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The Oxyrhynchus Papyri are a group of manuscripts discovered during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by papyrologists Bernard Pyne Grenfell and Arthur Surridge Hunt at an ancient rubbish dump near Oxyrhynchus in Egypt (28°32′N 30°40′E, modern el-Bahnasa).

The manuscripts date from the time of the Ptolemaic (3rd century BC) and Roman periods of Egyptian history (from 32 BC to the Muslim conquest of Egypt in 640 AD). Only an estimated 10% are literary in nature. Most of the papyri found seem to consist mainly of public and private documents: codes, edicts, registers, official correspondence, census-returns, tax-assessments, petitions, court-records, sales, leases, wills, bills, accounts, inventories, horoscopes, and private letters. Although most of the papyri were written in Greek, some texts written in Egyptian (Egyptian hieroglyphics, Hieratic, Demotic, mostly Coptic), Latin and Arabic were also found. Texts in Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac and Pahlavi have so far represented only a small percentage of the total. Since 1898, academics have collated and transcribed over 5,000 documents from what were originally hundreds of boxes of papyrus fragments the size of large cornflakes. This is thought to represent only 1 to 2% of what is estimated to be at least half a million papyri still remaining to be conserved, transcribed, deciphered and catalogued. Oxyrhynchus Papyri are currently housed in institutions all over the world.

Tryphon, son of Dionysus, and Saraeus, daughter of Apion, a married couple are mentioned in several administrative papyri, detailing their various brushes with legal authorities in Oxyrhynchus.

Another notable text uncovered at Oxyrhynchus was Ichneutae, a previously unknown play written by Sophocles.

See Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 20 – Iliad II.730-828 and Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 21 – Iliad II.745-764

Among the Christian texts found at Oxyrhynchus, were fragments of early non-canonical Gospels, Oxyrhynchus 840 (3rd century AD) and Oxyrhynchus 1224 (4th century AD). All manuscripts classified as "theological" in the Oxyrhynchus Papyri are listed below. A few manuscripts that belong to multiple genres, or genres that are inconsistently treated in the volumes of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri, are also included. XVI 1928) associated with an amulet, is classified according to its primary genre as a magic text in the Oxyrhynchus Papyri; however, it is included here among witnesses to the Old Testament text.

Portions of Old Testament books of undisputed authority found among the Oxyrhynchus Papyri are listed in this section. The first number (Vol) is the volume of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri in which the manuscript is published. The second number (Oxy) is the overall publication sequence number in Oxyrhynchus Papyri.

Context will always make clear whether volume 70 of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri or the Septuagint is intended.

The Oxyrhynchus Papyri have provided the most numerous sub-group of the earliest copies of the New Testament. The first of these were excavated by Bernard Pyne Grenfell and Arthur Surridge Hunt in Oxyrhynchus, at the turn of the 20th century. Of the 127 registered New Testament papyri, 52 (41%) are from Oxyrhynchus. The earliest of the papyri are dated to the middle of the 2nd century, so were copied within about a century of the writing of the original New Testament documents. This, together with the other early discoveries, was published in 1898, in the first volume of the now 86-volume work, The Oxyrhynchus Papyri.

The Oxyrhynchus Papyri collection contains around twenty manuscripts of New Testament apocrypha, works from the early Christian period that presented themselves as biblical books, but were not eventually received as such by the orthodoxy. These works found at Oxyrhynchus include the gospels of Thomas, Mary, Peter, James, The Shepherd of Hermas, and the Didache. (All of these are known from other sources as well.) Among this collection are also a few manuscripts of unknown gospels.

I, edited with translations and notes by Bernard P. IX, edited with translations and notes by Arthur S.

Quick Facts

• Among the Christian texts found at Oxyrhynchus, were fragments of early non-canonical Gospels, Oxyrhynchus 840 (3rd century AD) and Oxyrhynchus 1224 (4th century AD).
• Although most of the papyri were written in Greek, some texts written in Egyptian (Egyptian hieroglyphics, Hieratic, Demotic, mostly Coptic), Latin and Arabic were also found.
• Portions of Old Testament books of undisputed authority found among the Oxyrhynchus Papyri are listed in this section.
• The manuscripts date from the time of the Ptolemaic (3rd century BC) and Roman periods of Egyptian history (from 32 BC to the Muslim conquest of Egypt in 640 AD).
• See Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 20 – Iliad II.730-828 and Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 21 – Iliad II.745-764

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