Bonus 4 - Martin Bodmer Papyri

Papyrus 66 of the Bodmer Papyri
Public Domain. www.bible-researcher.com

The Martin Bodmer Papyri are a group of ancient Greek and Coptic manuscripts 1.  discovered in 1952 at Pabau, Egypt and purchased by Swiss collector, Martin Bodmer (1899-1971). But as Robinson points out in reality “there is no clear picture as to the size of the collection.” 2.   Bodmer’s private collection was set up as the Foundation Martin Bodmer, and housed at the Bibliotheca Bodmeriana, in Cologny, Switzerland. 3.  Some of the Bodmer collection are also housed in the Sir Chester Beatty collection, the Universities of Mississippi and Cologne, and the Fundacio “Sant Lluc Evangelista” in Barcelona. 4.   P74 and P74 are now in the Vatican Library in Rome. They have been in the process of publication in the Papyrus Bodmer Series since 1954. 5.

P66, the oldest papyri from the Gospel of John, dates to ca. 200. 6.  Other significant papyri in the Bodmer collection are P72 (the earliest known copy of Jude and 1 and 2 Peter), P73 (Matt 25:43; 26:2–3), P74 (Acts 1:2–28:31; Jas 1:1–5:20; 1 Pet 1:1–3:5; 2 Pet 2:21–3:16; 1 John 1:1–5:17; 2 John 1–13; 3 John 6, 12; Jude 3–25), and P75 (contains a portion of John and portions of the oldest known written fragment from the Gospel of Luke now in the Vatican Library). 7.

Footnotes

• 1. Not all manuscripts are papyri such as P16, P19, P22. A. Pietersma, “Bodmer Papyri.” In D. N. Freedman (Ed.). Vol. 1: The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 766. Robinson records that there are “fifteen ancient books containing thirty-one ancient texts” and the numbering of the series is misleading as they do not correspond to the texts they contain.   James M. Robinson, The Story of the Bodmer Papyri, the First Christian Monastic Library The Story of the Bodmer Papyri: From the First Monaster’s Library in Upper Egypt to Geneva and Dublin (Nashville: James Clarke & Co. 2013), 12. Appendix 2 of Robinson lists the published manuscripts and the remaining unpublished manuscripts. Robinson, The Story of the Bodmer Papyri, 185-196.
• 2. Robinson, The Story of the Bodmer Papyri, 10. 
• 3. Pietersma, “Bodmer Papyri.” 766.
• 4. Pietersma, “Bodmer Papyri.” 766.
• 5. Pietersma, “Bodmer Papyri.” 766
• 6. John 1:1-6:11, 6:35b-14:26 and fragments of forty other pages of John 14-21.
• 7. James N. Birdsall, The Bodmer Papyrus of the Gospel of John (Grand Rapids, MI: Tyndale, 1960).

For Further Studies

• Birdsall, James Neville. The Bodmer Papyrus of the Gospel of John. Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale, 1960.
• Kasser, R., and Testuz, M. Papyrus Bodmer XXIV: Psaumes XVII–CXVIII. Cologny-Geneva, 1967. .
• Martin, V. Papyrus Bodmer II: Evangile de Jean chap. 1–14. Cologny-Geneva, 1956.
• Martin, V. Papyrus Bodmer II: Supplément. Evangile de Jean chap. 14–21. Cologny-Geneva, 1958.
• Martin, V., and Barns, J. W. B. Papyrus Bodmer II: Supplément. Evangile de Jean chap.14–21. Rev. ed. Cologny-Geneva, 1962.
• Martin, V., and Kasser, R.  Papyrus Bodmer XIV: Evangile de Luc chap. 3–24. Cologny-Geneva, 1961.
• Pietersma, Albert. “Bodmer Papyri.” Edited by David Noel Freedman, Gary A. Herion, David F. Graf, and John David Pleins. Anchor Bible Dictionary. New York, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1996. 1:766-77.
• Robinson, James M. The Story of the Bodmer Papyri, the First Christian Monastic Library The Story of the Bodmer Papyri: From the First Monaster’s Library in Upper Egypt to Geneva and Dublin. Nashville: James Clarke & Co. 2013.