The Bodmer Papyrus, dated around the year 175, is the oldest extant copy of parts of the Gospels of John and Luke. Discovered in Egypt in the early 1950s, the papyrus influenced the course of biblical scholarship.

When scholars saw such remarkable agreement between the texts, they had to acknowledge that the fourth-century Codex Vaticanus, the oldest complete version of the Gospel, was indeed authentic.

The papyrus came into the hands of Frank Hanna III, a businessman from Atlanta, Georgia. Through what Hanna called a convoluted but remarkable series of events, he was able to purchase the papyrus before it was auctioned, and present it in January to the Holy Father as a gift for the Church.

The Bodmer Papyrus is tangible evidence that the Gospel that circulated among the early Christian communities was set down well before the fourth century and handed down in the form we now know.

It is believed to have been used for liturgy, giving Catholics another concrete connection to the early Church.

Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, Vatican archivist and librarian, presented a page of the papyrus to the Holy Father last January after Hanna presented his gift.

Notably, it was a middle page marking the end of Luke's Gospel and the prologue to the Gospel of John, showing the order of the texts already in place in the early Christian communities.

The text is so clearly preserved that if you know how to read biblical Greek, you can read it like you are reading a newspaper.