closed.〔Roberts(1935), p. 21.〕 Roberts noted a glued vertical join in the papyrus slightly inside the inner margin and visible on the verso,〔Roberts(1935), p. 11.〕 indicating that the large sheets used for the codex were likely to have been specially prepared for the purpose, each having been constructed from two standard sized sheets measuring approximately 21 cm by 16 cm, with a central narrower sheet approximately 21 cm by 8 cm constituting the spine. Roberts describes the handwriting as "heavy, rounded and rather elaborate",〔Roberts(1935), p. 13.〕 but nevertheless not the work of "a practised scribe" (i.e. not a professional bookhand). Roberts notes comments that had recently been made by the editors of the Egerton Gospel (P.Egerton 2); and says similarly it could be said of 52 that it "has a somewhat informal air about it and with no claims to fine writing is yet a careful piece of work".〔Roberts(1935), p. 17.〕 In total, 114 legible letters are visible on the two sides of the fragment, representing 18 out of the 24 letters of the Greek Alphabet;〔Nongbri, p. 28.〕 beta, zeta, xi, phi, chi, and psi being missing. Roberts noted that the writing is painstaking and rather laboured, with instances of individual letters formed using several strokes "with a rather clumsy effect" (e.g. the sigma Σ at line three of the recto, and the eta H immediately following it).〔Roberts(1935), p. 13.〕 Several letters are inclined to stray away from the notional upper and lower writing lines.〔Hurtado, p. 11.〕 Another peculiarity is that there are two distinct forms of the letter alpha Α;〔Roberts(1935), p. 15.〕 most are formed from a separate loop and diagonal stroke, where the top of the stroke has a distinctive decorative arch while the bottom is hooked; but on the fourth line of the verso there is a smaller alpha formed by a single spiralling loop with no arch or hooks. Also present in two forms is the letter upsilon Υ; the more common form is constructed from two strokes, each stroke terminating in a decorative hook or finial (see the second line of the recto); but on the fourth line of the verso is an upsilon formed from a single looped stroke with no decoration.〔Nongbri, p. 28.〕 These observations support Roberts's supposition that the scribe was an educated person writing carefully in imitation of a calligraphic hand, rather than a professional scribe writing to order; such that, on occasion, the writer inadvertently reverted to the undecorated (and often smaller) letter forms of his everyday hand. Roberts noted that in addition to alpha and upsilon, other letters also tend to be given decorative hooks, especially iota Ι and omega Ω (both seen in the seventh line of the recto).〔Roberts(1935), p. 13.〕 He also drew attention to the forms of epsilon Ε (with an extended cross-stroke a little above the centre-line, as in the fourth line of the verso), delta Δ (with a decorative arch, as in the first and second lines of the recto) and mu Μ (with a central stroke dipping down to the baseline, as in the third line of the recto).〔Roberts(1935), p. 13.〕 Nongbri confirms Roberts observations, and also notes distinctive forms of rho Ρ (with a small head and an undecorated downstroke extending well below the lower line, as in the second line of the verso),〔Nongbri, p. 28.〕 pi Π (with an extended horizontal stroke, as in the third line of the recto)〔Nongbri, p. 33.〕 and kappa Κ (formed like the looped upsilon with an additional downwards stroke, as in the fourth line of the recto).〔Nongbri, p. 28.〕 Aside from their sometimes clumsy construction, the sigma and eta are also distinctive in form; the sigma facing fully to the right, and the eta having a distinctive high cross stroke. In 1977, Roberts surveyed fourteen papyri believed to be of Christian origin, twelve codices and two scrolls; comprising all the Christian manuscripts then commonly assessed as likely having a second century date including 52. He considered that only three of these texts had a calligraphic bookhand, such as was then standard in formal manuscripts of Greek literature, or in most Graeco-Jewish biblical scrolls. Of the other eleven, including 52, he states that their scribes were: It may be added that the codex of 52, with its good quality papyrus, wide margins, large clear even upright letters, short lines in continuous script, decorative hooks and finials, and bilinear writing,〔Nongbri, p. 28.〕 would have presented an overall appearance not far from that of professionally written Christian codices such as 64 or 77, even though its actual letter forms are not as fine, and are closer to documentary exemplars. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Rylands Library Papyrus P52」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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