"First-Century Mark" - Finally! But . . .

First-century Mark is finally published!  Elijah Hixson has already reported at the Evangelical Textual Criticism blog that in the latest issue of the journal Oxyrhynchus Papyri – Graeco-Roman Memoirs,#LXXXIII, Dirk Obbink – the specialist who, according to Scott Carroll, had been seen with “First-century Mark” in his possession – has, with fellow specialist Daniela Colomo, published Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 5345 – and that it contains text from Mark 1:7-9 and 1:16-18.  This fits exactly the contours of “First-century Mark” which could be deduced from earlier reports about the fragment, and Daniel Wallace has confirmed that this is the manuscript that he had in mind when he mentioned the existence of a fragment of the Gospel of Mark dated to the first century back in 2012.

As some researchers expected, the fragment is no longer considered to have been produced in the first century, but it is still very early – almost as old as Papyrus 45, which is the oldest known manuscript with text from the Gospel of Mark.  The newly published fragment has an almost-distinctive reading in Mark 1:17:  the words ὁ Ἰησοῦς (“Jesus”) are not present.  These genuineness of these two words is very well-attested in other manuscripts, and their absence in Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 5345 is probably due to a simple mistake by the copyist:  his line of sight could have drifted easily from the letters ΟΙΣ at the end of the preceding word (αὐτοις) to the same three letters that followed it, ΟΙΣ, without noticing.  This would imply that in the scribe’s exemplar, the nomen sacrum for Jesus’ name was already in place (that is, Jesus’ name was contracted out of a special reverence, it seems, for the divine, like the sacred names for “God,” “Lord,” and “Jesus,” and some other words).  (Or, perhaps, all three letters were overlined and the copyist construed this to signify a correction, meaning that the letters below the line were not to be copied.)  

Without actually seeing images of the fragment, there is not much that can be said about it.  No doubt there will be plenty of reports about it in the next few days and weeks.  The fragment is definitely from a codex, not a scroll.

It should be emphasized that even if the fragment had been from the late first century, it would not have had much impact.  The Gospel of Mark is generally considered to have been written in the 60s of the first century, and this would still be the most plausible composition-date whether this fragment had been from the late 100s or (as now seems much more likely) the 200s.  Rather than bring some shocking new text to light, the fragment essentially confirms the text we already had.  But of course I will need to read the publication before this can be shown in detail.

The issue of Oxyrhynchus Papyri – Graeco-Roman Memoirs in which this fragment was published also contains information on early fragments with text from the Gospel of Luke and the Epistle of Paul to Philemon, which certainly should not be overlooked!  

About the picture here:  this is merely a hypothetical model.  The real pictures of Formerly-First-Century-Mark are not yet online (as of May 23, 2018).  The real fragment is reported to have just five lines of text on each side, unlike this reconstruction.  This is meant to acquaint readers with what such a fragment might look like:  the front and back sides of a small fragment with text from Mark 1:7-9 and 1:16-18 is shown (above) with a presentation of its text in modern script (below).  The actual age of the pictured fragment is about an hour.   
[UPDATE:  The Egypt Exploration Society has released, as a free gift, a small file which includes a picture of the newly published papyrus.  A link to the file is in the brief article at the Egypt Exploration Society website.]

First-century Mark: More Information!

Will something like this
(a model of what a first-century
fragment with text from Mark 1
might be like) be published soon?

            Remember the announcement in 2012 about the existence of a first-century manuscript-fragment from the Gospel of Mark?  Here we are five years later, and after various rumors have come and gone, it has still not been published.  This has led some folks to suspect that the announcement might have been premature, or that the dating must be wildly inaccurate, or even that it was all some sort of groundless claim. 

            However, footage of a discussion between Scott Carroll and Josh McDowell from 2015, provided by Hezekiah Domowski, was found by Elijah Hixson, and was recently described by Peter Gurry at the Evangelical Textual Criticism blog. 

            We already had the means to deduce – if one is willing to take the reports about the fragment at face value – that that the papyrus fragment is very early (possibly from the first century), and that it probably contains text from Mark chapter 1, and that Dirk Obbink was probably involved in analyzing its contents, and that Scott Carroll had seen the fragment. 

            Now some of the “probably” factor seems to be diminished.  We also learn in this video that the Green Collection does not have the manuscript, or, at least, that Scott Carroll was confident that someone else owned it in 2015.

            I made a full transcript of the discussion between Scott Carroll and Josh McDowell, and then checked it against the transcript made by Peter Gurry.  I have added a few embedded links and pictures.  Here it the transcript: 

McDowell:  How was it discovered, and who –

Carroll:  I can give you some basic information.  It’s in the process –

McDowell:  He’s limited on what he can share, because it’s being published right now and all, and the owner of it might want to remain anonymous, et cetera.  So he’s limited on what he can share with us.

Carroll:  Correct.  These things are tricky.  I first worked with the papyrus in 2012; so, it was discovered earlier than that.  It wasn’t discovered by me.  Although the group that’s working on its publication did some [??] – it’s very tempting, when you get the press, and Fox News, and other press agencies are after [it?]; you want to get information on it, and some stuff was leaked, and they contacted me, I think, about a year ago, wanting some definitive information on how it was extracted from a mummy-covering.  And I was not involved in that process.

            When I saw it, I can tell you, it was relaxed, which means it was flat.  If it had been extracted – if it was extracted from a context like that, there’s no evidence of it, to me.  It looks like it was just a text that was found.  Now, a lot of the texts that come to light in this kind of context, like, if I went back to the picture, and we looked at the pile, you can see that a lot of this stuff has white on it; and that’s, like, the residue of the plaster.  So these things came from mummy-coverings.

McDowell: Isn’t that interesting.  I thought it was [??] –  

Carroll:  No, no.  So, they probably were in a burial-setting, or something like that, and over time, it just separated, one from another, but we can look and it was originally part of it.  Now, this Mark may have been in that kind of context; I’m not sure.

            I saw it in, at Oxford University, at Christ Church College, and it was in the possession of an outstanding and well-known, eminent classicist.  I saw it again in 2013.  There were some delays with its purchasing.  And I was working at that time with the Green Family Collection, which I had the privilege of organizing and putting together for the Hobby Lobby family, and hoped that they would, at that time, acquire it.  And they delayed, and didn’t.  We were preparing an exhibit for the Vatican Library, and I wanted this to be the showpiece in that exhibit. 

McDowell: Why wouldn’t?

Carroll:  I know; wouldn’t that have been awesome?  But it was not the timing, and so it was passed on, and delayed.  It has since been acquired.  I can’t say by whom.  It is in the process of being prepared for publication.  And what’s important to say –

McDowell:  What does that mean?  ‘The process of being prepared’?  What does that mean?

Carroll:  It’s a lengthy process.  Actually, going through – especially with this, because it’s gonna get – it’s gonna go out there, and there are gonna be people immediate trying to tear it down, questioning its provenance, where it came from, what it dates to – especially the date.  So they want an ironclad argument on the dating of this document, so that it won’t be – um, they have a responsibility to do that.  This is going to be very critical, and raise – it’ll be a major flashpoint in the media when this happens.

McDowell:  Who’s the main person responsible in the publishing [process?]?

Carroll:  Well, the most important person of note is Dirk Obbink, who is –

McDowell:  This is a lot more information than we heard last time.

Carroll:  Yeah, it is.  Dirk Obbink is an outstanding scholar; he’s one of the world’s leading specialists on papyri. He directs the collection – for students who are in here, you may remember hearing the word ‘Oxyrhynchus’ Papyri – he is the director of the Oxyrhynchus papyri.  I can’t speak to his own personal faith position; I don’t think he would define himself as an evangelical in any sense of the word, but he is not – he doesn’t have a derogatory attitude at all.  He’s a supportive person.

            He specializes in the dating of handwriting.  And as he was looking at the – both times I saw the papyrus, it was in his possession – so, it was at Oxford, at Christ Church, and actually on his pool-table, in his office, along with a number of mummy-heads.  So, you have these mummy-heads –

McDowell:  So you played pool –

Carroll:  No.  And, you’ve got that document there, and that’s the setting – it’s kind of surreal.  And Dirk, Dirk was wrestling with dating somewhere between 70 A.D. and 120, 110, 120.

McDowell:  That early?

Carroll:  Yes, A.D.

McDowell;  Whoa.  That’s [??] an old manuscript. And Mark!

Carroll:  Mark is one that the critics have always dated late, so this is, like, I can hear their arguments being formulated now.  So this is what the later authors were quoting.

McDowell:  Folks, make sure:  that is all tentative.  And you may say that, right?”

Carroll:  Yeah, yeah.

McDowell:  That is just an assumption in there.  So don’t go out and say, “There’s a manuscript dated 70 A.D.”  How long do we have to wait, probably, to know specifically?

Carroll:  “I would say, in this next year, all right.  Any delays that are going to happen over the next couple of months are delays with the publisher to publish this.  If the route is to go to a major journal, they’ll of course want it to happen quickly, but there’ll be some delays through the whole academic process and all. 

McDowell:  So keep that in mind; that, don’t go out and say, well, Dr. Scott Carroll says it’s dated between 70 A.D. – we don’t really know yet.  But those are probably the parameters for it.  But it will be – now this is my opinion – the oldest ever discovered.

Carroll:  Yeah; I think this without question.  With manuscripts, um, the Rylands John fragment, it’s always like, 115 through 140 or maybe even later than that; so it’s kind of pushed to around the middle of the second century.  This is gonna be earlier than that; textbooks will change with this discovery.

McDowell:  So When this hits the media, you will hear about it.

Carroll:  Yes, you will.

McDowell:  It’ll be on every program.  So, be careful about what you share from tonight.  It’s good to be able to be updated and to hear [??]; I didn’t know that.  [Changing the subject:]  What is one of the most significant discoveries that have been made in the last four or five years?

And there the video ends. 

First-century Mark: A Timeline

Are you braced for the impact of the Green Scholars Initiative’s work on newly discovered New Testament papyri?  The most famous (or infamous) of these papyri is a fragment from the Gospel of Mark which has been assigned a production-date in the first century – but there are several important papyri among the documents which are scheduled to be published – hopefully – within a year.  Maybe two.  Or three.  In the meantime, here’s a timeline of events leading up to this eventual important event. 

● Late 1970’s-1990’s – Jaakko Frösén (Philology professor at the University of Helsinki) develops methods to extract literary papyri from cartonnage.  A video of his conservation-technique is accessible at http://www.helsinki.fi/hum/kla/papupetra/papyrus/cartonnage.html .  (You may need an up-to-date version of RealPlayer to watch the video.)

● August 9, 2007 – Robert A. Kraft (currently the Berg Professor of Religious Studies, Emeritus, at the University of Pennsylvania) expands his report on the appearance on eBay of papyrus fragments extracted from mummy cartonnage, at http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/rak/papyri/ebay/report-2007/report-frame.html and

http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/rak/publics/papyri/pKraft/studies/cartonnage.html . 

A papyrus fragment, from Dr. Kraft's report

Kraft’s report, Studies in the (Mis)uses of Papyrus Cartonnage, and Recovery/Conservation of Its Layers, shows that readable papyri are being extracted from cartonnage, as shown by the example at http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/rak/publics/papyri/pKraft/images/cartonnage/078-2w-scan.jpg .

● March 30, 2010 – Hobby Lobby founder and CEO David Green discusses the Green Collection and the plans for a Museum of the Bible.  (At the time of the interview, Dallas was the planned location of the Museum of the Bible, but that has changed; it is being constructed in Washington, D.C.)  Codex Climaci Rescriptus, previously housed at Westminster College, Cambridge, is among the items in the collection.

Scott Carroll

● November 6, 2010 – Scott Carroll, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAnAKKJ7mCs , describes his philosophy of Christian scholarship.  The video includes footage of manuscripts and artifacts.

Codex Climaci Rescriptus (0250)

● May 19, 2011 – CBN reports (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4L_TP6O_Q4 ) about Scott Carroll, the rapid growth of the Green Collection, and plans for the Museum of the Bible.  The reporter states that the Green Collection already contains over 30,000 items.  Several collection-items are in view in the report, including a Dead Seas Scroll fragment, an illustrated Ethiopic codex, and Papyrus 37.  At about 2:55, pages of the Codex Climaci Rescriptus are featured.  Dr. Carroll describes it as the fifth-oldest near complete Bible in the world.  He also claims, “The handwriting betrays that it actually was copied from something in the 100’s.”

● Summer 2011 – Baylor Magazine describes “an unconventional research project” in which exterior mummy-coverings were “dissolved” and in which “More than 150 papyri texts” were extracted.  The report mentions that the Green Collection “provided the items for the study.”  The report names Scott Carroll as the “principal investigator” of the research; specialists involved in the research include David Kyle Jeffrey and Jeffrey Fish. 

● Fall 2011 – In a newsletter of Baylor University, Scott Carroll’s work on manuscript-extraction from mummy cartonnage is described.  Jeff Fish was interviewed for the report:  “One day I received a call on the phone from Dr. Scott Carroll, who told me about a vast new collection of unedited papyri. . . . I have since found that Byron Johnson, director of Baylor’s Institute for the Study of Religion, was instrumental in getting Baylor involved with the Green Scholars Initiative.”

● November 27, 2011 – Scott Carroll, known to be acquiring artifacts and manuscripts for the rapidly growing Green Collection, states on Twitter:  “Finished exhibit and lectures in West Africa with over 21,000 registered.  Now in Istanbul looking at a collection of unpublished papyri.”  Later the same day:  “My eyes feasted on classical texts, royal decrees, and Biblical and Gnostic texts; nearly 1,000 papyri hidden in this private treasure-trove.”

● December 1, 2011 – Scott Carroll states on Twitter:  “For over 100 years the earliest known text of the New Testament has been the so-call John Rylands Papyrus. Not any more.”  [The John Rylands Papyrus to which he refers is P52.]  On Facebook, Carroll states:  “For over 100 years the earliest-known text of the NT has been the so-called John Rylands papyrus.  That is about to change with a sensational discover[y] I made yesterday.  Stay tuned for the update.”

● February 1, 2012 – Daniel Wallace mentions the existence of “a fragment from Mark’s Gospel that is from the first century” during a debate with Bart Ehrman about the reliability of the New Testament text.  The debate is online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kg-dJA3SnTA&feature=youtu.be (uploaded to YouTube on February 13, 2012).  One hour and 13 minutes into the debate, Dr. Wallace mentions the existence of the first-century fragment of Mark: 

“In the last few months several very early fragments of the New Testament have been discovered.  These will be published by an international scholarly publishing house in a book one year from now. . . .  Among the finds was also a fragment of Luke that is from the early second century. . . .  The oldest manuscript of the New Testament is now a fragment from Mark’s Gospel that is from the first century. . . . How accurate is the dating?  Well, my source is a papyrologist who worked on this manuscript – a man whose reputation is unimpeachable.  Many consider him to be the best papyrologist on the planet.  His reputation is on the line with this dating, and he knows it, but he is certain that this manuscript was from the first century.”

● February 15, 2012 – Ben Witherington III (New Testament professor at Asbury), after a lecture by Scott Carroll at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary – Charlotte, writes at his blog (at http://www.patheos.com/blogs/bibleandculture/2012/02/15/the-ripening-of-the-green-collection/ ), “ The brief lecture by Scott Carroll at GCTS Charlotte last Friday night highlighted some of the most exciting aspects of the Green Collection. It is possible that a very early copy of the Gospel of Mark in Greek, possibly the very earliest is a part of this collection. An epigrapher from Oxford has already prepared to say that it is a first century copy!”  (Witherington also notes, “Sadly it does not include Mark 16.”)

[It so happens that Dirk Obbink is a papyrologist who works at Oxford.  He has been working with Jerry Pattengale (who is currently the Green Scholars Initiative’s Executive Director of Education) as General Editor for the Brill Papyrus Series, in which, it is hoped, the first-century papyrus fragment will be published, along with the other early manuscripts Scott Carroll has described.]

●

Daniel Wallace

February 24, 2012 – Hugh Hewitt’s interview of Daniel Wallace is published at http://www.hughhewitt.com/new-testment-scholar-daniel-wallace-on-the-gospel-of-mark-discovery-and-other-biblical-papyri-with-it/ .  Near the beginning of the interview, Wallace states:  “First of all, there is a fragment of Mark, and it’s a very small fragment, not too many verses, but it’s definitely from Mark.  And the most amazing thing about this is that it’s from the first century.  We don’t have any other New Testament manuscripts that are written within the same century that the Gospels and the rest of the New Testament were written in.  This is the first. And it’s dated by one of the world’s leading paleographers, whose name I’m not allowed to reveal yet.”

Asked for an “absolute last date” when the newly discovered fragments will be published, Wallace states, “I have been told that a book should be out, a multi-author book, should be out early next year.  Now publishers sometimes take longer.  Scholars sometimes take longer.  So I’m not going to bet anything on that. But I’m pretty darned confident 2013 is going to be the year all of this is going to be published.” 

● March 22, 2012 – Daniel Wallace posts the following at his blog:  “At my debate with Bart Ehrman (1 Feb 2012, held at UNC Chapel Hill) over whether we can recover the wording of the New Testament autographs, I made the announcement that a probable first-century fragment of Mark’s Gospel had been recently discovered. I noted that a world-class paleographer had dated this manuscript and that he was pretty darn sure that it belonged to the first century. All the details will be coming out in a multi-author book published by E. J. Brill sometime in 2013.”  And, “When the fragment is published along with six other early New Testament papyri (all from around the second century), the scholarly vetting will do its due diligence.”

● April 6, 2012 – Bart Ehrman, at his blog, expresses some frustration about the secrecy surrounding the first-century papyrus fragment of  first-century papyrus of Mark:  “I don’t understand why there is so much secrecy about this “manuscript.” Why NOT tell us where it was found, who found it, how extensive it is, who has examined it, what his grounds for dating it were, whether his views have been independently corroborated?”   

● August 13, 2013 – Updates are made to the Bibliographical Test Update (which is accessible at 

Recto:  Mt. 6:33 Verso:  Mt. 7:4

https://s3.amazonaws.com/jmm.us/Bibliographical+Test+Update+-+08.13.14.pdf ).  Items are added to the list of Coptic New Testament manuscripts and Greek New Testament manuscripts.  Photos of some fragments are included; however, even though “The photos have been purposely obscured to protect copying of manuscripts before their publication,” some of them have a modicum of usefulness, such as a photo of a Coptic fragment containing text from Matthew 6:33 and 7:4.  Another photo shows a Coptic fragment with text from First John 2:21. 

Beginning on page 23 of the Bibliographical Test Update, there is a report of the contents of non-Biblical papyri from the second century B.C., extracted from a mummy-mask that is not the same mask that was featured in McDowell’s video.

Text:  First John 2:21
(from the Bibl. Test Update)

● September 6, 2013 – A presentation given by Scott Carroll at the University of the Nations is uploaded to YouTube (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSUzWsuLpso – 2013  UofN WS: S11 Dr. Scott Carroll).  In the course of this video, Carroll describes the process that was used to extract literary papyri from mummy cartonnage.  Things get interesting about 23 minutes into the video.  (At 25:04, bottles of Palmolive are visible in the background as a mummy-mask is being prepared for deconstruction in a sink.  This appears to be the same extraction-method that was presented by McDowell.)  Carroll makes the following statements:
Min. 28:  Carroll announces his discovery of the earliest known text of Romans, lost works of Sappho, and “tons of Homer.”

Min. 29:  Carroll describes the multi-spectral imaging technology that is being used to read the underwriting of Codex Cimaci Rescriptus.  Other subjects are also covered, such as the use of lasers to recover text by measuring the microscopic imprint of the stylus where no ink has survived on the page.

Min. 33:  Carroll mentions that a text of Euripides has been recovered.   

Min. 36:  Carroll mentions that he has (there in the room) the earliest text of Exodus 24.

Min. 37:  Carroll states that texts from “many of the Old Testament books,” have been discovered, “with New Testament books,” – “including a first-century text of the Gospel of Mark.  That will be the earliest text of the New Testament.”

Min. 38:  Carroll states, “We’re looking now at a text of Mark that dates between 70 and 110.  And there’s even something more important than that, that I’ve not even told David Hamilton.  And I’m not going to.”

Min. 39:  Carroll displays a Powerpoint-graphic with a list of manuscripts, including: 

            22.  Gospel of Mt c. 140

            23.  Mt 6 mid-2c

            24.  Gospel of Mark late 1c-early 2c

            25.  Gospel of Luke mid-2c

            26.  Gospel of Luke mid-to-late 2c

            27.  John 8 early-3c

            29.  Early 4c fragment of John 3 in Coptic

            30.  Acts 19 in Coptic

            31.  Romans early-3c.

The next slide includes:

            32.  Romans 14 early 4c papyrus in Coptic

            33.  I Corinthians 9 mid-2c

            35.  Codex quire of 2 Corinthians and Galatians 4c in Coptic

            36.  Ephesians 4 Coptic

            37.  Hebrews 9 early-3c

            38.  Hebrews 11 mid-2c (the earliest text of Hebrews)

            39.  2 Timothy 3 papyrus (only surviving evidence for the epistle)

In the course of describing these items and others, Carroll mentions the existence of an ancient fragment that is a portion of Matthew 27-28 and “The earliest text in the world of Luke 16,” “the earliest text of Timothy,” a manuscript containing Second Corinthians chapter 6 through Galatians 3 (which would necessarily be several pages long), “The earliest text in the world of Genesis 17,” and “The earliest text of Second Kings 9.”  Referring to a text of First Samuel, Carroll states, “This text came from a mummy mask,” and says that it was found along with a fragment of the Iliad.

Min. 51:  Carroll refers to a fragment of Matthew 12 which will be the second-earliest New Testament manuscript when it is published, to a fragment of Matthew and Luke “dating to around 150,” to the earliest surviving manuscript of Luke 2, “dating to around 140,” and to a fragment of Luke 12, “dating to before 200.”

Other items mentioned in Carroll’s description of the newly discovered manuscripts:  “The earliest text of Acts 19,” the “earliest text of Romans, found in a mummy mask,” “earliest of Romans 14,” and the “earliest copy of any of Paul’s writings – First Corinthians 9.”  He seems to say that last-mentioned item (a manuscript of First Corinthians 9) was produced in 140 to 160, and was found in a box.  [Therefore we ought to keep in mind that some of the new finds are not from mummy cartonnage!]

● March 24, 2014 – Josh McDowell, in a lecture (online at http://vimeo.com/62646535 ) given at Gracespring Bible Church, describes an experience at the Discover the Evidence seminar (which took place Dec. 5-6, 2013) at which a mummy-mask was deconstructed to obtain literary papyri that were among its component-parts. 

Josh McDowell

Beginning in the 26^th minute of the video, the deconstruction of the mummy-mask is clearly shown:  it is submerged in a sink at specific temperature-levels, a gentle detergent (Palmolive) is applied, the material is massaged, and then the layers of papyri are gently separated.  This results in the destruction of the artwork on the surface of the mask.  In the 28^th minute of the video, McDowell mentions that “three classical scholars” were involved in the identification of texts derived via this method of papyrus-extraction.  (Footage of the mask-deconstruction and papyrus-extraction is at  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_gwgGcpD1M .)

  

The Discover the Evidence seminar is described at http://www.josh.org/discover/ .  The webpage includes detailed bios of Scott Carroll (Ph.D., Miami University, Ohio) and Josh McDowell (M.Div., Talbot Theological Seminary).

● April 23, 2014 – [Unverified Data] Josh McDowell, in a lecture at Wheaton Bible Church, refers to some new manuscript-discoveries.  At about one hour and 12 minutes into the video (formerly at http://vimeo.com/92964208 but no longer available), according to a comment at a blog, McDowell stated that the text of the fragment is from the first chapter of the Gospel of Mark.  (This was reported by comment-contributor Jeff at the blog of Brice C. Jones on May 5, 2014, at http://www.bricecjones.com/blog/the-first-century-gospel-of-mark-josh-mcdowell-and-mummy-masks-what-they-all-have-in-common .)

● May 5, 2014 – Tommy Wasserman, at the Evangelical Textual Criticism blog, using information from Brice C. Jones, posts photos of some of the manuscripts featured in Josh McDowell’s video.  One of the photos is of a fragment containing First Corinthians 10:1-6.  Peter Head (who currently is a scholar involved in the Green Scholars Initiative, according to the list at http://www.greenscholarsinitiative.org/scholars-staff  ) refers to McDowell’s “outlandish claims” and describes the process of papyri-extraction as “slapdash” and “deplorable.”  Wasserman (who is also currently a scholar involved in the Green Scholars initiative) concurs, briefly stating, “Slapdash is the word.”

● May 7, 2014 – Paul Barford offers a collection of online articles and videos related to the papyrus manuscripts that have been obtained via extraction from mummy-cartonnage.  The heading:  “US Christian Apologist Fanatics Destroy Ancient Artefacts.”    

● May 15, 2014 – Jerry Pattengale, in a video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLCNIZ3z_vk , describes the work of the Green Scholars Initiative, as well as plans for the opening of the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C. in 2017.  

● September 13, 2014 – Dorothy King compares Josh McDowell to the Taliban in a blog-post at   

http://phdiva.blogspot.com/2014/09/i-come-to-bury-green-not-to-praise-him.html , stating, “If islamic fundamentalists destroy cultural property to propagate religious propaganda – whether it’s the Taliban or ISIS – we’re metaphorically up in arms.  Why do we treat Christian fundamentalists differently? Why do we make allowances for the Green Collection scholars destroying ancient Egyptian mummies?  If this ain’t religious discrimination, I don't know what is.” 

● November 7, 2014 – Michael Holmes, the compiler of the SBL-GNT, becomes the Executive Director of the Green Scholars Initiative.  

● December 5, 2014 - Scott Carroll appears in a chapel-service at Dallas Theological Seminary (where Dan Wallace is a professor), online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htXrOgDahAQ , beginning at about 23 minutes into the video.  His title, in a caption in the video, is “Director, Manuscript Research Group, Grand Haven, MI.”

● December 7, 2014 – Roberta Mazza, who has repeatedly expressed candid dismay about the operation of the Green Scholars Initiative’s research and manuscript-acquisitions on her blog, requests a presentation of “acquisition documents” for the mummy-mask that was the source of papyri depicted by Josh McDowell, in a blog-post at https://facesandvoices.wordpress.com/2014/12/07/josh-mcdowell-scott-carroll-and-the-green-collection/ .

● January 9, 2015 – Dirk Obbink releases information on newly discovered texts of Sappho, including a statement that these particular fragments were not obtained from mummy cartonnage.  In his report (which includes photos), Obbink refers to the material as “industrial papyri,” and offers a guess that it existed as a book-binding.  [However, I note that his basis for this is that “none of the fragments showed any trace of gesso or paint prior to dissolving or after.”  It seems to me that this does not preclude an origin in mummy cartonnage; it only implies that the fragments were not from its outer layer or layers.]  He mentions that his fellow-researchers included Simon Burris and Jeffrey Fish.  [These may be the “three classical scholars” alluded to by Josh McDowell in his 2013 lecture.] 

Scheduled for 2017:  the opening of the Museum of the Bible.  The museum has a website at http://www.museumofthebible.org .  Passages, a traveling exhibit featuring items from the Green Collection, continues to draw public attention to the collection.  The current director of the museum’s collections is David Trobisch.  Dr. Trobisch is currently listed online as a Fellow of the Center for Inquiry at http://www.centerforinquiry.net/jesusproject/fellows/trobisch_david ; interestingly, the stated mission of the CFI, as stated at http://www.centerforinquiry.netabout , is “to foster a secular society based on science, reason, freedom of inquiry, and humanistic values.”  [This seems very different from the candid Christian commitment that has been expressed by Dr. Carroll.  It also seems diametrically opposed to the priorities of the Green family.]  

[UPDATE:  July 14, 2017:  footage comes to light of a discussion between Josh McDowell and Scott Carroll, from November of 2015, in which Carroll confirms that Dirk Obbink is the papyrologist studying the manuscript, that he (Carroll) has seen the manuscript twice, that the Green Collection does not own the manuscript, and that Obbink has assigned a tentative production-date for it between A.D. 70 and 120.]

UPDATE:  The papyrus has been published!  It is not from the first century; researchers Dirk Obbink and Daniela Colomo have given it the identification number Papyrus 137, and assigned it to the second or third century.  It is a small fragment and it has text from Mark chapter 1.  Explore this embedded link for more details!

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That about covers it.  We are still awaiting the publication of the first-century papyrus of the Gospel of Mark; I expect that it will be published by Dirk Obbink (perhaps along with Jeffrey Fish) in late 2015 or 2016, and that it will turn out to be a small fragment with text from Mark chapter one.  It is very possible that some of the other fragments to be published in the same series, which is expected to be prohibitively expensive, will turn out to make a much more significant text-critical contribution than the Mark fragment.  (Note to the GSI and Brill:  affordable digital copies would be a nice compensation for making everyone wait so long!)