An Uncatalogued Fragment of Acts in Bulgaria

Recently at the NT Textual Criticism discussion-group on Facebook, Georgi Parpulov announced the existence of an manuscript containing text from Acts 9:31-10:5 which has not been assigned a Gregory-Aland identification number.  Let's take a closer look at this fragment, which is in the Bachkovo Monastery.

Parpulov assigns it to the 1100s.  Its text is thoroughly Byzantine, agreeing with the Robinson-Pierpont Byzantine Textform in thirteen out of thirteen legible (to me) variation-units.  It has one unusual omission, in 9:33, where the words ἐπὶ κραββάτῳ are absent.    

093: A Byzantine Fragment of Acts from the 500s in Egypt

            Today, let’s take a close look at part of 093 – a small fragment that contains text from Acts 24:22-26, and text from First Peter 2:22-3:7.  (I will focus here especially on the text from Acts.  093 is a palimpsest with an interesting history:  it was among the approximately 193,000 fragments that had been stored in the Genizah of the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Cairo over the course of centuries.  (The story of how researchers Charles Taylor and Solomon Schechter discovered this immense collection of materials and, in 1896-1897, arranged for its transportation to Cambridge University for continued study, can be found online.) 

            Charles Taylor published a transcription of the text from Acts in 093 in 1900, along with a short summary of the text from First Peter, and some other texts.  He also noted that the upper writing on the palimpsest consisted of Hebrew extracts from the Bereshith Rabbah (ch. 45, 47,and 98). The lower writing contains most of Acts 24:22-26 on one page in two columns of 24 lines each.  The text on the verso is mostly illegible but Taylor made out words from the tops of the two columns:  from Acts 24:26, οτι χρηματα / δοθησεται, and from Acts 24:27, ελαβεν διαδο / χον ο Φηλιξ  / Πορκιον Φη / στον.  (This manuscript is identified in the catalog of Joseph van Haelst as item 487; in the Taylor-Schechter Collection it is in Collection 12, 189 and 208.  For a while, 093 was identified with the siglum ﬥ.)

Green lines:  093 disagrees with Alex.
Red lines:  093 disagrees with Byz.

            The smattering of text on the verso does not allow much insight regarding the type of text of Acts that 093 contains, inasmuch as the Alexandrian Text and the Byzantine Text are in exact agreement in those parts of Acts 24:26 and 24:27.  When we turn to the much more extensive text on the recto, however, there can be no doubt:  093’s text of Acts is Byzantine:  except for its inclusion of the contracted sacred name Ιν after Χν in verse 24, and the reading λαβων instead of μεταλαβὼν in verse 25, the text from Acts in 093 agrees perfectly with the Robinson-Pierpont Byzantine Textform.  (The Textus Receptus differs from RP2005 in this passage in two places; the TR includes αυτου after γυναικι in 24:24, and reads δε between αμα and και in 24:26.)

            Meanwhile, 093 disagrees with the Nestle-Aland compilation at the following seven places:
● 1.  In verse 22, there is a word-order variant:  ανεβαλετο αυτους follows Φηλιξ, instead of the Alexandrian reading in which ανεβαλετο δε αυτους precedes ὁ Φηλιξ.

● 2.  In verse 22, after οδου, 093 reads ειπων, not ειπας.

● 3.  In verse 23, before τω, 093 reads τε. 

● 4.  In verse 23, after τηρεισθαι, 093 reads τον Παυλον instead of αυτον.

● 5.  In verse 23, before αυτω, 093 reads η προσέρχεσθαι.

● 6.  In verse 24, before γυναικι, 093 does not read ιδία. 

● 7.  In verse 25, after μέλλοντος, 093 reads εσεσθαι.

            Two points are illustrated by this evidence. 

            First, contrary to the much-repeated claim that the Textus Receptus is a late medieval compilation (as opposed to an essentially early form of the text with a relatively small stratum of late medieval readings), 093 confirms that the Byzantine Text of Acts – at least, Acts 24:22-26 – existed in the 500s, around a thousand years before Erasmus, Stephanus, and Beza made their compilations.

            Second, there is some reason to suspect that apparatuses in some widely used Greek New Testaments cannot be trusted to present evidence in an even-handed way in cases where Byzantine readings receive early support:  

                 ● Of the seven reading in Acts 24:22-26 that are supported by 093 and the majority of Greek manuscripts, the Nestle-Aland apparatus (in NA27) fails to record four of them (#2, 3, 4, and 6). 

                 ● In the United Bible Societies’ Greek New Testament (4th ed.) only one variant-unit is covered in the verses that are extant in 093:  the contest between Ιν Χν and just Χν in 24:24.  In this case the theoretical mechanics of the “expansion of piety” have been rejected in favor of strong early support (including support from 093) for the longer reading. 

                 ● In the apparatus of the Tyndale House edition of the Greek New Testament, only one textual contest in the passage that is extant in 093 is mentioned:  the contest in Acts 24:24 between the inclusion or non-inclusion of ιδια before γυναικι, and the inclusion or non-inclusion of αυτου after γυναικι.  The reading found in 093 is mentioned as a reading supported by C* L P 1424, but 093’s support is not mentioned.  The compilers of the Tyndale House edition of the Greek New Testament apparently never looked at 093.  (A list of consulted witnesses in an appendix of THEGNT does not mention 093, although over a dozen manuscripts younger than 093 are listed.)   

            Third – provisionally accepting the classification of the fragmentary text from First Peter 2:22-3:7 as Alexandrian – it was possible for a Byzantine text of Acts to appear in the same manuscript as an Alexandrian text of First Peter in Cairo, Egypt.  While it cannot be demonstrated that 093 was produced in Egypt, the presence of an Alexandrian text of First Peter in the manuscript favors this possibility, and the presence of 093 among the genizah’s fragments also indicates that the Byzantine Text of Acts in the 500s was used in a broad range of territory. 

            093 is not the only manuscript with texts from the New Testament that was discovered in the Cairo Genizah.   A few palimpsests were discovered to have material from the New Testament in their lower writing, in Palestinian Aramaic; these texts were studied, and published, by the scholarly sisters Agnes Smith Lewis and Margaret Dunlop Gibson, with assistance from J. R. Harris – including a palimpsest-fragment with Palestian Aramaic text from John 14:25-15:16.  The Syriac specialist G. H. Gwilliam published the contents of five palimpsest-fragments (assigned to the 700s) in 1893, containing text from chapters 4 and 5 of Numbers, and from Colossians 4:12-18, First Thessalonians 1:1-3 and 4:3-15, Second Timothy 1:10-2:7, and Titus 1:11-2:8.  Michael Sokoloff and Joseph Yahalom brought such investigations up to date in 1979, and expanded upon them, in a detailed essay in Revue d’Histoire des Textes, “Christian palimpsests from the Cairo Geniza.”  (Fragments of manuscripts of the Hexapla from the Cairo Genizah, by the way, can be viewed at the Greek Bible in Byzantine Judaism website.)

            A few other palimpsest-fragments in the Cairo Genizah contain some New Testament passages.  (One fragment contains Syriac text from Second Corinthians 3:2-15; another fragment contains Syriac text from chapters 3 and 4 of First Thessalonians.)  The lower writing on yet another fragment consists of the remains of an early (600s or 700s?) Greek uncial lectionary, now catalogued as lectionary 1276, a.k.a. Taylor-Schechter 16.93, containing excerpts from Matthew 10:2-15 and John 20:11-15.  We may take a closer look at lectionary 1276 in a future post.

Readers are invited to double-check the data in this post.

"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.]

News: Early Text of the Pericope Adulterae Found in Book-binding

The cover of a fragmentary
copy of Selenographia (1647)

          Although manuscripts of the New Testament continue to be discovered in remote monasteries, the axiom,“The best place to discover a New Testament manuscript is a European library” has been proven to be correct once again:  an early fragment containing the pericope adulterae has been found in Denmark, after being recycled centuries ago to be used as material in the binding of a printed book.

          About a year ago, at the Forsknings Bibliotek Christiania in Copenhagen, Denmark, assistant librarian Kirk Walkeek noticed an old book as he was conducting a routine inventory-check.  Upon examination, it was found to be “beskadiget,” a fragment of a damaged book; almost all of its pages were missing.  When whole, it had been a 1647 copy of astronomer Johann Hevelius’ Selenographia (subtitled sive, Lura [sic] descriptio), but now it contains only a few pages, which feature Hevelius’ description of a device to view obscured objects through the use of mirrors and lenses.

          At the same time Walkeek was undertaking the library’s inventory-check, professor Dr. Kris Jodi was at the library, and had just completed multi-spectral imaging of dozens of old book-bindings, searching for signs of recycled manuscripts.  Multi-spectral imaging technology, similar to x-rays, has already yielded the discovery of numerous manuscripts (see, for example, here and here and here).  Dr. Jodi’s experimental work is taking the technology a step further:  using Photomagnetic Hyperspectral Ultraviolet Light Scans, several images of a binding are made; each one is “tuned” to detect specific ingredients in ancient ink.  From these images, an aggregate image is formed, thus allowing the ink on hidden pages to be revealed without the pages themselves being visible. 

A mutilated Latin fragment embedded in the binding:
John 7:50-8:5a on recto; John 8:5b-12 on verso.
(Superimposed over the book-cover.)

         Walkeek, noticing that the binding of the Selenographia fragment was somewhat  bulky, presented it to Jodi, who scanned it using the PHULS scanning-tools.  The result:  the discovery of a page from an ancient Latin copy of the Gospel of John, containing text from 7:50-8:12.  This includes the pericope adulterae, which many commentators regard as a later addition to the text because it is absent from a number of early manuscripts.  This page, trimmed to 23.5 x 15.5 centimeters, was probably one of many discarded pages from a damaged copy of the Gospels that were reused as binding-material.  The center of the page has been cut away, but the rest of the text, on both sides of the page, has survived.

          Paleographical analysis of the script indicates that the codex from which the fragment was taken was produced in the 700’s, possibly in Northumbria.  It resembles the Vulgate but has some affinities with a form of the earlier Old Latin text, which is notable for its inclusion of the pericope adulterae.  A full analysis is scheduled for publication later this year in a special Danish edition of the German journal Zeitschrift des Lachens.

The Other Recently Discovered Fragment of the Gospel of Mark

          Lately there has been much ado about a small Greek fragment of the Gospel of Mark (the existence of which was reported in February of 2012 but which is still unpublished), which, according to various reports, was extracted from the papyrus lining of an ancient Egyptian mummy-mask, and which might have been produced in the first century.  Hardly anyone, however, seems to have noticed the discovery of another fragment from the Gospel of Mark which is relatively early, and which, unlike the elusive first-century fragment, has been published with photographs.  

Visit CSNTM to see 0313 in color and in ultraviolet.

          The fragment to which I refer is 0313, a small piece of a codex produced in the 300’s or 400’s.  As Peter Head reported in 2008 in the Journal of Theological Studies, 0313 was one of several fragments which had come into the possession of Dr. Christopher de Hamel.   (An additional report, describing the photographing of these fragments, was entered at the CSNTM site.)  The contents of 0313 were identified by Dr. Dirk Jongkind.  Head initially described it as “late fifth century” but a production-date in the 300’s cannot be ruled out.  This little scrap is thus one of the ten oldest Greek manuscripts that contain text from the Gospel of Mark.

          The text of 0313 from Mark 4:9 is (first line) Ο ΕΧΩΝ ΩΤΑ ΑΚΟΥΕΙ[Ν] [Α-] (second line) ΚΟΥΕΤΩ.  This is a notable feature, because 0313 thus confirms the early existence of a Byzantine reading that is not supported by the best representatives of the Alexandrian Text (À and B).  This reading is not supported by Codex D, either.  À*, B, and D support ΟΣ ΕΧΕΙ in Mark 4:9 instead of Ο ΕΧΩΝ.  (In addition, D, along with some Old Latin copies, has an entire extra phrase in Mark 4:9.)  

          When this passage is compared to the parallel-passages in Matthew 13:9 and Luke 8:8 (where the text reads Ο ΕΧΩΝ), it becomes clear that the adoption of the Alexandrian-Western reading of Mark 4:9 yields a Minor Agreement.In other words, if one builds on the premise that Matthew and Luke both used Mark, then one would need to posit that Matthew and Luke both read Ο ΕΧΩΝ and then each one replaced this with ΟΣ ΕΧΕΙ.  The simpler scenario is that they each wrote ΟΣ ΕΧΕΙ because they both read ΟΣ ΕΧΕΙ.  Unfortunately, this intrinsic evidence in favor of the Byzantine reading in Mark 4:9 is not mentioned in the apparatus of the UBS Greek New Testament, and it is not noted in the apparatus of the 27^th edition of the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece, either.

          On the other side of the fragment, text from Mark 9:15 is found: 

ΤΗΝ ΟΔΟΝ.  ΟΠΟΥ ΣΠΙΡΕ

Ο ΛΟΓΟΣ· ΚΑΙ ΟΤΑΝ ΑΚΟΥ.

          0313 has the usual text of Mark 4:15, which allows us to perceive that we are indeed looking at a manuscript of Mark, rather than Matthew or Luke.  It also means that 0313 is a more accurate witness to the text of Mark 9:15 than Codex Vaticanus, which has an anomalous reading in this passage.

          If ΟΣ ΕΧΕΙ is the original text of Mark 4:9 (implying that À and B contain (part of) a Western reading at this point), then 0313 is among the earliest extant manuscripts of the original text of the verse.  Even little fragments can contribute to our knowledge of the text.  He who has ears to hear, let him hear!

          (In related news, I hope that you all have seen Christopher de Hamel’s clearly written and opulently illustrated  book, The Book. A History of the Bible.)

UPDATE (2019) - 0313 is now part of the manuscript-collection of the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C.

A Surprise from Oxyrhynchus: 069, a Fragment of Mark

            Although the Byzantine Text of the Gospels is normally supported by about 85% (or more) of the extant Greek manuscripts at any given point, lists of the early Greek manuscript support for the Byzantine Text of the Gospels typically are very short, consisting mainly of Codex A (02, Alexandrinus) and (in Matthew, and in Luke 8:13-24:53) Codex W (032, Washingtoniensis), with some support from Codex C (04, Ephraimi Rescriptus).  Their testimony is often reinforced by the Gothic version and the Peshitta.  Later, in the early 500’s, comes the testimony of the Purple Uncials (N, O, Σ, Φ).  This testimony for the Byzantine Text is augmented by some patristic evidence from Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory of Nyssa, John Chrysostom, and others.  But are there any more manuscripts from this period that support the Byzantine Text – anything at all?

            Yes, there are.  One of them is 069, a small fragment from the Gospel of Mark.  069 was the third item listed by Grenfell & Hunt when they began publishing the results of the excavations conducted at Oxyrhynchus, Egypt.  The text of 069 agrees perfectly with the text printed in 2005 by Robinson and Pierpont in The New Testament in the Original Greek - Byzantine Textform.  It was printed in Oxyrhynchus Papyri - Volume One, on pages 7-8.  Grenfell and Hunt described this fragment more or less like this: 

 

St. Mark’s Gospel – 10:50-51, 11:11-12

4.5 x 8.3 cm

Fragment of an early vellum codex containing part of St. Mark 10:50-51, 11:11-12, in a calligraphic uncial hand, probably of the fifth or sixth century.  The manuscript to which the fragment belonged was of the same class as Codex Alexandrinus, and the part preserved agrees with the Textus Receptus. 

Recto:

                  ιμ]ατιο‾

[αυτου α]ναστας ηλ

θεν προς τον ιν·

και αποκριθεις λε

γει αυτω ο ις τι θ[ε

λεις ποιησω σο[ι

ο δε τυφλος ε[ιπε‾

Verso:

κ[αι εις το ειρον

και [περιβλεψαμε

νος πα[ντα οψι

ας ηδη ουσης τη[ς

ωρας εξηλθεν

εις βηθανιαν με

[τ]α των δωδεκα·

[κ]αι τη επαυριον

            When Codex W was discovered, it demonstrated that the Byzantine Text of the Gospel of Matthew and Luke was known in Egypt in late 300’s/early 400’s.  The testimony of 069 has been overshadowed by W’s more famous and more substantial testimony, but 069 still should be noticed as a witness from the late 400’s or early 500’s to the existence of the Byzantine Text of Mark in Egypt.

            069 was given to the University of Chicago in the early 1900’s – one of the perks of the investment the university had made in Grenfell & Hunt’s excavation-work.  It is currently housed at the Oriental Institute Museum, as collection #2057.  Images of the manuscript are online at the website of the Goodspeed Manuscript Collection – one of the very first world-class collections of New Testament manuscripts that became accessible online.

As I mentioned before, the text of 069 agrees perfectly with the Byzantine Text.  Here is a list of its disagreements with the chief Greek representatives of other text-types.

Recto, line 2 (10:50):  069 supports αναστας but ÀBDLΔΨΘ read αναπηδήσας.

Recto, line 3 (10:50):  069 supports τον ιν but D Θ and 565 read αυτον.

Recto, line 4 (10:51):  069 supports και but Θ and 565 read ο δε.

Recto, lines 4-5 (10:51):  069 supports λεγει αυτω ο ις but ÀBLΔΨ read αυτω ο ις ειπεν. 

            Θ and 565 read λεγει αυτω.  K Π Υ 700 read ο ις λεγει αυτω.

Recto, line 5 (10:51):  069 supports τι θελεις ποιησω σοι but ÀBLΔΨ read σοι θελεις ποιησω.

Verso, line 1 (11:11): 069 supports και before εις το ειρον.  ÀBCLWΔΘ do not have και.

Verso, line 2 (11:11):  069 supports και after εις το ειρον.  D* does not have και.

Verso, lines 3-4 (11:11):  069 and B support οψιας.  ÀCL read οψε.     

Verso, lines 4-5 (11:11):  069 supports της ωρας.  B does not have της ωρας.

Verso, line 8 (11:12):  069 supports επαυριον.  W reads αυριον.

 __________

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!)