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Papyrus Rylands 458

Posted: June 27th, 2012, 7:16 am
by Brent Kleineibst
Hi,

I have read that Papyrus Rylands 458 is the oldest known fragment of the LXX and that it contains spaces where the tetragrammaton was not translated, as opposed to having κυριος. I found a low quality image of the papyrus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:P._Rylands_458.jpg), but can't see how this conclusion was reached. It seems like the only fragment that could have contained κυριος is fragment d. With some imagination I can see the following highlighted parts of Dt 26:17-19 in this fragment (not exactly sure where the linebreaks should be):
υπακουειν της φωνης αυτου 18 και κυριος
ειλατο σε σημερον γενεσθαι σε αυτω λαον
περιουσιον καθαπερ ειπεν σοι φυλασσειν
πασας τας εντολας αυτου 19 και
ειναι σε υπερανω παντων των εθνων
ως εποιησεν σε ονομαστον και καυχημα

Since the first line is mostly missing, how is it possible to see that κυριος was not in the original document, or as I have also read, that the tetragrammaton was left untranslated? It looks more like it wouldn't have been on the remains of this fragment. Does anyone have any more information regarding this, or possibly a better quality image that I could reference?

Thanks,
Brent.

Re: Papyrus Rylands 458

Posted: June 27th, 2012, 7:39 am
by Stephen Carlson
You can find a much better hi-res image of the papyrus, front and back, at the web site for the library that conserves this papyrus: http://enriqueta.man.ac.uk/luna/servlet ... erDev~93~3

Just search for 458 in the search box on the upper right.

Re: Papyrus Rylands 458

Posted: June 28th, 2012, 8:14 am
by Brent Kleineibst
Thanks Stephen,

The higher resolution helped confirm my decyphering of the existing lines and helped a bit with the first line as well. What I have for the first line now is:
υπακουειν της φωνης αυτου και κυριος

I am not 100% certain of this. It does however seem that it is not the case that κυριος is omitted, but that it isn't part of the text that we have. Or am I perhaps looking at the wrong fragment?

Regards,
Brent.