The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, Part II

4. "And the hands" W-H. Westcott and Hort, editors of the New Testament, with AB Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus, and this may have been the reading of the papyrus. "To them the hands... his side" (EGKL, etc., T.R. Textus Receptus) is excluded.

5 ff. There is a difficulty as to the number of lines lost after line 5. The corresponding lacuna gap in the recto front side of a page consists of three lines, but there would certainly be room for four on this side of the leaf if that number seemed more convenient. If all the longer variants are assigned to the papyrus, namely, "Jesus" before "again" (AB, etc.) and "I send" instead of "I send" a distinction between the Greek words 'apostello' and 'pempo' (DL, one of the later hands in א, etc.), four lines will be produced, consisting of twenty-five, twenty-seven, twenty-five, and twenty-four letters respectively. On the other hand, the lacuna can be satisfactorily reduced to three lines by keeping the shorter version of verse 21 and following in verse 22 the reading of א, which omits the words "and having said this." In view of the general agreement of the papyrus with א, the latter is slightly the more probable hypothesis.

12. The letters in the lacuna must have been rather cramped if the papyrus had the ordinary reading here. Perhaps "but" was written above the line, like "and" in line 2; it is omitted in 'a' and 'e'.

14, 15. It is clear that the papyrus agreed with א in placing "therefore" before "came," and omitting "other" before "disciples." The ordinary reading "was not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples therefore said to him" would make line 14 considerably too short, and line 15 impossibly long.

17. Here again there can be little doubt of the agreement of the papyrus with א in the omission of "his," which is read by W-H. after "hands" with the rest of the MSS. manuscripts. The lacuna of this line and the preceding one are of the same size; and even when "his" is omitted, the number of letters lost in this line will be one more than in line 16.

CCIX. ST. PAUL'S EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS, CHAP. I.

Plate II. 25.1 x 19.9 cm. A description of a fragment containing the first seven verses of the Epistle to the Romans, written in a large, unrefined uncial hand, likely a schoolboy's exercise. It features spelling errors and an omission. Below the text are two lines in a cursive hand without clear connection to the biblical text. The cursive dates to the first half of the fourth century A.D., supported by its discovery alongside a contract dated 316 A.D.

A

PAUL, A SERVANT OF JESUS CHRIST, CALLED TO BE AN APOSTLE, SEPARATED
UNTO THE GOSPEL OF GOD, WHICH HE PROMISED BEFORE BY HIS PRO
PHETS IN THE HOLY SCRIPTURES CONCERNING HIS SON, WHO WAS
BORN OF THE SEED OF DAVID ACCORDING TO THE FLESH, WHO WAS DECLARED
5 THE SON OF GOD WITH POWER ACCORDING TO THE SPIRIT OF HOLINESS BY THE RESUR-