Papyrus 5 is an early copy of the New Testament in Greek. It is a papyrus manuscript of the Gospel of John. It is designated by the siglum in the Gregory-Aland numbering of New Testament manuscripts. Using the study of comparative writing styles (palaeography), it has been assigned to the early 3rd century. The papyrus is housed in the British Library. It has survived in a very fragmentary condition, which has resulted in differing ways of transcribing the text.
The manuscript is a fragment of three leaves, written in one column per page, 27 lines per page. The surviving text of John are verses ,; ; ,,.
It was written in a documentary hand, in a round, upright uncial of medium size. It uses the nomina sacra throughout (sacred names, these being words/titles considered sacred in Christianity), with the following: ( ), though not for ñýøÃÂÃÂÃÂÿÃÂ.
There is a tendency to brevity, especially in omitting unnecessary pronouns and conjunctions.
Transcription of the text according to the reconstruction of papyrologist and Biblical scholar Philip W. Comfort.
In "ÿù ôõ" was added superlineary; ñàwas deleted by dots above the letters.
In "ÿ" was added superlineary.
In ñàÃÂàwas added superlineary.
In úñù was added superlineary.
In it reads á½ á¼ÂúûõúÃÂÃÂàtogether with the manuscripts , ÃÂ, b, e, ff, syr.
In at line 7 of the recto of the second fragment there appears to be extra space which would require some additional material.
In , ûàÃÂ÷ø÷ÃÂõÃÂøõ originally read ûÿàÃÂ÷ø÷ÃÂõÃÂøõ, to which the scribe corrected to ûàÃÂ÷ø÷ÃÂõÃÂøõ. In , ûàÃÂ÷ý originally read ûÿùÃÂ÷ý, to which the scribe corrected to ûàÃÂ÷ý. In , it singularly omits õóÃÂ. In the scribe originally omitted úñù, but then added it superlinearly later on.
At line 19 of the third folio of the recto () the missing fragment is difficult for a reconstruction. Grenfell & Hunt remarked that there is no space for the ordinary reading ÿ ûõóõÃÂñù ôùôñÃÂúñûõ because a line should have 34 letters, which is too long. Grenfell & Hunt rejected another possible reading ôùôñÃÂúñûõ, which is found in Codex Bezae (possible conflation), and proposed alone, because Domine is found in Codex Vercellensis and in Codex Usserianus I, but in the reconstructed text of the manuscript they did not decide to include this proposed variant to the text:
All the editors agree that the space is insufficient for ÿ ûõóõÃÂñù ôùôñÃÂúñûõ (John 20,16) but alone is too short and it is not supported by any Greek manuscript. Elliott & Parker have suggested ÿ ûõóõÃÂñù . It was supported by Biblical scholar Peter Head. Comfort proposed üÿàthough this reading is not supported by any known Greek manuscript. It is close for ôùôñÃÂúñûõ of Codex Bezae and Old-Latin Magister Domine or Domine.
The Greek text of this codex is considered a representative of the Western text-type. Biblical scholar Kurt Aland ascribed it as a "Normal text", and placed it in Category I of his New Testament manuscript classification system. It stays in close agreement with Codex Sinaiticus against Codex Vaticanus (e.g. .; ..; ). "This agreement is unfortunately obscured by mutilation".
The manuscript was discovered at the end of the 19th century by Grenfell and Hunt in Oxyrhynchus, Egypt. The first and third leaves were published in Oxyrhynchus Papyri, Part II (1899), no. 208. Biblical scholar Caspar René Gregory classified it under number 5 on his list. The second leaf () was published in 1922 as Oxyrhynchus no. 1781.
It was examined by Grenfell, Hunt, Karl Wessely, Schofield, and Comfort.
It is currently housed at the British Library (Inv. nos. 782, 2484) in London.