The Oxyrhynchus Papyri vol. LXXXV

This volume contains the first editions of 55 Greek literary and documentary papyri. The theological texts include fragments of Genesis and Luke, both assignable to the third century. Pride of place among the new literary texts is given to a retelling of Egyptian mythology, in which Isis writes to Arianis, appealing for his help in locating the body of Osiris. Two others are philosophical (Peripatetic and Stoic). Among the extant classical texts, large fragments of Plato’s Laches offer readings of particular interest. A paraphrase of Justinian’s Digest shows a professor explaining the relationship between written law and custom in a mixture of Greek and Graeco-Latin. The documents include a group of ten private letters and an elaborate first-person account of a failed attempt to buy camels for the state.