Recently Published Greek Papyri of the New 
Testament’ 
By Bruce M. MeEtzceEr, Princeton Theological Seminary 
[With 8 plates] 
How does an editor know what 
words to print in an edition of the 
Greek New ‘Testament? In _ other 
words, what is the textual foundation 
of the New Testament? 
Three main sources of information 
exist for our knowledge of the text of 
the books of the New ‘Testament. 
They are the Greek manuscripts, the 
early translations into other lan- 
guages, and the quotations from the 
New Testament made by early eccle- 
siastical authors. The earliest ver- 
sions of the New Testament, prepared 
by missionaries to assist in the propa- 
gation of the Christian faith among 
people whose native tongue was 
Syriac, Latin, and Coptic, are of 
exceptionally great value to the tex- 
tual critic of the New ‘Testament. 
Scarcely less useful are the quotations 
from the New Testament in the com- 
mentaries, sermons, and miscella- 
neous treatises written by early Church 
Fathers for the explanation and de- 
fense of their faith. Indeed, so exten- 
sive are these citations that, if all 
other sources for our knowledge of the 
text of the New Testament were de- 
stroyed, they would be sufficient alone 
in reconstructing practically the en- 
tire New Testament. 
Of these three main sources in the 
transmission of the words of the New 
Testament, the chief is, of course, the 
1 Reprinted by permission from The Bibli- 
cal Archaeologist, vol. 10, No. 2, May 1947, 
with several minor additions. 
817369—49——33 
mass of Greek manuscripts, and it is 
with certain of these that the present 
article concerns itself. Before con- 
sidering in some detail all the Greek 
papyri of the New Testament pub- 
lished during the past 15 years, it will 
be necessary to refer to (1) the mate- 
rials on which they were written, (2) 
the external forms in which they have 
been preserved, (3) the scholarly 
methods of dating and editing such 
documents, and (4) statistics regard- 
ing the classification and number of the 
Greek sources of the text of the New 
Testament. 
The Materials of Ancient Books 
Clay tablets, stone, bone, wood, 
leather, various metals, potsherds (os- 
traca), papyrus, and parchment (vel- 
lum) were all used in antiquity to 
receive writing. Almost all the Greek 
sources of the New Testament are 
made of either papyrus or parchment. 
The manufacture of papyrus was a 
flourishing business in Egypt. The 
papyrus plant grew plentifully in the 
shallow waters of the Nile at the Delta 
(see pl. 1). About 12 or 15 feet in 
height, the stem of the plant, which 
was triangular in cross section and as 
thick as a man’s wrist, was cut into 
sections about a foot long. Each 
section was split open lengthwise and 
the pith cut with a sharp instrument 
into thin strips. A layer of these was 
laid down on a flat surface, all the 
fibers running in the same direction, 
439 
