Roberta Mazza on the Green Scholars Initiative and Its Former Director

Over on her blog, papyrologist Roberta Mazza raises some interesting questions regarding the Green Scholars Initiative and former director Scott Carroll. 

"Now, while in search of information about the Green Collection in connection with their fragment from the same roll as the new London Sappho papyrus, I’ve discovered that in fact the Rylands fragment’s biggest threat doesn’t come from the learned mind of Brent Nongbri, but from Mr. Green, president of Hobby Lobby, and some of the scholars on his team."

"At this point, I have one hope: that Mr. Green, the Green Collection, and the scholars taking part in the Green Scholars Initiative and their publishers (e.g. Brill), will consider giving full public access to the documents relating to the acquisition of the manuscripts and objects, and therefore details on their provenance, for the sake of their further study. In this way, we could begin to map this wonderful but hidden world of legal private collecting. Shall we work together to bring all these private treasure troves out of the shadows?"

I myself have raised similar questions and concerns in a previous post (on the old blog) in the context of the "1st century" fragment of Mark that everyone keeps talking about. This fragment still remains shrouded in mystery and those involved in studying it are remaining very quiet, for whatever reason. 

In any case, Mazza's blog is excellent and I encourage my readers to check it out.