Oxyrhynchus Gospel Fragments

About this edition

This reading collection brings together two distinct Oxyrhynchus witnesses, P. Oxy. 840 and P. Oxy. 1224. The first is a small parchment leaf containing a dispute between the Saviour and a chief priest; the second comprises two papyrus fragments with remains of six pages or columns. They are not assumed to belong to the same Gospel; their ancient titles and authors are unknown. The first edition assigned leaf 840 to the fourth or fifth century and 1224 mainly to the fourth, while allowing a third-century date. These are estimates for the handwriting, not exact dates of composition. The selection covers these two witnesses, including the scant remains of fragment 1 of 1224. It is neither a collection of every Gospel discovery at Oxyrhynchus nor a reconstruction of complete lost books.

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The two sections and twelve passages are numbered by Life for God, not by ancient chapter and verse. 840 and 1224 are catalogue numbers. Labels retain recto/verso, columns and page numbers; brackets within numbers indicate restored digits. Ellipses represent unfilled losses; […] separates isolated words. Bracketed text and [?] flag selected supplements and uncertainties. They do not enumerate every restored letter: the continuous translations already incorporate the first editors’ reconstructions.

Translation notes

1. 1:1 — The beginning is missing, so the subject is unnamed. “Among the living” and “reward” follow the editors’ English rendering. They describe the Greek sentence as difficult and possibly corrupt; the reading is not certain.
2. 1:2 — Levi is conjectural: the Greek edition restores the name with a question mark. Chief priest does not establish that the character is the one incumbent high priest.
3. 1:2 — “Place of purification” follows the English basis. Its precise location in the Temple complex is not established. The story’s account of access and sacred vessels should not be used as a verified description of Temple regulations.
4. 1:3 — Part of the transition to the Saviour’s question is restored in damaged lines 21–22. The continuous English and Russian renderings include that supplement; they are not diplomatic transcriptions.
5. 1:4 — The person who washed in the pool of David is the Saviour’s interlocutor, the chief priest, not Jesus. The passage does not securely locate the pool.
6. 1:5 — “Harlots and flute-girls” belongs to the ancient speech’s polemical imagery. The translation retains it without adopting it as an editorial judgement about all women or musicians.
7. 1:6 — “Eternal” corresponds to restored αἰωνίου in the 1908 edition. Brackets have been added in both reading versions. The statement of where the waters come from is lost; “from God out of heaven” is not supplied here.
8. 1:6 — “Have been dipped” is retained. The contrast between outward washing and inward purity cannot, without further argument, establish a rejection of water baptism.
9. 2:1 — Volume X, p. 6 gives no continuous English translation of fragment 1. The complete Greek words ἐν παντί and ἀμήν are rendered here as “in everything” and “amen”. After ἀμήν there is the beginning of the next word and other partial words; the editors propose [μῖν λέγω…]. That supplement is not included in the reading text.
10. 2:2 — Only the complete ὑμεῖς, “you”, is rendered. The adjacent verb ending does not securely determine the verb’s meaning or subject. This side’s number and order relative to the recto are unknown; it cannot confidently be called page 138 or 140.
11. 2:3 — “Overcame me” is left without a subject: sleep, fear, sorrow or something else may have been meant. Peter’s name is absent from the surviving passage. Identifying the episode with Peter’s call, denial or restoration remains hypothetical.
12. 2:3 — The wording about Jesus standing by and speaking is partly restored. The editors themselves regard “Why art thou cast down?” as very doubtful; the (?) after “gave” is retained from their translation.
13. 2:4 — The editors propose “forbidden” but also allow “declared”. “New baptism” is a reconstruction: their commentary also considers “new law” and a word for proclamation. The questioner is not named in the readable portion.
14. 2:5 — Compare Mark 2:15–17; Matthew 9:10–12; Luke 5:29–31. The Greek is badly damaged: restorations include parts of the earlier clauses, not only the final bracketed words. The editors allow a different reconstruction of lines 5–7. Resemblance to Luke does not establish verbatim preservation.
15. 2:6 — Prayer for enemies may be compared with Matthew 5:44 and Luke 6:27–28, and “he that is not against you is with you” with Luke 9:50. The sayings stand together here. Do not replace their wording with a complete quotation from a canonical Gospel.
16. 2:6 — Lines 4–5 preserve words for “far”, “tomorrow” and parts of other words. The continuous sentence “He that to-day is afar off shall to-morrow be near you” was proposed by the editors, who expressly called it highly conjectural. Brackets around the whole sentence mark that status, not an exact count of lost letters.