46 and the pastorals: A Misleading Consensus?

Abstract

The final portion of 46 (Pauline letters: c. 200 AD) is lost. Standard works assert that the undamaged papyrus did not contain the Pastoral Epistles, and this has been taken as evidence for the existence of a Pauline corpus without the Pastorals. However, in the final third of the extant manuscript, the scribe compresses his writing substantially (by up to 50%). Different explanations of this phenomenon are discussed: the most likely being that the scribe always intended to include the Pastorals, but simply miscalculated the space required. 46 cannot be used as evidence for a Pauline corpus omitting the Pastorals.