Chester Beatty Papyrus III (P47)
Ten surviving papyrus leaves preserve most of Revelation 9:10–17:2, making P47 the earliest extensive witness to the book and a rare window into how one third-century Christian scribe copied, corrected, and reread the Apocalypse.
- Artifact date
- Late third century AD
- Findspot
- Egypt; precise findspot unknown
- Current location
- Chester Beatty, Dublin
What archaeologists can actually examine
Chester Beatty Papyrus III, catalogued as P47 and CBL BP III, consists of ten papyrus leaves from a codex of Revelation. The surviving twenty pages transmit a nearly continuous run from Revelation 9:10 to 17:2, apart from damage near page tops and edges. That span is unusually valuable because early Greek witnesses to Revelation are scarce. P47 does not preserve an autograph, but it carries an independent third-century form of the text, including corrections and distinctive readings that can be compared with Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Alexandrinus, P115, versions, and later manuscripts.
A long early sequence survives
Ten leaves preserve most of Revelation 9:10–17:2, an unusually extensive third-century witness to a sparsely attested New Testament book.
The codex records scribal work
Corrections, re-inking, variable lettering, and damaged fibers reveal copying and maintenance processes that a printed transcription can conceal.
Its date remains a reasoned range
Handwriting comparison supports a later-third-century setting, but there is no dated colophon or controlled excavation context.
P47 informs rather than dictates the text
Editors compare its readings with P115, major codices, versions, and scribal tendencies instead of granting it automatic priority.
Revelation circulated as a substantial book
Page layout and codex reconstruction indicate sustained copying and reading of the Apocalypse in pre-Constantinian Roman Egypt.
Follow the evidence from discovery to debate
Move through the find in a deliberate order: establish its provenance, examine the surviving object, place it in time, and then weigh the scholarly interpretation.
How the find came to light
P47 entered scholarship with the group of biblical papyri acquired by Alfred Chester Beatty in Egypt in the early 1930s. Reports associated the group with the Nile region, but the papyrus was not recovered in a documented archaeological excavation and its exact findspot remains unknown. Frederic G. Kenyon published the manuscript’s text and plates in the 1930s, establishing its identity as the Revelation codex. Modern high-resolution imaging and direct examination by Peter Malik have revealed corrections, re-inking, and physical details that older monochrome editions could not consistently resolve, showing why the manuscript must be studied as an artifact as well as a string of readings.
What you are looking at
Each surviving leaf is written in a single Greek column, normally with roughly twenty-five to thirty lines per page, in dark ink on papyrus. Kenyon estimated an original leaf around 24 by 14 centimeters after allowing for lost margins. The hand is competent but irregular: letter size, spacing, and line length vary, and the copyist made both immediate and later corrections. Nomina sacra and Greek numerals belong to the manuscript’s scribal system. The pages are not pristine displays; fibers, lacunae, faded strokes, reinforcement, and re-inked letters all affect what editors can read and how confidently they can reconstruct missing text.
Where it belongs in history
The conventional date is the later third century, assigned principally by palaeographic comparison rather than by a dated colophon, excavation layer, or radiocarbon determination. Malik’s integrative study allows a deliberately broad range around AD 250–325, emphasizing the uncertainty inherent in handwriting dates. The codex therefore belongs to the pre-Constantinian transmission of Christian books in Roman Egypt, when Revelation was already being copied as a substantial literary work. Its codex format, page planning, corrections, and probable reconstruction as a copy of the whole Apocalypse illuminate early Christian book production, yet they do not identify the community, town, scriptorium, or owner that commissioned or used it.
Consensus, questions, and debate
Scholars agree that P47 is the earliest extensive surviving manuscript of Revelation and that its text is especially important because the book’s manuscript tradition is comparatively thin. Older classifications often described a close relationship with Codex Sinaiticus, while newer work studies individual agreements, corrections, singular readings, re-inking, and affinities with the Sahidic version rather than treating the witness as a simple text-type label. Malik has argued from codicology and script for a more nuanced date and has identified corrections missed in the first edition. P115’s later discovery also changed the comparison set, demonstrating that no single early papyrus controls the textual history of Revelation.
The biblical record beside the artifact
The direct connection is textual: P47 physically preserves Greek wording from Revelation 9:10 through 17:2, including the trumpet visions, the beast and its number in chapter 13, the Lamb on Mount Zion, bowls of wrath, and the opening judgment of Babylon. It therefore witnesses that these passages circulated together in a codex centuries before the medieval manuscripts behind the Textus Receptus. Its value is comparative rather than talismanic. A reading in P47 is evidence for an early textual state, not automatic proof that the reading is original; editors weigh it alongside other Greek manuscripts, early translations, internal coherence, and identifiable scribal habits.
Revelation 13:1–18
1And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.
2And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as [the feet] of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.
3And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.
4And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who [is] like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?
5And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty [and] two months.
6And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven.
7And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.
8And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
9If any man have an ear, let him hear.
10He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity: he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints.
11And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon.
12And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.
13And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men,
14And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by [the means of] those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live.
15And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.
16And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:
17And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
18Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number [is] Six hundred threescore [and] six.
A responsible historical conclusion
P47 brings the transmission of Revelation into the material world of an actual reader and copyist. The manuscript shows a lengthy apocalyptic text laid out page by page, mistakes noticed and repaired, ink refreshed, and numerals written in forms that sometimes demand close inspection. Those features matter because modern critical editions are not built by merely counting manuscripts; they reconstruct relationships among particular witnesses and the choices of particular scribes. For readers of Revelation 13–14, P47 provides exceptionally early physical testimony to the continuity of the passage while also modeling intellectual humility: preservation of an ancient copy is not the same thing as preservation without variation.
Authoritative sources
Institutional catalogs, excavation reports, and academic publications let you examine the evidence beyond this summary.
Manuscript P47
Center for the Study of New Testament ManuscriptsCurrent institutional catalogue and digital image record documenting shelfmark, date, material, extent, layout, and surviving Revelation content.
The Chester Beatty Biblical Papyri, Fasciculus III: Revelation
Chester Beatty / Frederic G. KenyonThe primary edition’s detailed description, measurements, contents, transcription, and discussion of the ten surviving leaves.
A Fresh Look at P.Beatty III (P47): Towards an Integrative Study of an Early Christian Codex
Archiv für Papyrusforschung / De Gruyter BrillPeer-reviewed study integrating the manuscript’s physical features, scribal corrections, re-inking, and textual character.
Editio Critica Maior Revelation Project Publications
Institute for New Testament Textual Research, University of MünsterOfficial project bibliography situating P47 within current critical work on the Greek manuscript tradition of Revelation.
A page of Papyrus 47 preserving Revelation 13:16–14:4. · Unknown ancient scribe; faithful reproduction, via Wikimedia Commons · Public Domain Mark 1.0
View the image source and license