Bodmer Papyri
Online catalog of the papyrus and parchment manuscripts
in the Bodmer collection
The aim of this constellation is to produce a detailed, online catalog of the papyrus and parchment manuscripts at the Fondation Martin Bodmer. The majority of these were acquired by Martin Bodmer in the 1950s and early 1960s. Many of these items seem to have formed part of a larger ancient collection that included works in Greek, Coptic, and Latin (though only Greek and Coptic are represented in the Bodmer collection). While a number of the books contain interesting combinations of Christian works (such as PB 3, a codex containing the Gospel According to John and part of Genesis in Coptic), there are also classical books, such as the Menander codex (PB M). Other manuscripts contain both classical and Christian material, such as PB T, a codex that includes parts of the biblical book of Daniel in Greek along with book 6 of Thucydides, among other texts.
These manuscripts are of course highly important for the history of early Christianity, and because of the excellent state of preservation of many of the codices, they are of exceptional interest for historians of the book as well.
We employ a numbering system that uses the abbreviation PB (Papyrus Bodmer) and an Arabic number or a Latin letter. In most cases, these numbers correspond to the older system of Roman numerals: P.Bodmer I = PB1; P.Bodmer II = PB 2, etc. In situations when a single codex is composed of several of the old P.Bodmer numbers, we have employed a new "letter" designation:
- P.Bodmer V+X+XI+VII+XIII+XII+VIII = PB C, the Bodmer Composite codex
- P.Bodmer XXV+IV+XXVI = PB M, the Bodmer Menander codex
- P.Bodmer XX+IX = PB P, the Apology of Phileas and Psalms codex
- P.Bodmer XXXVIII+XXIX+XXX-XXXVII = PB D, the Bodmer Codex of Visions
- P.Bodmer XLV+XLVI+XLVII+XXVII = PB T, the Bodmer Susanna-Daniel-Thucydides codex
Dr. Daniel Sharp, Brigham Young University, Hawaii
Dr. Brent Nongbri, MF Norwegian School of Theology, Religion, and Society, Oslo, Norway