Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 5101 (Septuagint Psalms, papyrus roll)
The psalmists of Israel; the copyist’s name is unknown
Among the oldest surviving witnesses to the Septuagint Psalms — the Hebrew psalter in Greek, on a papyrus roll, dug from the rubbish heaps of Oxyrhynchus, Egypt. Every feeling a person can have, prayed straight at heaven.
Every stat is a checkable fact about the actual book, not a designer's mood. Bars are drawn against the highest value any book reaches.
The game's own explanation, as a reader sees it in the backpack.
The Psalms themselves endure forever, but THIS copy — P. Oxy 5101 — survives only as torn pieces of a papyrus roll. Fragments mean low Stamina.
P. Oxy 5101 is the Psalter: every feeling a person can have, prayed straight at heaven — including pleas against the wicked. Prayer, it turns out, contends hard.
The surviving pieces read clearly and match the Greek Psalms without dispute. What remains of P. Oxy 5101 is certain — even though the gaps remain too.
This manuscript was only published in 2011 and is known mostly to papyrologists — it is almost never recalled first.
Published in 2011 by Daniela Colomo and W. B. Henry in The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. LXXVII (77). Housed in the Papyrology section of the Sackler Library, Oxford — shelf number 20 3B.36/J(4)B + 27 3B.38/N(1)B + 27 3B.41/J(1-2)c.
A book develops as it is read — the fragment becomes the work, the work becomes the corpus.
By levelling up. A book that develops keeps what it knew and learns the rest on its new schedule.
| Lv | Move | Type | Cat. | Pwr | Acc | PP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Praise Waits in Zion | Bible | Restore | — | — | 10 |
| 1 | A Name of God | Theology Proper | Argument | 40 | 100% | 15 |
| 1 | Wait for the LORD | Bible | Type shift | — | — | 10 |
| 1 | Imprecatory Psalm | Bible | Argument | 300 | 25% | 5 |
| 9 | Do I Eat the Flesh of Bulls? | Bible | Argument | 56 | 100% | 15 |
| 17 | Hide Me | Bible | Type shift | — | — | 10 |
How to read these. In Scholar’s Dream, books argue with each other. Each thing a book can do in a debate is a move, and most moves carry a real quotation — the words the book puts on the table when it uses that move.
Strong against lists the opposing books and arguments a move was written to answer. Used against one of them, it hits much harder than usual: ×2 means twice the normal force, ×4 four times. It is the game’s way of saying: this is the sentence that answers that argument. Open an entry to read why.
“Pour out your indignation on them. Let the fierceness of your anger overtake them.” — the psalmist takes no vengeance himself; he hands the case to God.
Psalm 69:24 (WEB), an imprecatory psalm.
In the gameIt does not contend with the foe at all — it steps out of the debate and pleads with GOD against it. Rarely answered (25%); devastating when it is.
“Praise waits for you, God, in Zion. To you shall vows be performed. You who hear prayer, to you all men will come.”
Psalm 65:1–2 (WEB) — LXX Psalm 64, among the very columns P. Oxy 5101 preserves.
In the gameThe whole backpack turns to praise — every status effect on your team is washed away.
“Wait for Yahweh. Be strong, and let your heart take courage. Yes, wait for Yahweh.”
Psalm 27:14 (WEB) — LXX Psalm 26, preserved in P. Oxy 5101.
In the gamePatience and trust in a difficult season. Greatly raises the user’s Contend.
“Even if I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and all it contains belong to me. Do I eat the flesh of bulls? Do I drink the blood of goats?”
Psalm 50:12–13 (NET) — LXX Psalm 49, among the columns P. Oxy 5101 preserves.
In the gameThe oldest surviving copy of the Greek Psalms has this on it, and it is God asking the question. He is not the one who was hungry. May convict the foe.
“Hide me from the conspiracy of the wicked, from the noisy crowd of the ones doing evil.”
Psalm 64:2 (WEB) — LXX Psalm 63, preserved in P. Oxy 5101.
In the gameHidden from the conspiracy of the wicked, it is hard to strike. Greatly raises the user’s Defend.
The passages the Scriptorium holds on screen, word for word from a public-domain translation. Written in Koine Greek, translating Hebrew.
“Praise waits for you, God, in Zion. To you shall vows be performed. You who hear prayer, to you all men will come.”
Psalm 65:1–2 (WEB) — LXX Psalm 64, among the very columns P. Oxy 5101 preserves.
“Wait for Yahweh. Be strong, and let your heart take courage. Yes, wait for Yahweh.”
Psalm 27:14 (WEB) — LXX Psalm 26, preserved in P. Oxy 5101.
“Hide me from the conspiracy of the wicked, from the noisy crowd of the ones doing evil.”
Psalm 64:2 (WEB) — LXX Psalm 63, preserved in P. Oxy 5101.
“Pour out your indignation on them. Let the fierceness of your anger overtake them.”
Psalm 69:24 (WEB) — an imprecatory psalm.
Published in 2011 by Daniela Colomo and W. B. Henry in The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, volume LXXVII. It sat in the rubbish heaps of Oxyrhynchus for most of two thousand years, and in a library drawer for a good part of the last century.
It is a ROLL, not a codex — and that matters. Christians took to the codex early and never really let go of it, so a scriptural text on a roll is a sign of relative age. The same reasoning that dates P52 runs the other way here.
⚑ On "the oldest." You will see P. Oxy 5101 called the oldest surviving copy of the Greek Psalms. That is defensible among specialists, but it turns on what counts as a copy — a continuous witness, or an amulet, or an excerpt — and papyrological superlatives move as new finds are published or old ones re-dated. Hold it the way you hold P52’s date: confidently, and loosely.
Look at the range of these four. Praise, patient waiting, hiding from a conspiracy, and asking God to pour out his anger on the wicked. The psalter does not tidy anyone up before letting them speak.
And note what the imprecatory psalm does NOT do. The psalmist takes no vengeance himself. He hands the case to God and steps back — which is a different act entirely from taking it up.
