BIBLE FRAGMENT.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 56, Issue 71, 6 January 1936, Page 3

BIBLE FRAGMENT.

PAPYRUS IN MANCHESTER. A fragment of a Greek papyrus that has been in possession of the John Rylands Library, Manchester, for somo time was announced recently to be the oldest known record of the New Testament, It is believed to have been written in the first'halt of the second century. This miniature fragment, states Dr. Henry Guppy, the librarian, contains on one side part ox verses 61-66 and on the other side verses 37-38 oi the eighteenth chapter of St, John s Gospel relating the appearance of Christ before Pilate. The fragment, acquired in 1920 by the late Protessor B. P. Grenfell, had, it is thought, been hidden under debris in the ruined city of Oxyrhvnchus, Upper Egypt, It is only three inches by two inches. Its identification was established largely owing to the efforts of Mr C. H. Roberts, Fellow of St. John's College, Oxford. Professor Sir Frerderick Kenyon, director of the British Museum, said that he regards it as a most important discovery. St. John's Gospel was the last to be put into writing, and it is probable that this relic is a liriß with the original text.