Papyrus 52

Day 11
Papyrus 52

This tiny fragment is believed to be the oldest New Testament fragment in existance. It comes from a codex that contained John's gospel. It is dated paleographically to somewhere between 100-150 AD, or about 10-60 years after John's gospel was written. Prior to its discovery, most scholarship held a late date (near the end of the second century) for the writing of John's gospel, but P52 may indicate that even the traditional date of 90 AD isn't early enough to provide the gospel time to be copied and circulated to Egypt, where this fragment was discovered.



On Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rylands_Library_Papyrus_P52