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Papyrus Bodmer XIV-XV (p75), a well-preserved Greek papyrus codex containing the Gospels of Luke and John, has been called the most significant New Testament papyrus so far discovered. The reason for this high estimation is the combination of the early date assigned to the manuscript on the basis of paleography (ca. 175-225 CE) and its close agreement with the text of Codex Vaticanus, which is thought to provide evidence that the "B text" of Vaticanus was produced as early as the second century and was very carefully transmitted. The evidence gathered in the present essay calls these conclusions into question by showing that both paleographically and codicologically, P.Bodm. XIV-XV fits comfortably in a fourth-century context, along with the bulk of the other "Bodmer papyri" with which it was apparently discovered. These observations, combined with the fact that the text of P.Bodm. XIV-XV so closely matches that of Vaticanus-a codex widely acknowledged to be a product of the fourth century-suggest that P.Bodm. XIV-XV was also itself produced in the fourth century. Thus, a number of previous arguments that relied on a second- or early-third-century date for P.Bodm. XIV-XV will need to be reconsidered.
Papyrus Bodmer XIV-XV is the well-known single-quire papyrus codex containing substantial portions of the Gospels of Luke and John in Greek.1 The bulk of the codex was published in two volumes in 1961, complete with photographic plates of most of the extant pages.2 The editors calculated that the codex originally consisted of 144 pages, more than 100 of which have survived. From the time of its discovery until 2006, the codex formed a part of the collection amassed by the Swiss bibliophile Martin Bodmer in Geneva. In 2006, it was sold through Christie's auction house for an undisclosed sum to American Frank J. Hanna III on behalf of a consortium. The codex was subsequently donated to the Vatican Library, where it presently resides.3 The Vatican now officially calls this codex "Hanna Papyrus 1, Mater Verbi."4 For the sake of brevity, I will hereafter refer to it by its familiar INTF designation, p75.5
P75 has been dubbed "the most significant" New Testament papyrus that has come to light in the twentieth century.6 This evaluation is based on the manuscript's relatively good state of...