Isaiah 58.2-4; 14.23-27; 14.29-15.1; 57.17-20

Bifolio from the Book of Isaiah (R965) written in Greek with ink on papyrus; made in Egypt and dated to the third century. The text follows the Septuagint, or Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible. The manuscript currently comprises portions of 33 of an original 112 leaves; but the lower portions of even the best-preserved leaves are lost. The manuscript is annotated with Coptic glosses, presumably written by a Coptic-speaker not long after the writing of the Greek text. The gloss is one of the earliest extant texts in the Fayyumic dialect. The manuscript is one of eleven Chester Beatty Biblical Papyri and most of the fragments were from the original acquisition in the early 1930s. A considerable number of smaller pieces were acquired by the University of Michigan and transferred to Beatty in the mid-1930s. Two additional leaves were the property of Wilfred Merton and formed part of his bequest to Beatty in 1957 (CBL MP 2.26 and CBL MP 2.86).