Oxyrhynchus Papyri

The most prolific source of ancient papyri in the world, providing early manuscripts of the New Testament, lost works of classical literature, and unparalleled documentation of daily life in the Greco-Roman world.

Oxyrhynchus, modern el-Bahnasa, was a prosperous provincial capital in central Egypt situated on the Bahr Yusuf canal west of the Nile. In late antiquity it became a major Christian center with numerous churches and monasteries. What makes Oxyrhynchus unique in the history of archaeology is not the city itself but its rubbish dumps: enormous mounds of discarded papyrus that accumulated over centuries in the dry desert sand at the city's edges. These mounds constitute the single richest source of ancient papyri ever discovered.

The systematic excavation of the Oxyrhynchus rubbish dumps was begun in 1896–1897 by two young Oxford scholars, Bernard P. Grenfell and Arthur S. Hunt, working under the auspices of the Egypt Exploration Fund (later Society). Over a series of campaigns extending to 1907, they recovered an estimated 500,000 papyrus fragments, filling hundreds of boxes that were shipped to Oxford. The sheer volume was staggering — on one day in January 1897, their workers filled 36 large baskets with papyrus fragments.

Publication began immediately: the first volume of The Oxyrhynchus Papyri appeared in 1898, and volumes have continued to appear at intervals ever since. As of 2024, over 85 volumes have been published, containing approximately 5,600 edited texts. The vast majority of the fragments — estimated at over 90% — remain unedited, stored in the Sackler Library at Oxford, awaiting the painstaking work of transcription, identification, and commentary.

The biblical manuscripts from Oxyrhynchus include some of the most important early witnesses to the New Testament. P1 (P.Oxy. 2), a fragment of Matthew 1 dated to the 3rd century, was one of the first Christian papyri published. P13 (Hebrews), P15/P16 (1 Corinthians / Philippians), P18 (Revelation), P22 (John), P23 (James), P27 (Romans), P29 (Acts), P30 (1–2 Thessalonians), P39 (John), P51 (Galatians), P69 (Luke), P70 (Matthew), P77 (Matthew), P90 (John), P100 (James), P101 (Matthew), P104 (Matthew), P106 (John), P107 (John), P108 (John), P109 (John), P110 (Matthew), P111 (Luke), P115 (Revelation — notable for reading the number of the beast as 616 rather than 666), and many others all derive from Oxyrhynchus. Collectively, these fragments demonstrate that New Testament books were being actively copied and read in a provincial Egyptian city from the 2nd through 7th centuries.

Among the most sensational finds were fragments of previously unknown or lost early Christian texts. P.Oxy. 1, published by Grenfell and Hunt in 1897, contained sayings of Jesus that did not appear in any known Gospel. When the Gospel of Thomas was found at Nag Hammadi in 1945, scholars realized that the Oxyrhynchus sayings (P.Oxy. 1, 654, and 655) were fragments of the Greek version of Thomas — predating the Coptic Nag Hammadi copy by roughly 150 years and proving that this collection of Jesus' sayings was circulating in Greek in Egypt by the 3rd century.

The non-biblical literary papyri from Oxyrhynchus have transformed classical scholarship. Lost plays by Menander, poems by Sappho, historical works by Theopompus, speeches by Hyperides, and fragments of Euripides have been recovered from the dumps. In 2005, multispectral imaging of a previously illegible Oxyrhynchus papyrus revealed new fragments of Archilochus, the earliest Greek lyric poet. The literary finds have rewritten textbooks of Greek literature.

The documentary papyri — letters, contracts, receipts, tax records, census returns, petitions, wills, and school exercises — are equally important. They provide a microscopic view of daily life in a Roman provincial city: what people ate, how they conducted business, how the tax system functioned, what legal disputes they brought to court, and how they interacted with the Roman imperial administration. For biblical scholars, these documents illuminate the social, economic, and linguistic world in which the New Testament was written. The Greek of the Oxyrhynchus documents is the same Koine Greek used in the New Testament, and the everyday letter formulas, legal terminology, and social conventions visible in the papyri help explain many details of Paul's letters and the book of Acts.

The ongoing effort to publish the remaining Oxyrhynchus fragments continues at Oxford under the direction of the Egypt Exploration Society. The Oxyrhynchus Papyri Online project and the Ancient Lives citizen science project have enlisted volunteers to help transcribe and identify fragments using digital images.

• Over 500,000 papyrus fragments excavated from the rubbish mounds of ancient Oxyrhynchus
• Approximately 5,600 texts published in 85+ volumes since 1898, with the vast majority still unedited
• Numerous early New Testament manuscripts, from the 2nd through 7th centuries CE
• P.Oxy. 1, 654, and 655 contain Greek fragments of the Gospel of Thomas, predating the Nag Hammadi Coptic version
• P115 reads the number of the beast as 616 rather than the traditional 666 (Revelation 13:18)
• Lost works of Sappho, Menander, Euripides, and other classical authors recovered from the dumps
• Documentary papyri illuminate daily life in Roman Egypt and the Koine Greek of the New Testament
• Excavated by Grenfell and Hunt from 1896–1907 for the Egypt Exploration Fund

The Oxyrhynchus papyri demonstrate that the books of the New Testament were widely copied, read, and used in provincial Egyptian communities far from the centers of ecclesiastical authority. The dozens of New Testament manuscripts from Oxyrhynchus — representing every major section of the canon (Gospels, Acts, Pauline Epistles, General Epistles, Revelation) — show that the core of the New Testament was established and circulating broadly by the 3rd century CE. The discovery of Greek Gospel of Thomas fragments at Oxyrhynchus in 1897, decades before the Coptic version was found at Nag Hammadi, demonstrated that sayings of Jesus circulated in forms outside the canonical Gospels. Some Thomas sayings parallel the Synoptic Gospels closely; others are unique. Scholars debate whether Thomas preserves independent early traditions about Jesus' teaching. The documentary papyri have transformed understanding of the New Testament's cultural context. The business letters, receipts, and petitions from Oxyrhynchus use the same Koine Greek vocabulary and epistolary conventions found in Paul's letters. When Paul writes "Grace to you and peace" (Romans 1:7), he is adapting the standard greeting formula visible in thousands of Oxyrhynchus letters. The social world of the papyri — with its artisans, merchants, tax collectors, soldiers, and slaves — is the world of the New Testament.