P46

PTO today. Am breaking off to collect some musings on the New Testament extract "P⁴⁶".

P⁴⁶ is, as the initial implies, a papyrus. As I'm reading Michael Holmes and indeed further in Blackwell 2010, believing Holmes for whatever reason, Holmes claims the papyrus tradition is marked by the Þ thorn. Wiki marks it by \mathfrak {P} which is just stylised Gothic P. I mean, P is for Papyrus, drrrp. Holmes apud Blackwell 2010 is the first I have read of a thorn being used - and the last. So P it shall be, on this blog here. But enough of that.

P⁴⁶ preserves most of Paul's non-Pastoral letters excepting 2 Thessalonians, Minecraft, and Philemon. The texttype is firmly Alexandrine except I am told, Romans; also 1 Thess is so destroyed here it cannot be judged. As a plus our MS got Hebrews, between alt-Romans and 1 Corinthians; so, P⁴⁶ and maybe all Alexandria assume it Pauline. Further assumed are Colossians and Ephesians, as "Ephesians" - this is no Marcionite book. The MS, having filibustered on Hebrews, breaks off before it gets to 2 Thessalonians, Philemon, and/or the Pastorals. Sir Frederic Kenyon started a debate over whether the codex even had room for these. And the fragment of "Thessalonians" incipit doesn't extend to whether it was "Thessalonians A".

Pace him, the MS does have room for these but this space could fit anything Paul-related. Maybe 2 Peter, or Paul and Thecla, or "3 Corinthians" or "Laodiceans". Maybe even 1 Clement as in "A". An argument can be made that the papyrus' owner accepted the Pastorals but not for P⁴⁶.