Papyrus Bodmer III
Codex Bodmer III, is a Coptic uncial manuscript of the four Gospels, dated palaeographically to the 4th century. It contains the text of the Gospel of John with some lacunae. It is written in Bohairic dialect of Coptic language.
It is the oldest manuscript of the Bohairic version. Originally codex contained 239 pages, but the first 22 are damaged and only small fragments have survived. The Gospel of John is followed by the text of Book of Genesis with page numbers beginning with α in a new series. It has also fragment of Epistle to Philippians in Sahidic dialect.
The first occurrence of "God" in John 1:1 is in contracted form as the Nomina Sacra, whereas the second occurrence is
spelled fully. In John 1:18 the word "God" is contracted, while the word "God" is spelled out. The scribe may have been a Gnostic.
The text of the codex is a representative of the Alexandrian text-type. Because its text is different from later Bohairic manuscript it was called to be the proto-Bohairic version.
The manuscript was discovered in Upper Egypt and purchased by John M. Bodmer of Geneva.
It was published by Rodolphe Kasser in 1958.
Currently it is housed at the Bibliotheca Bodmeriana in Cologny.
