06_Biblica_1_D_Callan_Layout 1 05/11/12 12:20 Pagina 429 429 READING THE EARLIEST COPIES OF 2 PETER mean when I refer to the probable or likely original text 6. In dis- cussing the earliest copies of 2 Peter, I will discuss the meaning of 2 Peter as found in the corrected texts. The one exception is that where possible, I will interpret the text marked with dots. I do so because marking the text with dots does not eliminate it as completely as other methods of correction; the dotted text is still there to be read. Reading the corrected text is quite straightforward in the case of Papyrus 72 and Codex Vaticanus. As we will see below, almost all of the corrections of 2 Peter in Papyrus 72 seem to have been made by the original hand, and there are very few corrections of 2 Peter in Codex Vaticanus. The case of Codex Sinaiticus is different. In this manuscript there are many corrections of the text of 2 Peter. While some of them seem to have been made before the text left the scriptorium, a number of them seem to have been made much later. Even so, the corrected text of Codex Sinaiticus is one of the earliest copies of 2 Peter. I. Papyrus 72 Like the other early copies of 2 Peter we are considering, the one found in P72 was part of a codex; Tommy Wasserman calls it the Bodmer Miscellaneous Codex 7. Unlike the other codices containing early copies of 2 Peter, the Bodmer Miscellaneous Codex was a pa- pyrus codex. The pages of this codex are also smaller than those of the other codices that contain early copies of 2 Peter; they measure 6 ̋ ×5.5 ̋ , about half the size of the other codices’ pages (though the latter also differ considerably in size). Each page has a single column of text. In 2 Peter the pages mostly have 17-19 lines of text. The size of the codex suggests that it was produced for private use rather than for public reading in the church. The most important difference between the Bodmer Miscellaneous Codex and the other codices we are considering is that the former is 6 On the complexity of the term “original text” see E.J. EPP, “The Multi- valence of the Term ‘Original Text’ in New Testament Textual Criticism”, EPP, Perspectives on NT Textual Criticism, 551-593. 7 T. WASSERMAN, “Papyrus 72 and the Bodmer Miscellaneous Codex”, ID., The Epistle of Jude. Its Text and Transmission (ConB NTS 43; Stockholm 2006) 30-50.