Uncial 073: Peter Walking on the Water

J. Rendel Harris found, collated, and published the Sinai fragment. The related GA 084 leaf is now in the National Library of Russia. Shared material, script, and page design connect the two, while their distinct present shelfmarks preserve the history of dispersal. The modern GA identifier and repository shelfmark are treated as complementary controls on identity: the first connects the object to international textual scholarship, while the second identifies the physical leaf or codex in its present collection. This is especially important where old catalogs divided leaves that belong together, joined fragments that later proved distinct, or used a nickname based on a collector rather than a place of production. The record therefore distinguishes recovery place, copying place, later custody, publication, and current location. Where the early route is undocumented, it remains unknown rather than being reconstructed from a later library label. Facsimiles and digital workspaces extend access, but the original parchment remains the archaeological object.

One damaged parchment leaf preserves Matthew 14:28–31, Peter’s attempt to walk toward Jesus on the water. A separately held leaf registered as GA 084 belongs to the same original codex and preserves adjacent material in Matthew 14–15, but this record anchors the Sinai leaf and notes the physical relationship. The original page was about 28 by 23 centimeters, written in two columns of thirty-four lines. Sparse punctuation and a surviving Eusebian canon reference show both continuous Gospel copying and navigational apparatus despite the leaf’s poor condition. The dossier reads the writing surface as evidence alongside the copied words. Column count, line count, page size, ink, letter formation, nomina sacra, punctuation, corrections, commentary, pagination, reuse, and broken margins each answer different questions about production and use. A single photographed side cannot stand for every page of a lost codex, so the image caption identifies the exact role of the surviving leaf. The selected public-domain image depicts this manuscript itself rather than a generic scribe, modern painting, or unrelated Bible. Where fragments share a parent codex, they are consolidated into one interpretive record instead of being counted as independent artifacts.

The display date “Sixth century AD” follows current catalog and palaeographic judgment. Letter shapes, ruling, page design, material, related dated hands, and publication history can narrow a range, but most of these manuscripts do not carry a copied colophon that supplies a modern calendar year. The artifact directly preserves Matthew 14:28–31; that is a material connection to Scripture in the manuscript’s own historical period, not a claim that the leaf was present when the narrated events occurred. Later date does not automatically mean worthless text, and early date does not automatically make every reading original. Textual criticism weighs agreements, differences, corrections, scribal habits, translation, and genealogy passage by passage.