Nash Papyrus

Bought in Egypt, Given to Cambridge

The Nash Papyrus is one leaf, 140 by 60 millimetres, made of four separate pieces fixed together, holed and torn and in places barely legible. Twenty-four lines survive, with traces of a twenty-fifth. Walter Llewellyn Nash, secretary of the Society of Biblical Archaeology, bought it from a dealer in Egypt — alongside some fragments of the twelfth book of the Odyssey — and presented it to Cambridge University Library in 1903, where it is MS Or.233. The library's own record says the fragment "was said to have come from the Fayyūm," and its place of origin is entered, with the question mark, as "Egypt (?)". A date of 1898 for the purchase circulates widely; the contemporary evidence points to 1902, and Cambridge's current record gives no year at all.

It was published in 1903 by S. A. Cook, whom Cambridge's own catalogue quotes calling it the "oldest Hebrew MS. of any kind in existence" — a claim that held for forty-four years, until the first cave at Qumran. What is on it is the Ten Commandments, running straight on into the opening of the Shema, Deuteronomy 6:4-5. Cambridge has digitised it in visible light, infrared and multispectral imaging, and publishes the images free to view. They are licensed for non-commercial use only, so this app links to them rather than reproducing them.

How Old It Is

The first readers put it late. F. C. Burkitt, writing in 1903, compared the hand not to any Hebrew manuscript but to Palmyrene and Nabataean inscriptions, found that "The nearest parallel of all is to be found in a Nabataean inscription of A. D. 55," and assigned the papyrus to about that date; Cambridge's own annual report for 1903 said "probably dating from the first century A.D." That stood for a generation.

It was overturned by W. F. Albright, in a 1937 article in the Journal of Biblical Literature whose title says what it did: "A Biblical Fragment from the Maccabaean Age: The Nash Papyrus." Cambridge now dates it to the middle of the second century BC and describes the hand as an early pre-Herodian cursive. Precise ranges are quoted for Albright's conclusion in many places; the safe statement is the one his own title makes. Albright's argument was vindicated in an unexpected way in 1947, when the Qumran caves produced Hebrew hands of exactly the kind he had reasoned to.

Not a Page of a Bible

The most interesting thing about the Nash Papyrus is what it is not. Its Decalogue is not the text of Exodus 20 and it is not the text of Deuteronomy 5; it is a mixture. It begins the fourth commandment with "Remember" as Exodus does and keeps Exodus's reason drawn from creation, but it lists "thy ox and thy ass" and adds "that it may be well with thee" as Deuteronomy does, and then it runs on into the Shema, which is Deuteronomy alone. Burkitt reached that conclusion in 1903, and he hedged it himself: "It is, I venture to think, impossible to resist the impression that the Papyrus gives a text containing elements both from Exodus and from Deuteronomy, just such a text as might be formed in a liturgical work based indeed upon the Pentateuch, yet not a direct transcript either of Exodus or of Deuteronomy." Cambridge's catalogue says the same: it was identified as a lectionary for liturgical use, and "it has been suggested that it is from a phylactery," which would put it beside the tefillin later found at Qumran.

It also agrees with the Greek Septuagint against the Hebrew text that became standard, and in ways a reader of the New Testament will recognise. It orders the commandments adultery, murder, theft — the order found in some Septuagint manuscripts and in Philo, and the order used by the Gospel of Luke, by Romans and by the letter of James, where Matthew has murder first. It writes "seventh day" where the Masoretic Text has "Sabbath day." And it carries the introductory line before the Shema that stands in the Greek of Deuteronomy 6:4 and not in the Hebrew. Cambridge offers two explanations and does not choose between them: the mixture "may reflect the fluidity of the biblical text at this early date, or it may have resulted from it being composed from memory, rather than copied from a written Vorlage." Either way, the point to hold on to is that a devotional sheet is weaker evidence about the wording of the Bible than a Bible manuscript would be — and richer evidence about how a Jew in Egypt actually prayed.

Scripture references

• Exodus 20:8-11 — The fourth commandment as Exodus gives it, with the reason drawn from creation
• Deuteronomy 5:12-15 — The same commandment as Deuteronomy gives it, with a different reason
• Deuteronomy 6:4-5 — The Shema, which follows the commandments straight on in this papyrus
• Luke 18:20 — Adultery before murder — the order the Nash Papyrus uses, and Paul and James with it

Sources

• Holding institutionCambridge University Library, Cambridge Digital Library: Nash Papyrus (MS Or.233) — Cambridge University Library · The library's own record: shelfmark "MS Or.233"; "Purchased from an Egyptian dealer in antiquities by Dr Walter Llewellyn Nash, and presented to the Library in 1903, the fragment was said to have come from the Fayyūm"; one leaf, 140 x 60 mm, 24 lines; date of creation "Middle of second century BCE"; "a composite of Exodus 20:1-17 and Deuteronomy 5:4-21"; originally identified as "a lectionary used in liturgical contexts" and "it has been suggested that it is from a phylactery"; the mixture "may reflect the fluidity of the biblical text at this early date, or it may have resulted from it being composed from memory". Images are CC BY-NC and are linked, not reproduced. The site refuses automated requests and was read in a browserSupports: The shelfmark, acquisition, dimensions, contents, current dating and the liturgical identification
• Primary textF. C. Burkitt, "The Hebrew Papyrus of the Ten Commandments" — F. C. Burkitt, University of Cambridge · Jewish Quarterly Review 15 (1903), 392-408. Out of copyright, and the page scan is freely readable at the Internet Archive as part of JSTOR's Early Journal Content; every Burkitt quotation in this article was checked against it rather than against a re-keyed transcription. The first full study. Source for the early dating — "The nearest parallel of all is to be found in a Nabataean inscription of A. D. 55" — for the liturgical conclusion quoted in section three, for the apportionment of the Decalogue between Exodus and Deuteronomy set out in the same section, and for the specific agreements with the Septuagint against the Masoretic Text, including the commandment order and the preface to the Shema. Burkitt lists Mark among the New Testament witnesses to that order; the World English Bible this app renders puts murder first at Mark 10:19, so the article names only Luke, Romans and James, which it does notSupports: The original first-century AD dating, the liturgical reading, and the Septuagint agreements
• ReferenceB. Nongbri, "A Cambridge Papyrus of the Odyssey and the Nash Papyrus" — Brent Nongbri, MF Norwegian School of Theology · 3 August 2026 — a different post from his "Early Publications" piece cited below, and the one that describes Albright's 1937 article as "the classic article that redated the Nash Papyrus from the second century CE to the second century BCE". It also carries Burkitt's fuller 1903 account of the purchase, alongside "some very early uncial fragments of the Odyssey"Supports: The standing of Albright's redating, and the papyrus's purchase history
• ScholarshipW. F. Albright, "A Biblical Fragment from the Maccabaean Age: The Nash Papyrus" — William Foxwell Albright, Johns Hopkins University · Journal of Biblical Literature 56:3 (1937), 145-176 — the article that moved the papyrus from the second century AD to the second century BC. Widely quoted precise ranges for his conclusion could not be checked against the article itself, which is paywalled; the century is what his own title claims · paywalledSupports: The redating in section two
• Primary textS. A. Cook, "A Pre-Masoretic Biblical Papyrus" — Stanley A. Cook, University of Cambridge · Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology 25 (1903), 34-55 — the editio princeps, preceded by a notice at PSBA 24 (1902), 272. Bibliographic details as given by B. Nongbri, whose survey of the early publications is cited below. Print onlySupports: The first publication of the papyrus in 1903
• ReferenceBrent Nongbri, "Early Publications on the Nash Papyrus" — Brent Nongbri, MF Norwegian School of Theology · 6 August 2026. Traces the contemporary evidence for the 1902 purchase, quoting Burkitt in The Cambridge Review (1903): the fragments "came into the possession of Mr. W. L. Nash ... in the course of 1902, having been bought in Egypt from a native dealer together with some papyrus fragments of the twelfth book of the Odyssey"Supports: The purchase year and the significance of Albright's article
• EncyclopediaWikipedia: Nash Papyrus

Further reading

• Cambridge Digital Library: Nash Papyrus (MS Or.233)
• Brent Nongbri: Early Publications on the Nash Papyrus
• Wikipedia: Nash Papyrus

Reflect

This scrap is probably somebody's daily prayers, carried and folded until it fell apart. What do you say often enough to wear out?