List of New Testament papyri
A New Testament papyrus is a copy of a portion of the New Testament made on papyrus. To date, over 140 such papyri are known. In general, they are considered the earliest witnesses to the original text of the New Testament.
This elite status among New Testament manuscripts only began in the 20th century. The grouping was first introduced by Caspar Renรฉ Gregory, who assigned papyri texts the Blackletter character ๐ followed by a superscript number. This number refers not to the age of the papyrus, but to the order in which it was registered. Before 1900, only 9 papyri manuscripts were known, and only one had been cited in a critical apparatus (๐11 by Constantin von Tischendorf). These 9 papyri were just single fragments, except for ๐15, which consisted of a single whole leaf. The discoveries of the twentieth century brought about the earliest known New Testament manuscript fragments. Kenyon in 1912 knew 14 papyri, Aland in his first edition of Kurzgefasste... in 1963 enumerated 76 papyri, in 1989 there were 96 known papyri, and in 2008 124 papyri. As of 2021, a total of 141 papyri are known, although some of the numbers issued were later deemed to be fragments of the same original manuscript.
Among the most important are the Chester Beatty Papyri: ๐45, which contains the Gospels and Acts; ๐46, which contains the Pauline epistles; and ๐47, which contains the Book of Revelation. All of these are thought to date from sometime in the third century.
Also significant are the Bodmer Papyri: ๐66, which contains the Gospel of John; and ๐75, which contains the Gospels of Luke and John. These early manuscripts are more complete, allowing scholars to better examine their textual character.
Not all of the manuscripts are simply New Testament texts: ๐59, ๐60, ๐63, ๐80 are texts with commentaries; ๐2, ๐3, and ๐44 are lectionaries; ๐50, ๐55, and ๐78 are talismans; and ๐10, ๐12, ๐42, ๐43, ๐62, ๐72, and ๐99 belong to other miscellaneous texts, such as writing scraps, glossaries, or songs.
Every papyrus is cited in Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece.