The "Magdalen" papyrus was purchased in Luxor, Egypt in 1901 by Reverend Charles Bousfield Huleatt, who identified the Greek fragments as portions of the Gospel of Matthew and presented them to Magdalen College, Oxford, where they are cataloged as P. Magdalen Greek 17 and whence they have their name. When the fragments were finally published by Colin H. Roberts in 1953, illustrated with a photograph, the hand was characterized as "an early predecessor of the so-called 'Biblical Uncial'" which began to emerge towards the end of the 2nd century. The uncial style is epitomised by the later biblical Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus. Comparative paleographical analysis has remained the methodological key for dating the manuscript, but there is no consensus on the dating of the papyrus. Estimates have ranged from the first century to the fourth century AD. The fragments are written on both sides, indicating they came from a codex rather than a scroll. More fragments, published in 1956 by Ramon Roca-Puig, cataloged as P. Barc. Inv. 1, were determined by Roca-Puig and Roberts to come from the same codex as the Magdalen fragments, a view which has remained the scholarly consensus.
Date
64 was originally given a 3rd-century date by Charles Huleatt, who donated the Manuscript to Magdalen College. Papyrologist A. S. Hunt then studied the manuscript and dated it to the early 4th century. After initially preferring a third or possibly fourth century dating for the papyrus, Colin Roberts published the manuscript and gave it a dating of ca. 200, which was confirmed by three other leading papyrologists: Harold Bell, T. C. Skeat and E. G. Turner. In late 1994, Carsten Peter Thiede proposed redating the Magdalen papyrus to the middle of the 1st century. This attracted considerable publicity, as journalists interpreted the claim optimistically. Thiede's official article appeared in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik in 1995. A version edited for the layman was co-written with Matthew d'Ancona and presented as The Jesus Papyrus, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1996.. Thiede’s redating of the papyrus was based on comparative analysis of the script with selected samples from Egypt and Palestine. He claimed to see similarities between the script of the Magdalen papyrus and that of dated documents from the first century CE, such as P.Oxy. II 246. Thiede's hypothesis has been viewed with skepticism by nearly all established papyrologists and biblical scholars. Philip Comfort and David Barret in their book Text of the Earliest NT Greek Manuscripts argue for a more general date of 150–175 for the manuscript, and also for 4 and 67, which they argue came from the same codex. 4 was used as stuffing for the binding of “a codex of Philo, written in the later third century and found in a jar which had been walled up in a house at Coptos .” If 4 was part of this codex, then the codex may have been written roughly 100 years prior or earlier. Comfort and Barret also show that this 4/64/67 has affinities with a number of the late 2nd century papyri. Comfort and Barret "tend to claim an earlier date for many manuscripts included in their volume than might be allowed by other palaeographers." The Novum Testamentum Graece, a standard reference for the Greek witnesses, lists 4 and 64/67 separately, giving the former a date of the 3rd century, while the latter is assigned ca. 200. Charlesworth has concluded 'that 64+67 and 4, though written by the same scribe, are not from the same... codex.' The most recent and thorough palaeographic assessment of the papyrus concluded that "until further evidence is forthcoming perhaps a date from mid-II to mid-IV should be assigned to the codex."
