Live Science on the Alleged First-Century Fragment of Mark

1/18/2015

Live Science has just published an interesting piece on mummy masks and the alleged "first century" papyrus of the Gospel of Mark. Craig Evans, NT scholar and evangelical Christian apologist, was consulted for the piece and Evans gives some more information about the fragment.

"When the glue was dissolved, the researchers dated the first-century gospel in part by analyzing the other documents found in the same mask."

"Evans says that the text was dated through a combination of carbon-14 dating, studying the handwriting on the fragment and studying the other documents found along with the gospel. These considerations led the researchers to conclude that the fragment was written before the year 90."

"The team originally hoped the volume would be published in 2013 or 2014, but the date had to be moved back to 2015."

I'm looking forward to seeing the publication of this papyrus fragment, which is apparently slated for this year. The Live Science piece, written by Owen Jarus, was well done. Jarus even devotes a section to the controversy around destroying mummy masks and links to this blog. All in all, we are going to have to sit back and wait for the publication, which I am confident will give us many more details.

6 Comments

Jimmy Lang

01/18/2015 2:59pm

There would need to be more than just paleographical evidence to date it "before 90". Right? That just strikes me as odd to say 90 rather than 100. Correct me where I am erring here.

Brice C. Jones link

01/18/2015 3:07pm

Hi Jimmy, you are correct: that is indeed odd, so there must be more to the cutoff date. It is possible that some of the other documents in the mask are dated or datable to the first century and that the editors are arguing a 1st century date (partly) on that basis. That is not the best evidence, of course, since these papyri could span a wide range of time (some 1st century, some 2nd, some 3rd). But we don't have any information about this at this time.

Gregg Schwendner

01/18/2015 10:24pm

If it has has any credibility, a date like that must mean the last dated document found with this papyrus is from the 10th or 11th regnal yr of Domitian, depending on the month. But here is where drawing editing a papyrus sub rosa is a problem. When scholars use such arguments, as Brashear does in BGU XIV, the dismounting of the cartonnage was done under controlled conditions in West Berlin. The same is not true in this case. One might even doubt that mummy cartonnage is involved at all, given the recent admissions of D Obbink regarding the new Sappho (mummy cartonnage is problematic at this date). Plus, the objectivity of the reporters of these 'facts' is open to question.

Brice C. Jones link

01/18/2015 11:12pm

Right Gregg, so a terminus ante quem. On another note, I was trying to think of what the earliest dated Christian papyrus is, and when I came across P.Yale 1.1 in the PN, I see that C. Bradford Welles dated it to "c. 90CE": www.papyri.info/apis/yale.apis.0004190000. Yet it is not certain (from what I can see) that P.Yale 1.1 is Christian. Anyway, *if* the 1st century date is correct (suspending all judgment for the time being), wouldn't this be the first example of a "first-century" Christian writing?

Ted Weis

01/19/2015 11:30pm

My guess is the source of this papyri is those acquired by Josh McDowell, a story which you reported on earlier. The PDF article available from McDowell's site states that Scott Carroll acquired multiple artifacts on their behalf. http://www.bricecjones.com/blog/the-papyri-of-josh-mcdowell

Brian LePort link

01/20/2015 8:02am

Do we have any discoveries of this sort (mummy masks) for other important documents from antiquity or would the field of biblical studies be the first if this proves to be accurate? It would be nice to know if there was something with which to compare.

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Live Science on the Alleged First-Century Fragment of Mark

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