Nash Papyrus

The oldest Hebrew Bible manuscript known before the Dead Sea Scrolls discovery, holding that distinction from 1902 until 1947 and demonstrating that the Ten Commandments and Shema were paired in Jewish liturgical practice by the 2nd century BCE.

The Nash Papyrus is a small but historically important fragment of Hebrew text on papyrus that held the distinction of being the oldest known manuscript of any portion of the Hebrew Bible for nearly half a century — from its identification in 1902 until the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947. Named after Walter Llewellyn Nash, the Secretary of the Society of Biblical Archaeology in London, who purchased it from an Egyptian antiquities dealer in 1898, the papyrus was donated to Cambridge University Library, where it remains today.

The fragment measures approximately 24 by 7 centimeters and consists of four columns containing 24 lines of Hebrew text. It preserves two passages: the Ten Commandments (Decalogue) in a text that combines readings from both Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5, and the opening of the Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4–5): "Hear, O Israel: the LORD our God is one LORD: And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might."

The papyrus was first studied and published by Stanley A. Cook of Cambridge in 1903. Cook recognized its antiquity but debated its precise dating, placing it somewhere in the 2nd century BCE. In 1937, William Foxwell Albright published a detailed paleographic study comparing the Nash Papyrus's script to newly available inscriptional evidence and dated it to the Maccabean period, approximately 150–100 BCE. When the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in 1947, Albright used his experience dating the Nash Papyrus to confirm the antiquity of the scrolls. In his famous letter to John Trever, Albright stated that the Isaiah Scroll's script appeared to be older than the Nash Papyrus, helping to establish the scrolls' credibility.

The Nash Papyrus's text of the Decalogue is particularly interesting because it does not exactly match either the Exodus 20 or Deuteronomy 5 version of the Ten Commandments. Instead, it presents a harmonized text that draws readings from both sources. This harmonizing tendency is also found in the Qumran scrolls (notably 4QDeutn) and in the Samaritan Pentateuch, suggesting that liturgical texts of the Decalogue circulated in harmonized forms rather than being strictly tied to one canonical source.

The pairing of the Decalogue with the Shema on this papyrus provides evidence for Jewish liturgical practice in the Second Temple period. The Mishnah (Tamid 5:1) records that the Ten Commandments and the Shema were recited daily in the Temple service. By the rabbinic period, the Decalogue was removed from the daily liturgy "because of the claims of the heretics" (Berakhot 12a) — meaning that sectarians (possibly Jewish-Christians) had argued that only the Ten Commandments were divinely spoken, undermining the authority of the rest of the Torah. The Nash Papyrus's combination of these texts on a single sheet confirms that this liturgical pairing existed well before the rabbinic decision to separate them.

The provenance of the papyrus is uncertain beyond its purchase in Egypt. It may have come from the Fayum region, a source of many antiquities in the late 19th century. The use of papyrus rather than parchment, and the liturgical character of the text (combining two passages that were recited together), suggests it was a practical document used in worship or instruction rather than a formal biblical scroll. Some scholars have proposed it served as a phylactery text (worn in tefillin), though its size seems somewhat large for that purpose. Others suggest it was an educational text used to teach the foundational passages of Jewish faith.

Despite its modest physical size, the Nash Papyrus played an outsized role in the history of biblical scholarship. For 45 years, it was the sole example of a Hebrew biblical text from the pre-Christian era. Its existence demonstrated that Hebrew manuscripts of considerable antiquity could survive in Egyptian conditions and prepared scholars to accept the far greater antiquity of the Dead Sea Scrolls when they appeared. Albright's paleographic analysis of the Nash Papyrus became the benchmark against which the Dead Sea Scrolls' script was measured, making this small fragment the crucial link between modern biblical scholarship and the manuscript revolution of the mid-20th century.

• Oldest known Hebrew Bible manuscript before the Dead Sea Scrolls (c. 150–100 BCE)
• Contains the Ten Commandments in a harmonized Exodus 20/Deuteronomy 5 text, plus the Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4–5)
• Confirms that the Decalogue and Shema were paired in Jewish liturgical practice by the 2nd century BCE
• Harmonized Decalogue text parallels readings in the Samaritan Pentateuch and Qumran manuscripts
• Albright's 1937 paleographic study of this papyrus was crucial for authenticating the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1948
• Probably used for liturgical or instructional purposes rather than as a formal biblical scroll
• Currently housed at Cambridge University Library

The Nash Papyrus preserves two of the most foundational texts in the Hebrew Bible: the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:2–17 / Deuteronomy 5:6–21) and the Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4–5). These are the texts that defined Israelite identity and obligation before God. The Decalogue establishes the basic moral framework of the covenant, while the Shema declares monotheism and commands total devotion to God. When Jesus was asked "Which is the first commandment of all?" he replied with the Shema: "Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength" (Mark 12:29–30). The Nash Papyrus preserves the very text of this declaration as it was read and recited by Jews in the centuries before Jesus. The pairing of the Decalogue and the Shema on a single document reflects the theological conviction that love of God (Shema) and obedience to God's commands (Decalogue) are inseparable — the same unity that Jesus articulates when he pairs love of God with love of neighbor as the summary of all the Law and the Prophets (Matthew 22:37–40).