The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, Part 66

4498. Epistle to the Hebrews i 7–12

A B3.5/7(i) 𝔓¹¹⁴ 3.8 x 7.1 cm Third century / Plates I–II

A small fragment from the bottom of the first page of the Epistle to the Hebrews. Although there is no writing visible on the verso side, there is every reason to suppose that the papyrus formed part of a codex. (Two papyri of Hebrews, 𝔓¹² and 𝔓¹³, are indeed written on rolls, but in both cases the other side of the roll is used for a different text.) It is most probable that the text of 4498 began on the recto side and the verso side was either blank or contained only the title; for a parallel cf., e.g., 𝔓²³ = X 1229, Epistle of James. It is written in carbon ink with a fine pointed nib in a rather small, upright, angular hand 2–3 mm high. The script is largely bilinear, but rho and upsilon drop below the line; note the contrast between broad and narrow letters, the small omicron and the flattened bow of omega. There are no ligatures or serifs. Somewhat comparable hands are I 23, which must predate AD 295, XXXIV 2700, on which the editor remarks "the hand belongs to a type common in the third century", and XLII 3008 (although 4498 is less obviously related to the so-called Severe Style). No use is made of punctuation or breathings. The nomen sacrum for "God" occurs in lines 2 and 5.

If we ignore line 5, the line lengths can be supplemented within the range 36 to 42 letters (but see line 2 n.). This suggests that approximately 17 lines have been lost before the first surviving line, which would give a column of 27 lines, with a written area of approximately 10 x 18 cm. If we assume a single-column page and make the usual allowance for margins (the left-hand margin survives to 2 cm), the codex would fall within Turner’s Group 7 (c. 15 x 25 cm).

The papyrus provides no evidence for the placing of Hebrews within the New Testament, for which see W. H. P. Hatch, HThR 29 (1936) 133–55, and B. M. Metzger, The Canon of the New Testament (Oxford 1987), 298, with further bibliography. The surviving text is unremarkable except for line 5. In addition to the works cited in the general introduction, account has been taken of K. Wachtel, K. Witte, Das Neue Testament auf Papyrus II. Die paulinischen Briefe, Teil 2 (1994). The only other papyrus to contain this passage is 𝔓⁴⁶ = P. Mich. inv. 6238 + P. Chester Beatty II, assigned to c. AD 200.

Reconstruction of the text of Hebrews 1:7–12 based on the fragment.