in the production of Bible manuscripts, until it was replaced by vellum (fine-grained animal skin) in the fourth century C.E. At 2 John, verse twelve, the apostle wrote that he would rather convey his message “face to face” than with “paper and ink.” Here the word “paper” translates the Greek word kharʹtes, which is said to mean a sheet of paper made of papyrus.

PAPHOS

(Paʹphos).

A city on the W coast of the island of Cyprus. Here Paul, after working his way across the island with Barnabas and John Mark, encountered the sorcerer Bar-Jesus (Elymas), who opposed their preaching to Sergius Paulus the proconsul. For this he was made temporarily blind by Paul, miraculously. Witnessing this act, Sergius Paulus was converted to Christianity.—Acts 13:6-13.

Two Cypriot cities have borne the name Paphos, “Old Paphos” and “New Paphos.” New Paphos, the city referred to in the Acts account, was capital of the senatorial province of Cyprus when Paul visited the island during his first missionary tour. This city is thought to be represented by the ruins at the ancient seaport of Baffo about a mile S of modern Ktima. The natural harbor there, which served as a naval base during Greek and Roman times, was no doubt the point from which Paul and his companions sailed N-NW toward Perga in Asia Minor. Moles of the ancient harbor at Baffo still stand, as do the remains of various public and private buildings and a city wall.

Barnabas and Mark no doubt revisited the site around 49 C.E.—Acts 15:36-39.

PAPYRUS

(pa·pyʹrus; plural, pa·pyʹri).

A large aquatic plant belonging to the sedge family. It has a tapering three-sided stem or stock that grows in shallow water to a height of from eight to sixteen feet (c. 2.4 to 4.9 meters) and terminates in a bush or plume of fine grasslike panicles. The name is also applied to papyrus material used in the manufacture of various items, including a writing material, and to specific manuscripts made from it. The term “papyrus” is of uncertain etymology, but may mean “product of the river” or “the river plant.” The English word “paper” is from the Latin papyrus, a derivation of the Greek word paʹpy·ros.

Papyrus thrives in shallow, stagnant waters or marshes and along the banks of slow-moving rivers, such as the lower Nile, where it once flourished but is now nearly extinct. Bildad asked Job: “Will a papyrus plant grow tall without a swampy place?”—Job 8:11; Isa. 35:7.

Papyrus was once a very valuable commodity in ancient Egypt, where it is thought to have been used as a writing material as early as the time of Abraham. The manufacture of papyrus paper in time became one of Egypt’s main industries. Numerous products were obtained from the plant. The stems were used for making sandals, boxes, sails, boats, baskets and mats. The woody rootstock was chewed for its sweet-tasting licorice-like juice. The pith was boiled and eaten, and when a scarcity of firewood existed, the lower stems were dried and used for fuel.

The plant’s stems are bouyant, and, to prevent the infant Moses’ death, his mother placed him in an “ark of papyrus” coated with bitumen and pitch and set him adrift on the Nile River. (Ex. 2:3) Larger vessels for traveling longer distances were also made from papyrus. These may have been cartlike craft constructed from bundles of papyrus stems lashed together. They had narrow ends, but the beams were broad enough to support standing passengers. In 1970, Thor Heyerdahl and a group of associates traveled across thousands of miles of the Atlantic in such a craft. Reference is made to “vessels of papyrus” at Isaiah 18:2.

When the Egyptians prepared papyrus for writing material, they followed a rather simple process. In gathering the stems, they prized the thick pithy part that grew under the surface of the water because it yielded the broadest and whitest raw material. The outer rinds were peeled off and the remaining pithy cores were cut into convenient lengths of sixteen to eighteen inches (c. 40.6 to 46 centimeters). Next, the cellular pith was sliced into broad, but very thin, strips. The strips were then laid out vertically on a smooth surface and allowed to overlap slightly. After a thin coat of paste was applied, another layer of papyrus strips was placed horizontally over the vertical ones. Mallets were used to beat the layers until they were bonded into a unified sheet. Then after being dried in the sun, the sheets were trimmed to the desired size, frequently in rectangular form about eight by ten inches (c. 20 by 25 centimeters). Finally, they were smoothed and polished with pumice, shells or ivory. This process produced a fairly durable, supple, near-white writing material that was available in many sizes and degrees of quality. The side having the horizontal strips was usually chosen for writing, although at times the reverse side was used to finish a writing. The joints of the strips served to guide the writer’s hand as he wrote with a reed pen and a writing fluid made from gum, soot and water.

These papyrus sheets could be pasted along the edges and joined to make a scroll, normally consisting of about twenty sheets. Or, they might be folded into leaves to form the booklike codex that became popular among the early Christians. The average scroll measured about fourteen to twenty feet (c. 4.3 to 6 meters) in length, though one has been preserved that is 133 feet (40.5 meters) long. The Greek word biʹblos originally applied to the soft pith of the papyrus plant but later conveyed the meaning of a scroll or little book. (Gal. 3:10; 2 Tim. 4:13) It is from this word that the name “Bible” is derived. A Phoenician city was called Byblos after it became an important center for the papyrus industry.

Papyrus rolls were used widely until the beginning of the second century C.E., when they began to be superseded by the papyrus codex. Later, in the fourth century, the popularity of papyrus waned, being replaced extensively by a more durable writing material called “vellum.”

Papyrus had one major disadvantage as a writing material in that it was not very durable. It deteriorated in a damp environment, and, when stored under arid conditions, became very brittle. Until the eighteenth century C.E. the assumption was that all ancient papyrus manuscripts of the Bible had perished. However, in 1778 Biblical papyri were discovered at ancient Fayum in Egypt. Since then further discoveries have been made in Egypt and the region around the Dead Sea, places that afford the ideal dry climate so necessary for the preservation of papyri. Some of the Scriptural papyri found at these locations date back as far as the second or first century B.C.E.

Many of these papyrus manuscript discoveries are designated by the term “papyrus” or “papyri,” such as the Nash Papyrus of the first or second century B.C.E., the Papyrus Rylands iii. 458 (second century B.C.E.) and the Chester Beatty Papyrus No. 1 (probably of the early third century C.E.).

PARADISE

The Greek word pa·raʹdei·sos occurs three times in the Christian Greek Scriptures. (Luke 23:43; 2 Cor. 12:4; Rev. 2:7) Greek writers as far back as Xenophon (c. 434-355 B.C.E.) used the word and attribute it to Persian sources. Some lexicographers would derive the Hebrew word par·desʹ (meaning, basically, a park) from the same source. But since Solomon (of the eleventh century B.C.E.) used par·desʹ in his writings whereas existing Persian writings go back only to about the sixth century B.C.E., such derivation of the Hebrew term is only conjectural. (Eccl. 2:5; Song of Sol. 4:13) The remaining use of par·desʹ is at Nehemiah 2:8, where reference is made to a royal wooded park of Persian