NASH, PAPIRO. — A Hebrew papyrus which around 1902 W. L. Nash (secretary of the «Society of biblical archeology») purchased in four fragments originating from Egypt. He donated it to the Library of the University of Cambridge, where it is still held under the designation Ms. Orient. 233. In 1903 St. A. Cook identified and published II. Once the fragments are arranged in their original position, the papyrus measures 4.6 by 12.6 cm. It is written on one side only. It does not appear ever to have been part of a scroll, but rather a separate sheet intended for liturgical purposes and instruction. It contains 24 lines and traces of the 25th. The ends of all the lines are missing. Only lines 16–18, where the sheet is 7.3 cm. wide, have their beginnings intact. It contains the Decalogue (ll. 1–21), the Shema‘ (= Deut. 6:4–5; ll. 23–24), and a brief introduction to it (ll. 22–23) which is not found in the Hebrew Bible, but rather in the Septuagint (Deut. 6:4).
Given its subject, its great antiquity, and the rarity of ancient Hebrew papyri, the N. papyrus aroused keen interest, both for Hebrew palaeography and for the history and criticism of the text. In 1903 Cook, on palaeographical evidence, assigned the papyrus to the 2nd century A.D., and the authors generally followed this view. In 1937, however, W. F. Albright, in the light of new palaeographical material, assigned it to the 2nd century B.C., that is, to the time of the Maccabees. The N. papyrus acquired new palaeographical importance when, in recent years, the Hebrew manuscripts of the Dead Sea were discovered, whose script bears a strong resemblance to that of the papyrus.
The text contains several readings differing from the Decalogue of the Masoretic text, both in Ex. 20:2–17 and in Deut. 5:6–18 (it reverses, for example, the order of the commandments: «You shall not kill, you shall not commit adultery!»). The text approaches the form presented by Codex Vaticanus (B) of the Septuagint. It therefore seems not to be a freely modified text, but rather a special branch in the transmission of the biblical text.
of oriental research, 115 (1949), pp. 10–19 (the best published reproduction of the N. papyrus is found on p. 11); E. R. Lacheman, A matter of method in hebrew paleography, in Jewish quarterly reviews, 40 (1949), pp. 15–40. Ernesto Vogt