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MARTIN BODMER FOUNDATION, GENEVA

TEXT TREASURE. Papyrus 66 is among the oldest and most important manuscripts of the Gospel of John. Discovered with several other papyri in 1952 near Dishna, Egypt, and dated to c. 200 CE or perhaps a bit earlier or later, the document is in the form of a codex—sheets of papyrus sewn together along one edge to form a book—and preserves nearly the entirety of the Gospel. In the Lazarus story (John 11) as recorded in Papyrus 66, the text exhibits erasures and corrections suggesting that an alternative version with just one sister, Mary, was cleverly adjusted to include Martha as well.