P46 — Paul's letters, about AD 200
Paul's letters were copied and bound as a collection within roughly a century and a half of being written.
Named outside the BibleManuscriptc. AD 175–225
Eighty-six surviving leaves of a codex containing most of Paul's letters, copied around AD 200 — within about 150 years of the letters themselves, and centuries before the great parchment Bibles. It shows the letters already circulating as a collection.
Romans, Hebrews, 1–2 Corinthians, Ephesians, Galatians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 Thessalonians — bound as one book.
- Found
- Egypt, 1930 — Acquired by Chester Beatty and the University of Michigan
- Now held at
- Chester Beatty Library, Dublin; University of Michigan
- Language
- Greek
- How it reached us
- Dug up, or still standing where it was built.
What it shows
Dating rests on handwriting and is given as a range; proposals run from the late second to the third century.
How historians use it
One of the most important New Testament papyri, standard in textual criticism.
In Scripture
Connects to
Sources
- Kenyon, The Chester Beatty Biblical Papyri (1933–37)
These summaries are written in English for now. Translations follow.