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 1:23-31.33-40; 16:14-30; 20:11-17.19-20.22-25. It was written in a documentary hand, in a round, upright uncial of medium size. It uses the nomina sacra with abbreviations, though not for ανθρωπος. There is a tendency to brevity, especially in omitting unnecessary pronouns and conjunctions.
Text
According to reconstruction of Philip W. Comfort
Scribes and Correctors
In John 1:38 "οι δε" was added superlineary; αυ was deleted by dots above the letters. In John 16:19 "ο" was added superlineary. In John 16:29 αυτω was added superlineary. In John 20:19 και was added superlineary.
Textual character
In John 1:34 it reads ὁ ἐκλεκτός together with the manuscripts, א, b, e, ff2, syrc, s. In John 16:17 at line 7 of the recto of the second fragment there appears to be extra space which would require some additional material. In John 16:20, λυπηθησεσθε originally read λουπηθησεσθε, to which the scribe corrected to λυπηθησεσθε. In 16:21, λυπην originally read λοιπην, to which the scribe corrected to λυπην. In 16:27, it singularly omits εγω. In 20:19 the scribe originally omitted και, 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 ο λεγεται διδασκαλε because a line should have 34 letters, which is too long. Grenfell & Hunt rejected another possible reading διδασκαλε, which is found in Codex Bezae, 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 ο λεγεται διδασκαλε but alone is too short and it is not supported by any Greek manuscript. Elliott & Parker have suggested ο λεγεται. It was supported by Peter Head. Comfort proposed μου though this reading is not supported by any known Greek manuscript. It is close for διδασκαλε of Codex Bezae and Old-Latin Magister Domine or Domine. The Greek text of this codex is representative of the Western text-type. Aland ascribed it as a "Normal text", and placed it in Category I. It stays in close agreement with Codex Sinaiticus against Codex Vaticanus. "This agreement is unfortunately obscured by mutilation".
History
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, no. 208. 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, Wessely, Schofield, Comfort, and Barrett. It is currently housed at the British Library in London.
