Grenfell and Hunt assert that the author is of Jewish descent, based on the names mentioned in the letter as well as the style of the Greek used.
[2] To my kind lord next to God, entreaty and supplication, from me, Sousneus, your miserable slave, of Patani.
When my father was alive, he summoned me and my brothers and sisters and said "One of you shall possess the land of your mother Jo..aphe, which the others get their livelihood from my land"; and he raised up David my younger brother and assigned to him the estate of my mother.
And when he was on the point of death my father ordered David to be given half an aroura out of his own land, saying that that was enough for him, since he had his mother's estate.
Immediately after his death I went to Abraham, the overseer of Claudianus, and he brought the witnesses who were appointed to act for my father, that is, Julius the elder and Apollos.