The Papyrus Chester Beatty VI (also signed as Rahlfs 963, Michigan.apis.2494, 6 P. Beatty 6) are fragments of a papyrus manuscript of the Greek Septuagint (an early translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek) and one of the Chester Beatty papyri. It contains parts of the Book of Numbers and Deuteronomy.[1] Using the study of comparative writing styles (palaeography), it has been dated to 200 CE.[2]
The manuscript is a codex (precursor to the modern book), which has survived in only 50 mostly damaged leaves, written in small uncials in an expertise script. The manuscript contains the book of Numbers chapters 5, 13, 25 and Deuteronomy 1, 9–12; 18; 19; 27–34.[3]
The text of Numbers is similar to the text of Codex Vaticanus (B), the text of the Deuteronomy to Codex Colberto-Sarravianus (G) and Codex Washingtonensis (Θ).
This manuscript is important for containing substantial portions of Deuteronomy and predates Codex Vaticanus (B) by almost 200 years.[2] It also contains the name Joshua written as a nomen sacrum, due to the Greek Ἰησοῦς being the same for both the names Joshua and Jesus.[2]
The fragments were acquired in Egypt before the end of 1931 by the American collector Alfred Chester Beatty. Most of the fragments are in the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin with the shelf number P. Ch. Beatty VI, and some are in the Ann Arbor Library of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, shelf number P. Mich. Inv. 5554.[3]