NASH, PAPIRO. - Hebrew papyrus that around 1902 W. L. Nash (secretary of the "Society of biblical archeology") purchased in four fragments originating from Egypt. He gave it to the Library of the University of Cambridge, where it still is under the shelfmark Ms. Orient. 233. In 1903 St. A. Cook identified and published it. Arranging the fragments in their original position, the papyrus measures 4.6 by 12.6 cm. It is written on one side only. It does not seem ever to have been part of a scroll, but rather a separate sheet, intended for liturgical and instructional purposes. It contains 24 lines and traces of the 25th. The end of all the lines is missing. Only lines 16-18, where the sheet is 7.3 cm. wide, have the beginning intact. It contains the Decalogue (lines 1-21), the Shema (= Deut. 6:4-5; lines 23-24) and a brief introduction to it (lines 22-23) that is not found in the Hebrew Bible, but rather in the Septuagint (Deut. 6:4).

Given its subject matter, its great antiquity and the rarity of ancient Hebrew papyri, the N. papyrus aroused keen interest, both for Hebrew paleography and for the history and criticism of the text. Cook in 1903, on paleographic grounds, attributed the papyrus to the 2nd century A.D., and in this opinion he was generally followed by scholars. In 1937, however, W. F. Albright, in the light of new paleographic material, attributed it to the 2nd century B.C., that is, to the time of the Maccabees. The N. papyrus acquired new paleographic importance when in recent years the Hebrew manuscripts of the Dead Sea were discovered, whose script has great similarity to that of the papyrus.

The text has several readings that diverge from the Decalogue of the Masoretic text, both of Ex. 20:2-17 and of Deut. 5:6-18 (it inverts, for example, the order of the commandments: "Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not commit adultery!"). The text approaches the form presented by Codex Vaticanus (B) of the Septuagint. It seems, therefore, not to be a freely modified text, but a special branch of the transmission of the biblical text.

Bibliography6 works

BIBL.: St. A. Cook, A pre-masoretic biblical papyrus, in Proceedings of the Society of biblical archeology, 25 (1903), pp. 54-56; F. C. Burkitt, The hebrew papyrus of the Ten Commandments, in Jewish quarterly reviews, 15 (1903), pp. 392-408; anon., Un papyrus hebrew pre-masoretique, in Revue biblique, 1 (1904), pp. 242-50; W. F. Albright, A biblical fragment from the maccabean age: the N. papyrus, in Journal of biblical literature, 61 (1937), pp. 145-76; id., On the date of the scrolls from 'Ain Feshkha and the N. papyrus, in Bulletin of the American schools of oriental research, 115 (1949), pp. 10-19 (on p. 11 is found the best published reproduction of the N. papyrus); E. R. Lacheman, A matter of method in hebrew paleography, in Jewish quarterly reviews, 40 (1949), pp. 15-40.

Ernesto Vogt

@incollection{ec8_nash_papiro, author = {Vogt, Ernesto}, title = {Nash, papiro}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {VIII}, pages = {1665--1666}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1952}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/nash-papiro} }

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Nash, Papiro

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