The Resurrection of T

            A hundred years ago, the list of evidence for textual variants in the standard critical edition of the Greek New Testament was more diverse than the lists in the current editions of the United Bible Societies and Nestle-Aland texts.  Instead of just listing significant uncials, minuscules, patristic references, and lectionaries, the textual apparatus developed by Ernst von Dobschütz also included evidence from ostraca (often spelled “ostraka” – this refers to pieces of pottery) and talismans (small Scriptural extracts that could be worn).  In 1933, however, this entire class of witnesses was eliminated from Kurt Aland’s list of textual witnesses.  Consequently they have been mostly ignored.  Léon Vaganay expressed the conventional wisdom of textual critics in the late 1900’s:  “The writings on these objects are more of a curiosity than directly useful for textual criticism.”

            This view of the ostraca and talismans is incorrect. 

            Peter Head recently emphasized the treatment (or, non-treatment) of these witnesses in an insightful essay,  Additional Greek Witnesses to the New Testament (Ostraca, Amulets, Inscriptions, and Other Sources), which forms chapter 16 of The Text of the New Testament in Contemporary Research:  Essays on the Status Quaestionis (Brill, 2012), on pages 429-460.  Head mentioned that the items which Dobschütz categorized as Ostraca 1-20 were re-categorized by C. R. Gregory as 0153.  0153 includes passages from all four Gospels, including an extensive presentation of Luke 22:40-71.  If this witness, to which various production-dates have been assigned (400’s?  500’s?  600’s?), had been written on papyrus, it would be relatively well-known, instead of being consigned to obscurity as a curiosity.  Head mentions other ostraca as well, citing a list published by C. E. Römer in 2008.  The texts written on these ostraca include small portions of Acts, Romans, Galatians, James, First John, and Jude. 

            Amulets (sometimes called talismans, but this seems to judge the intent of the wearer) were mentioned by Chrysostom in his Homily 72 on Matthew and by Augustine in On Christian Doctrine 2:20.  Some of these amulets were symbolic representations of the four Gospels, containing their incipits (that is, their opening verse or opening verses).  Others, produced to be worn to remind sick people of Scripture’s demonstrations of divine healing power (and perhaps to be used as healing-charms), include appropriate passages such as Matthew 4:23.  More than one amulet has Psalm 91 (i.e., Psalm 90 in the Septuagint’s enumeration) accompanied by the Lord’s Prayer. 

           A convenient list of amulets was provided by Theodore de Bruyn and Jitse Dijkstra in 2011 in Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists (Vol. 48), on pages 163-216.  The list includes 24 items that contain material that is clearly derived from books of the New Testament.  Typically these items are assigned production-dates in the 400’s-600’s, but a few of them are significantly earlier; for example, P. Ant. (Papyrus Antinoopolis) 2.4, which contains text from Matthew 6:10-12, is from the late 200’s or early 300’s. 

P. Oxy. 5073 -
an invocation to the reader, plus text from Mark 1:1-2.

            P. Oxy. 5073 is another early witness categorized as an amulet.  Its existence was announced by Geoffrey Smith in 2009.  P. Oxy 5073 contains text from Mark 1:1-2 (without “Son of God,” and generally congruent to the text of Codex Θ), and if the assigned production-date to the 200’s is correct, it is currently the earliest extant manuscript of any text from the Gospel of Mark.

            Head also mentioned inscriptions, none of which are mentioned in the Nestle-Aland or UBS apparatuses.  The usefulness of such inscriptions may be illustrated anecdotally:  out of six inscriptions of Luke 2:14, five of them support the reading, “good will toward men,” opposing the reading adopted in the Nestle-Aland text.   

            As an example of the contribution that this class of evidence is capable of making, I draw your attention to P. Duk. Inv. 778, an amulet housed at Duke University’s collection of papyrus manuscripts in the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library.  This amulet, probably produced in the 500’s, was given special attention by Csaba A. La’da and Amphilochios Papathomas in the Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists in 2004 (Vol. 41) on pages 93-113. 

            One side of the amulet contains the Greek text of Psalm 90, and the other side contains Matthew 6:9-13, with several textual variants.  As shown here in an artificially reinforced image, the passage from Matthew is clearly identifiable despite several clumsy errors by the copyist.  Its text includes the doxology (Matthew 6:13b), although it might be better to say that it includes a doxology in light of the deviations from the usual text:

Part of P. Duk. inv. 778 - with the text artificially reinforced
and with the words individually underlined.

  

  Πατηρ ημων ο εν της ουρανοις αγιασθητω

  το ονομα σου ελθατω η βασιλια ος εν

  [οu]ρανου και επι τ[ης γ]η[ς τω]ν αρτων ημ[ων]

  των εποιουσιων δος ημιν σημερον

  [κ]αι αφες ημειν τα οφηματα ημων μη ε

  νινκε ημας [ε]ις πιρασμον κε

[α]λλα ρησε ημας [απο του πονη]ρου δια

το μονογενη [?υιον?] οτι σου εστιν

η δοξα και τω [?κρατως?] και του παν

αγιου συ πνευματ[ος ν]ιν και αγιν

[κ]αι ει[ς τους εωνας των] εωνων Ϙ[Θ]

Notable variants include the following:

· The phrase “Your will be done” is missing.

· After “Lead us not into temptation,” the text has the contracted word “Lord.”

· After “deliver us from evil” (or, “deliver us from the evil one”), the amulet’s text continues with something to the effect of, “and through Your only begotten Son [?? – at this point the text is dubiously reconstructed due to damage to the manuscript], Yours is the glory and power [?? – at this point the text is dubiously reconstructed due to damage to the manuscript], and Your all-holy Spirit, now and forever [?? – at this point the text is dubiously reconstructed due to damage to the manuscript] and ever,” followed by a gematria-based symbol representing the word “Amen.”  Even with the (liturgically-based?) flourishes, this seems to constitute support for the inclusion of Matthew 6:13.

             The expansion in 6:13 may suggest that the person who produced this manuscript was familiar the liturgical formulas which are found in the Divine Liturgy of John Chrysostom.  The opening “Great Litany” of this liturgy closes with, “For to You belong all glory, honor, and worship, to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, now and forever and forever.”       

             The text of Matthew 6:13b is often treated by commentators as if the non-inclusion of the doxology is a certainty.  It was definitely not in the Alexandrian Text represented by Vaticanus and Sinaiticus.  Nor does it appear in the commentaries on the Lord’s Prayer by Tertullian, Cyprian, and Origen.  Theodore of Mopsuestia, however, who worked in Syria in the late 300’s and early 400’s, included the doxology in his quotation of the Lord’s Prayer, although he did not offer much commentary on the phrase.  It is also included in the text of Matthew 6:13 in Codex W, the Gothic Version, and the Peshitta, besides hundreds of later Greek manuscripts.  Is it possible that the early commentators neglected the doxology because it is not in the Lord’s Prayer as presented in Luke 11:2-4?  Or, due to early liturgical separation of the doxology from the rest of the prayer – in which the congregation recited the main portion, but the priest delivered the doxology – could the doxology have been considered separate from the preceding verses, and accordingly did not receive the same attention from the early commentators?  Hmm.    

            Didache 8:2, which was composed no later than 120 and possibly was written in the 90’s, states:  

            “And do not pray as the hypocrites, but as the Lord commanded in his Gospel, pray thus:  ‘Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name.  Thy Kingdom come; Thy will be done, as in heaven so also upon earth.  Give us today our daily bread, and forgive us our debt as we forgive our debtors.  And lead us not into trial, but deliver us from evil [or, the evil one].  For Thine is the power and the glory forever.”  

Reconstruction of the text on an ostracon
in the National Museum of Greece (No. 12227).
The portion in yellow is extant.

            Clearly the Lord’s Prayer presented in the Didache includes the doxology; it lacks a reference to the kingdom, but this is attributable to a simple scribal error.  (The Curetonian Syriac similarly includes the doxology, but lacks a reference to “the power.”)  One could assume that the relatively late witness to the text of this part of the Didache contains an interpolation; on the other hand one could argue that an interpolator would probably not omit part of the passage he intended to insert.  There is no compelling reason to believe that the text of the Didache has been corrupted at this point. 

           Another witness which is not listed in the UBS and Nestle-Aland apparatuses may be brought to bear on the question of the text of Matthew 6:13.  As Wieland Willker has noted, an ostracon at the National Museum of Greece in Athens – No. 12227 – displays text from Matthew 6:11-13.  In verse 12 it supports αφιομεν, agreeing with D, W and Θ instead of the Alexandrian αφηκαμεν and the Byzantine αφιεμεν.  After πονηρου, the ostracon does not have οτι σου εστιν, etc., but instead has –υριε (i.e., κυριε, “Lord,” when written) followed by a staurogram.  Thus, while it does not support the doxology, it does not quite support a complete stop at πονηρου either.

           Rudolf Knopf’s article (in German) about this ostracon is on pages 228-233 of the 1901 issue of Zeitschrift für die Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft und die Kunde des Urchristentums, which is combined online as a single file with the 1900 issue; in the digital file, Knopf's article is on digital page-numbers 606-611.   

            

A modern-day token.

            Whatever conclusion one may reach regarding Matthew 6:13, the evidence from ostraca and amulets, especially some which have only recently come to light, shows that they can make meaningful text-critical contributions. 

          I submit that von Dobschütz’s talisman-category should be reintroduced into the apparatus of the Greek New Testament, slightly adjusted so as to include miscellaneous non-continuous-text witnesses including amulets and inscriptions.  Instead of “talisman,” which seems to imply a superstitious usage of the items involved, I recommend that the symbol T should be understood to represent “Token.”  A token should be defined as a non-continuous text produced as a souvenir, a healing-charm, an inscription, or in other miscellaneous formats.    

The Coptic Gospel of the Lots of Mary

            In a new book, Dr. AnneMarie Luijendijk of Princeton University describes a newly published manuscript, produced in the 400s-600s, titled The Gospel of the Lots of Mary.  The manuscript is not an account of the ministry of Jesus; nor is it a collection of sayings of Jesus.  Instead, it is a small collection of oracles, written on sheepskin parchment, designed to be used as a sort of horoscope.  The manuscript was in the possession of Harvard University ever since 1984, when it was donated by Beatrice Kelekian, in memory of her deceased husband Charles, to the Sackler Museum.  (So in this case, 30 years elapsed between the acquisition of the manuscript, and the publication of its text.)  Its previous history is not known.      

           

[Derived from a photo for which credit goes to Harvard Art Museums/

Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Gift of Mrs. Beatrice Kelekian 

in memory of her husband, Charles Dikran Kelekian, 1984.669] 
Unaltered Photo © President and Fellows of Harvard College

This book was designed for a specific purpose:  fortune-telling.   Someone seeking guidance about the future would consult the owner of the book, who would then have the guidance-seeker pick a number at random – this would be the “lot” in the title – and then turn to the oracle that matched the selected number.  That oracle would then be delivered as a message for the guidance-seeker.

           Despite occasional references to Jesus, Mary, Gabriel, and Michael, this text does not really have much to do with the New Testament.  It is a divination-book with some Christian overtones.  There is not a lot about Mary!  Jesus is mentioned only three times:  in the title of the book (“The Lots of Mary, the mother of the Lord Jesus Christ”), in Oracle 30 (“The Lord Jesus fights on your behalf”), and Oracle 37 (“Christ Jesus will give you a good fruit and a prosperous life”).  [See Forbidden Oracles, page 36.]  Some of the oracles contain statements that might be based on passages from the Gospel of Matthew.  One statement is similar to James 1:13.

           The Gospel of the Lots of Mary may have been produced in the 500s near, or at, a shrine for Saint Colluthus (a physician who was martyred during the Diocletian persecution) that was located in the Egyptian city of Antinoë.  One point in favor of this conclusion is that the lettering in The Gospel of the Lots of Mary resembles the handwriting in a fragment of Fourth Esdras from Antinoë.

Oracle #25.  Picture credit:  Harvard Art Museums/
Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Gift of Mrs. Beatrice Kelekian
in memory of her husband, Charles Dikran Kelekian, 1984.669

Photo © President and Fellows of Harvard College

            The title “Forbidden Gospels?” may initially seem sensationalistic but technically it is correct:  at the Council of Vannes in 465, and again at the Council of Agde in 506, and yet again at the Council of Auxerre in 578, the use of oracular books, including the use of Biblical texts in an oracular manner, was forbidden.  (The oracular use of Scripture involved selecting a passage of Scripture at random and treating it like a horoscope to answer a question, such as “Will I reach my destination safely?”, “Should I get married now?”, “Will this business be profitable?” and so forth.)  Such practices, called bibliomancy, were officially considered a superstitious imitation of pagans.  A pagan oracle-collection called the Sortes Astrampsychi (Oracles of Astrampsychus), was already in circulation by that time; probably it was produced in the 200s or maybe earlier.

            Nevertheless, bibliomancy and similar practices endured.  A rehabilitated form of the Sortes Astrampsychi, known as the Sortes Sanctorum, was in circulation in the early Middle Ages when some of its interpretation-notes, or hermeneiai, were added to the margins of chapters 1-10 of the Gospel of Mark in Codex Bezae (an important manuscript of the Gospels, Acts, and Third John).  In 1901, J. Rendel Harris conducted an investigation of the Sortes Sanctorum in Codex Bezae; it can be read as part of his book The Annotators of Codex Bezae.  Harris also investigated the Sortes Sanctorum in the margins of the Gospel of John in the Old Latin Codex Sangermanensis (g¹), which features a circular diagram which was designed, it seems, for the purpose of oracle-number-selection.  Harris concluded that similarities in the oracular materials suggest that both manuscripts were at one time housed in the same library.

            Five papyrus fragments of John show that the use of the Gospel of John for oracle-consultation persisted in Egypt: 

            Papyrus 55 (500s-600s) – John 1:31-33 and 1:35-38, with notes on one side.

            Papyrus 59 (600s-700s) – snippets from John 1, 2, 11, 12, 17, and 18, with seven hermeneia.

            Papyrus 63 (500s) – John 3:14-18 and 4:9-20, with the oracular notes in Greek and Coptic.

            Papyrus 76 (500s) – John 4:9, 4:11-12, with two notes, both resembling notes in the hermeneia in Codex Bezae’s margins, and

            Papyrus 80 (200s-300s) – John 3:34.

Papyrus 63 - The word "Hermeneia," indicated by red arrows,
separates portions of the Gospel of John from oracle-notes. 

            Each of these manuscripts has at least one oracular note.  (A sixth, P60, does not have hermeneiai, but it probably did when it was in pristine condition.)  This is also true of two Greek uncials (0210 and 0302).  Not only does this raise the question of what these non-continuous manuscripts are doing in the Gregory-Aland list of papyri with their own identification-number, but it also raises the question of whether or not the Biblical text in manuscripts with oracular notes embedded in their texts (rather than added secondarily as in Codex Bezae) should be approached with extra caution, due to the possibility that such manuscripts were copied, not primarily as Scriptures used in the churches, but as oracular consultation-books used privately as horoscopes. 

            David C. Parker investigated this question of the reliability of the text of papyri manuscripts with oracular notes, in 2006; his research is accessible as chapter 11, Manuscripts of John’s Gospel With Hermeneai, on pages 121-138 of Manuscripts, Texts,Theology – Collected Papers, 1977-2007 (published in 2009 by Walter de Gruyter).  In this detailed study, Parker concluded that when the reliability of the texts of John in these manuscripts is tested, the texts “come out of the test very well,” and should not be assumed to be inferior to the texts of continuous-text manuscripts.  (For more information see Bruce Metzger’s “Greek Manuscripts of John’s Gospel with “Hermeneiai,” in Text and Testimony:  Essays on New Testament and Apocryphal Literature in Honor of A. F. J. Klijn, pages 162-169) and especially Stanley Porter’s The Use of Hermeneia and Johannine Papyrus Manuscripts, the gist of which can also be found on pages 60-63 of Christian Origins and Greco-Roman Culture (Brill, 2012)). 

            Recently, Brice C. Jones discovered a Coptic manuscript (sa 402) with text from John 3:17-21 accompanied by hermeneiai.  His report about this manuscript (assigned to the 400s-600s) includes pictures showing the oracular notes below the Scripture-text, similar to the format in P63.                

              Forbidden Oracles?  The Gospel of the Lots of Mary by AnneMarie Luijendijk is published by Mohr Seibeck and is available at http://www.mohr.de/en/nc/theology/series/detail/buch/forbidden-oracles.html (it is Volume 89 in the series Studien und Texte zu Antike und Christentum).  A book review by Sarah Parkhouse is at http://rbecs.org/2015/02/01/foglm/ .

A Conflation in John 16:4?

          In John 16:4a, where Jesus warns His disciples about difficult times ahead, there is an interesting textual variant.  In the Byzantine Text, the text means, strictly translated into English:  “But these things I have told you, that when comes their hour, you may remember those things of which I told you.”  

          The Alexandrian Text means something very slightly different:  “But these things I have told you, that when comes the hour, you may remember those things of which I told you.”  The Western Text, as attested by Codex D, has its own variation:  “These things I have told you, that when comes the hour, you shall remember that I told you.”  The Caesarean Text has its own reading too:  “But these things I have told you, that when comes the hour, you may remember that I told you.” 

These four renderings represent the following texts: 

Western:  Ταυτα λελάληκα υμιν ινα οταν ελθη η ωρα μνημονεύτε οτι εγω ειπον υμιν  

Alexandrian:  Αλλα ταυτα λελάληκα υμιν ινα οταν ελθη η ωρα μνημονεύητε αυτων οτι εγω ειπον υμιν

Caesarean (f¹³):  Αλλα ταυτα λελάληκα υμιν ινα οταν ελθη η ωρα αυτων μνημονεύητε οτι εγω ειπον υμιν

Byzantine:  Αλλα ταυτα λελάληκα υμιν ινα οταν ελθη η ωρα αυτων μνημονεύητε αυτων οτι εγω ειπον υμιν

          I want to focus here on the variant in the middle of the sentence, shown in bold print.  The longer reading, αυτων μνημονεύητε αυτων, looks like a combination of the two shorter readings that are listed before it; that is, this variant appears to be a conflation.  

          It may be helpful to view the data about this variant-unit that is found in the fourth edition of the United Bible Society’s Greek New Testament (page 384).  Setting aside minor variants, the contest is between the following rivals:

Western (D):  μνημονεύτε (altered to μνημονευσητε via an addition above the line; see image, from the online presentation of Codex Bezae at the Cambridge Digital Library.)

Caesarean (f¹³):  μνημονεύητε αυτων
Alexandrian (B):  αυτων μνημονεύητε
Byzantine:  αυτων μνημονεύητε αυτων

The citation of D* in UBS4 is incorrect.  D* reads μνημονευτε, as shown here

            Although Hort did not list this passage as a Western Non-Interpolation, he could have.  The Western reading is shorter here, which might tempt some textual critics to propose that an early copyist, seeking to augment the clarity of the sentence, added αυτων in the margin, and some subsequent copyists placed it before μνημονεύητε, and some other copyists placed it after μνημονεύητε, yielding the Alexandrian and Caesarean readings. 

             In addition, Hort did not list this passage as an example of Byzantine conflation, although he could have:  take the Alexandrian reading (with αυτων preceding μνημονεύητε) and the Caesarean reading (with αυτων following μνημονεύητε) and blend them together, and the result is the Byzantine reading:  αυτων μνημονεύητε αυτων. 

             According to advocates of “reasonable eclecticism,” this sort of thing illustrates the secondary and derivative nature of the Byzantine Text.  When a Byzantine reading looks like a combination of the Western and Alexandrian readings, this (they say) is because the Byzantine reading is a combination of the Western and Alexandrian readings, revealing that the Byzantine Text is essentially an amalgamation of the Alexandrian Text and the Western Text.  

             And now, the plot twist.  Contrary to the impression I have given here up to this point, this variant-unit in John 16:4 illustrates an inconsistency on the part of practitioners of “reasoned eclecticism.”  In the preceding paragraphs, I mixed up the Alexandrian and Byzantine readings.  Reverse the Byzantine and Alexandrian readings as I gave them previously, and you will see the evidence as it actually exists: 

The Alexandrian variant is longer than the Byzantine variant: 

            Codex B (supported, according to Swanson, by 118 124 157 and 1071 and, according to UBS4, by P66^vid À² 0233 205 Peshitta, Harklean Syriac, and the lemma of Cyril of Alexandria) reads αυτων μνημονεύητε αυτων. 

            Codex A agrees with B but its orthography is not so good:  αυτων μνημονεύηται αυτων. 

            Codex Θ concurs, but again with a spelling-variation:  αυτων μνημονεύειτε αυτων. 

            Codex Π is a little different, with μνημονεύσητε in the middle, but it still agrees with B by having αυτων both before and after the word. 

   

The Byzantine variant is shorter than the Alexandrian variant:

            Byz (supported by K U Ψ 1582 2^c 700 Lect^pt tr) reads μνημονεύητε αυτων.

            Ε Γ Δ Λ 565 and 1424 concur, albeit with an itacism:  μνημονεύετε αυτων.  This is listed in UBS4 as a separate variant, with additional support from 1006 1241 1243 1342 Lect^pt (l1016 with αυτου).

            Codex 1 stands alone, with a different itacism:  μνημονεύειτε αυτων.

            Codex ﬡ* likewise stands alone with an itacism (also seen in A):  μνημονεύηται αυτων.

            Additional support for the Byzantine reading, according to UBS4:  0141  180 597 (892^supp l866 with αυτου) 1010 1292 1505 ff² Palestinian Syriac Boh^pt (arm) (eth) geo slav (Chrysostom).

             

Before we proceed further, we ought to take a closer look at the testimony of Papyrus 66.  As you can see from this image, there is not a lot left of the lower half of the page of P66 that contains John 16:4.  Nevertheless, a calculated guess can be made about whether or not it read αυτων μνημονεύητε αυτων, αυτων μνημονεύητε, αυτων μνημονεύητε, or just μνημονεύητε when it was in pristine condition.

            Here is the Alexandrian Text of John 16:2b-4, formatted to correspond to the array of letters in P66, with sacred names contracted:

λατρείανπροσφέρειντωθωκαιταυ

ταποιήσουσινοτιουκεγνωσαντον

πραουδεεμεαλλαταυταλελάλη

καυμινιναοτανελθηηωρααυτων

μνημονεύητεαυτωνοτιεγωειπον

υμινταυταδευμινεξαρχηςουκ

ειπονοτιμεθ’υμωνημην.

Here is the Alexandrian Text of John 16:2b-4 again – this time with a slightly different array, and without the contraction of patēra: 

δόξηλατρείανπροσφέρειντωθωΚαι

ταυταποιήσουσινοτιουκεγνωσαντον

πατέραουδεεμεΑλλαταυταλελ

άληκαυμινιναοτανελθηηωρααυ

τωνμνημονεύητεαυτωνοτιεγωει

πονυμινταυταδευμινεξαρχηςουκ

ειπονοτιμεθ’υμωνημην.

Here is the Byzantine Text of John 16:2b-4, formatted to correspond to the array of letters in P66, with all sacred names contracted:

δόξηλατρείανπροσφέρειντωθωκαι

ταυταποιήσουσινοτιουκεγνωσαν

τονπραουδεεμεαλλαταυταλελ

άληκαυμινιναοτανελθηηωρα

μνημονεύητεαυτωνοτιεγωειπον

υμινταυταδευμινεξαρχηςουκ

ειπονοτιμεθ’υμωνημην.

Here is the Byzantine Text of John 16:2b-4 again – this time with a slightly different array, and without the contraction of patēra: 

ξηλατρείανπροσφέρειντωθωκαιταυ

ταποιήσουσινοτιουκεγνωσαντονπα

τέραουδεεμεΑλλαταυταλελάλ

ηκαυμινιναοτανελθηηωρα

μνημονεύσητεαυτωνοτιεγωειπ

ονυμινταυταδευμινεξαρχηςουκ

ειπονοτιμεθ’υμωνημην.

Here is another configuration of the Byzantine Text, with patēra contracted:

λατρείανπροσφέρειντωθωκαιταυ

ταποιήσουσινοτιουκεγνωσαντον

πραουδεεμεαλλαταυταλελάλη

καυμινιναοτανελθηηωρα

μνημονεύητεαυτωνοτιεγωειπ

ονυμινταυταδευμινεξαρχηςουκ

ειπονοτιμεθ’υμωνημην.

          In this array, the Byzantine Text neatly corresponds to the remains of P66 – but αυτων would fit neatly in the space after ωρα at the end of the fourth line.

         All things considered, it seems probable that P66 contained αυτων both before and after μνημονεύητε when it was in pristine condition.

          It might also be a good idea to take a closer look at Codex Sinaiticus.  No mystery here:  it initially read μνημονευηται αυτων after ωρα, thus disagreeing with Codex Vaticanus and supporting the Byzantine reading.  A later “corrector” has added αυτων in the right margin, to be read immediately after ωρα, thus creating an agreement with B.   

          Now let’s get back to that four-way contest.  Setting aside the lightweights, here again are the heavyweight contenders:

            Western (D):  μνημονεύτε

            Caesarean (f¹³):  αυτων μνημονεύητε
            Byzantine :  μνημονεύητε αυτων
            Alexandrian:  αυτων μνημονεύητε αυτων

            Nothing stands in the way of conclusion that the Caesarean reading + the Byzantine reading = the Alexandrian reading.  Nevertheless, instead of concluding that a conflation has been made in the Alexandrian Text, the advocates of “reasoned eclecticism” resort to other hypotheses.  

            Metzger asserted (in A Textual Commentary on the New Testament, page 247) that the Alexandrian reading should be accepted “because of the strength of the external evidence (p^66vid A B Θ Π* 33) and because αυτων after ωρα was more likely to be removed as superfluous than added by copyists.”  But obviously not all copyists thought along those lines:  if the Caesarean reading was descended from the Alexandrian reading, then some copyists must have chosen to retain the αυτων after ωρα and remove the other one. 

            Before forming a deduction about why copyists did what they did, we should consider the matter of authorial style.  In the Gospel of John, ωρα is used 19 times, but never accompanied by αυτων except here in John 16:4 in the Alexandrian Text.  This consideration thus weighs in against the Alexandrian reading.  Why did this go unmentioned by Metzger? 

           

             John 16:4 is not the only passage where we encounter something that appears to be an Alexandrian conflation.  Let’s take a look at Matthew 3:12.  This variant-unit is not featured in the apparatus of UBS4, although it was included in the apparatus in UBS2 and commented upon by Metzger in A Textual Commentary.  Apparently when a different reading was adopted for UBS3 than what had been in UBS2 (in which the second αυτου is bracketed), someone made a decision to remove the variant-unit from the apparatus.  

            In Matthew 3:12 the rival variants witnesses line up as follows:

            Groucho:  εις την αποθηκην                             ([the wheat] into the barn)

            Chico:  εις την αποθηκην αυτου                      ([the wheat] into his barn)

            Zeppo:  αυτου εις την αποθηκην                     (his [wheat] into the barn)

            Harpo:  αυτου εις την αποθηκην αυτου           (his [wheat] into his barn)

 

            Can you guess which variant is attested by which text-type?  According to the apparatus in UBS2 and Swanson’s volume on Matthew, here are the witnesses’ testimonies (versional witnesses are in blue):

            εις την αποθηκην:  f¹³ it^a it^q geo^{1, A} Justin Clement Irenaeus

            εις την αποθηκην αυτου:  E L U 157 892 1195 1253 1424 1646 it^b it^ff1 it^g1 Curetonian Syriac, Sinaitic Syriac, Peshitta, Harklean, Armenian, Irenaeus Ambrose Cyril

            αυτου εις την αποθηκην:  ﬡ C D^supp K M S Δ Ω  f¹ 2 28 33 565 700 1009 1010 1230 1241 1365 2148 2174 Byz it^aur it^c it^d it^f it^l Vulgate, Sahidic, Bohairic, Hilary Augustine

            αυτου εις την αποθηκην αυτου:  B W 1071 1216 eth^{ro, pp} (eth^ms? εις την αποθηκην) geo^B 

            Although this is the same kind of scenario that is confronted when Byzantine conflations are posited, I submit that in Matthew 3:12 and John 16:4, the Alexandrian Text does not display a true conflation.  (Similarly I do not grant that every Byzantine conflation identified by Hort is actually a conflation, but that’s another subject.)  Instead, it displays the effects of a scribal phenomenon in which a copyist anticipated an approaching word and wrote it twice instead of once – once where it did not belong, and once where it appeared in his exemplar.  In other words, the double-appearance of αυτων in the Alexandrian Text of John 16:4, and the double-appearance of αυτου in the Alexandrian Text of Matthew 3:12, did not originate thoughtfully, but are essentially cases of dittography.  The Alexandrian reading in John 16:4 is not necessarily a conflation, but it is a corruption.

_______________

Postscript: 

Why Is Today’s “Reasoned Eclectic” Base-text

for Bible Versions Becoming Less Eclectic?

            The first English version to reflect the Alexandrian Text of John 16:4a was, as far as I can tell, Granville Penn’s The Book of the New Covenant, published in 1836:  “but these things I have told you, that when their time cometh, ye may remember that I told you of them.”  

            Penn did not have the resources that textual critics have today; he did not even have the resources that Westcott and Hort had when they compiled their revision in 1881.  Instead, as Penn explained in a supplemental volume, Annotations to the Book of the New Covenant, he used the text of Codex Vaticanus as the basis for his revision-work:  “I have taken the continued and entire text of the most ancient surviving manuscript, the “Codex Vaticanus” or Vatican MS., noted 1209 in the Vatican catalogue, and marked B by Wetstein; making it the basis and substance of the revision.”  

            As far as the text of the Gospels is concerned, Penn’s 1836 translation thus echoed Vaticanus (or, the imperfect editions of its text that were available in 1836), except where its readings seemed beyond hope of salvaging.  The compilation of Penn’s base-text was thus determined by the most non-eclectic principle imaginable; he gave Codex B a virtual monopoly of influence.       

            And yet, in 2015, when we examine the “reasoned eclectic” text as it currently exists, and compare it to earlier compilations used in the 1900’s as the base-texts for English translations, its degree of agreement with Penn’s base-text frequently seems to increase rather than decrease.  Consider, for example the text of John 16:4a in the NIV as it existed in 1984 (and as it was still being printed in 2002):

            “I have told you this, so that when the time comes you will remember that I warned you.” (Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version ®,  Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society.  Used by permission of Zondervan.  All rights reserved.)

            The compilers of the NIV’s base-text apparently adopted the Western reading of John 16:4a. 

            The Contemporary English Version, likewise, seems to follow the Western reading:

            “I am saying this to you now, so that when the time comes, you will remember what I have said.” (Contemporary English Version (CEV) Copyright © 1995 by American Bible Society.)

            The New Century Version, likewise, conforms to the Western reading of John 16:4a: 

            “I have told you these things now so that when the time comes you will remember that I warned you.” (The Holy Bible, New Century Version ®, Copyright © 2005 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.)

            However, in the TNIV and in the new editions of the NIV, the text of John 16:4a is different:

            “I have told you this, so that when their time comes you will remember that I warned you about them.”  [Bold print added for emphasis.]  (Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version ®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. ®.  Used by permission.  All rights reserved worldwide.)

            Thus the base-text of John 16:4 in the newly revised NIV has quietly become less eclectic than the NIV of 1984.  The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), the English Standard Version (ESV), and the Common English Bible (CEB) reflect the same Alexandrian base-text of John 16:4.  It would seem, from this lone example, that although more text-critical materials are available now than ever before (in the form of newly discovered manuscripts, new editions of patristic writings, etc.) “reasoned eclecticism” is producing a text that very closely resembles what Penn produced in 1836 by ignoring almost all evidence except Codex Vaticanus.  In terms of results, it is almost anti-eclectic.

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!

____________________

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!)