In a YouTube video published on 24 July 2014 (below), Craig Evans, professor of New Testament at the Divinity School of Acadia University, reports on a fragment of Mark, allegedly dating to the 80s of the first century AD and in course of publication, retrieved from a mummy mask. In the PowerPoint slide he is commenting on, you can see a mummy mask, although we are not told if the above mentioned papyrus comes from that specific one; any other useful information on the papyrus location and the owner (a private collector?) are as well lacking.
UPDATE 26 November: Professor Evans has kindly informed me via email that this is the same fragment mentioned by Daniel Wallace and it is his understanding that the fragment will be published by Brill in 2015. He cannot answer other questions I posed on the dismounting of the mask “because of various confidentiality and non-disclosure agreements”.
"... almost every critical biblical position was earlier advanced by skeptics." - Raymond Brown
Peter, verily I say unto you, that there be some of them that stand here, which shall not taste of death, till they have seen this fragment come with power.
Well, let's wait and see. Can't really comment. Even if it's legit it's not going to change anything drastically. Even minimalist secular scholars like Carrier currently date Mark to 70-85CE, so a fragment confirmed to be from the 80s won't change anything. But can you imagine the hyperbole we will hear from the apologists? I can hear it now. Fringe scholars who date Mark post 80s will be used as representatives of secular scholarship: "Secular scholars didn't even believe Mark could be so early..." - err, yes they did!
My study list: https://www.facebook.com/notes/scott-bignell/judeo-christian-origins-bibliography/851830651507208
“The only sensible response to fragmented, slowly but randomly accruing evidence is radical open-mindedness. A single, simple explanation for a historical event is generally a failure of imagination, not a triumph of induction.” William H.C. Propp
It's probably an early to mid second century fragment. I can't even comprehend how one could justify such an early date for any fragment. Seriously. How would we know we even have a first century fragment when we have nothing to compare it to? It must just have features which argue for it being earlier than any other witness but these religious guys use that as a justification for a sending it into the stratosphere earlier date. Religious partisans trying to save religion from skeptics. This only makes things worse for them.
toejam wrote:Well, let's wait and see. Can't really comment. Even if it's legit it's not going to change anything drastically.
It was always possible to date gMark, and gMatthew, earlier than Antiquities and its dating of 93/94 c.e. The mention in both these gospels of Herodias being married to Philip establishes that. (The Herodias and Philip material in Slavonic Josephus supports the gMark and gMatthew account). Josephus, in Antiquities, having a different story to tell.....So a toss up - gMark and gMatthew in error - or Josephus? Coming down on the gospel writers as being in error serves only to let Josephus off the hook - and thus to limit any search for early christian origins.
Even minimalist secular scholars like Carrier currently date Mark to 70-85CE, so a fragment confirmed to be from the 80s won't change anything. But can you imagine the hyperbole we will hear from the apologists? I can hear it now. Fringe scholars who date Mark post 80s will be used as representatives of secular scholarship: "Secular scholars didn't even believe Mark could be so early..." - err, yes they did!
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
W.B. Yeats
We know how this is going to turn out. It is going to turn out to be three common words on three lines like "the," "he said" and "bread" and about twelve scattered barely visible letters on the reverse side. Apologetic theologians will create all kinds of impossible to understand algorithms and line and paper size metrics to prove that the fragment must be from a slight variant of chapter 8 verse 16 of the gospel of Mark.
As some ancient Egyptian said, "There's nothing new under the sun," especially not the lame "We just found undeniable proof" tricks of the apologists.
Warmly,
Jay Raskin
Last edited by PhilosopherJay on Fri Dec 05, 2014 10:00 am, edited 1 time in total.
Stephan Huller wrote:It's probably an early to mid second century fragment.
Based on my understanding of the work of Brent Nongbri and some others, any papyrus that does not have an external attestation beyond the handwriting and materials, probably should not have a date range of less than 200 years. Thus it might be given a date of 50-300 AD. (Since we would have terminus post quem of 40 AD.)
Stephan Huller wrote: I can't even comprehend how one could justify such an early date for any fragment.
Some fragments have external attestation, sometimes from an accompanying text, sometimes from externals. Hypothetically, let's say there was a fact "there were no more mummies after 100 AD". That would justify an early date. So it is theoretically possible. However the handlers of this fragment have not given any indication of dating by externals, rather than script, and possibly materials.
Generally early papyri are dated:
a) too early .. and/or
b) too limited a date range
