Papyrus 72

Papyrus 72

New Testament manuscript papyri uncials minuscules lectionaries
Facing pages of Papyrus Bodmer VIII
Name	Papyrus Bodmer VII-IX
Sign	${\displaystyle {\mathfrak {P}}}$72
Text	Jude, 1 Peter, 2 Peter
Date	3rd/4th century
Script	Greek
Now at	Cologny/Geneva; Vatican City, Bibl. Bodmeriana; Bibl. Vaticana
Size	14.5 by 16 cm
Type	Alexandrian text-type
Category	I
Hand	documentary hand
Note	resembles ${\displaystyle {\mathfrak {P}}}$50

Papyrus 72 (${\displaystyle {\mathfrak {P}}}$⁷², Papyrus Bodmer VII-VIII) is the designation used by textual critics of the New Testament to describe portions of the so-called Bodmer Miscellaneous codex, namely the letters of Jude, 1 Peter, and 2 Peter. These books seemed to have been copied by the same scribe, and the handwriting has been paleographically assigned to the 3rd or 4th century. Although the letters of Jude (P.Bodmer VII) and 1-2 Peter (P.Bodmer VIII) in this codex do not form a single continuous text, scholars still tend to refer to these three texts as a single early New Testament papyrus.

It is the earliest known manuscript of these epistles, though a few verses of Jude are in a fragment ${\displaystyle {\mathfrak {P}}}$⁷⁸ (P. Oxy. 2684).

P.Bodmer VII (Jude) and P.Bodmer VIII (1-2 Peter) form part of a single book (the Bodmer Miscellaneous Codex). This book appeared on the antiquities market in Egypt and was bought by the Swiss collector Martin Bodmer (Bodmer donated the letters of Peter, P.Bodmer VIII, to the Vatican in 1969. The complete make-up of the book is generally reconstructed as: The Nativity of Mary (P.Bodmer V), the apocryphal correspondence of Paul to the Corinthians (P.Bodmer X), the eleventh ode of Solomon (P.Bodmer XI), Jude (P.Bodmer VII), Melito's Homily on the Passover (P.Bodmer XIII), a fragment of a hymn (P.Bodmer XII), the Apology of Phileas (P.Bodmer XX), Psalm 33 and 34 (P.Bodmer IX), and 1-2 Peter (P.Bodmer VIII). The same scribe who copied P.Bodmer VII and VIII is also thought to have copied P.Bodmer X and XI.