The Nash Papyrus
The Ten Commandments and the Shema were being copied on papyrus in the second century BC.
Named outside the BibleManuscript2nd century BC
A single sheet carrying the Ten Commandments and the Shema. Until 1947 it was the oldest known Hebrew biblical manuscript by a margin of a thousand years, and the palaeographic work done on it is what allowed the Dead Sea Scrolls to be dated so quickly when they appeared.
Hear, O Israel: the LORD our God is one LORD.
- Found
- Egypt, 1898 — Acquired by Walter Llewellyn Nash
- Now held at
- Cambridge University Library
- Language
- Hebrew
- How it reached us
- Dug up, or still standing where it was built.
What it shows
It is a liturgical or devotional sheet rather than a scroll of a biblical book, and its text mixes the Exodus and Deuteronomy versions.
How historians use it
A landmark in Hebrew palaeography; the dating framework built on it is still in use.
In Scripture
Sources
- Albright, "A Biblical Fragment from the Maccabaean Age", JBL 56 (1937)
These summaries are written in English for now. Translations follow.