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Post by sandwiches on Feb 20, 2012 14:52:32 GMT
Be interesting if true? sheffieldbiblicalstudies.wordpress.com/2012/02/06/first-century-fragment-of-mark/According to Daniel Wallace, in debate with Bart Ehrman:
We have as many as eighteen second-century manuscripts (six of which were recently discovered and not yet catalogued) and a first-century manuscript of Mark’s Gospel! Altogether, more than 43% of the 8000 or so verses in the NT are found in these papyri. Bart had explicitly said that our earliest copy of Mark was from c. 200 CE, but this is now incorrect. It’s from the firstcentury. I mentioned these new manuscript finds and told the audience that a book will be published by E. J. Brill in about a year that gives all the data. (In the Q & A, Bart questioned the validity of the first-century Mark fragment. I noted that a world-class paleographer, a man who had no religious affiliation and thus was not biased toward an early date, was my source.On Joel’s blog Matthew Hamilton adds this:
From what I’ve been able to glean there are now in the Green Collection 7 unpublished NT papyri
1. 2nd century frg. with Hebrews 1
2. 2nd century frg. with I Corinthians 8-10
3. 2nd century frg. with Matthew
4. 2nd century frg. with Romans 8-9
5. 2nd century frg. with part of a Pauline Epistle, from what I know it is from Hebrews
6. 2nd century frg. with Luke
7. 1st century frg. with MarkLarry Hurtado advises caution: larryhurtado.wordpress.com/2012/02/07/newly-identified-early-new-testament-fragments/Acharya S has already discounted such a possibility: www.freethoughtnation.com/contributing-writers/63-acharya-s/654-1st-century-gospel-of-mark-fragment-discovered.html |
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Mike D
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Post by Mike D on Feb 21, 2012 10:30:07 GMT
That was interesting and quite exciting. I hadn't realised (though might have, had I stopped to consider the matter) the limitations on the accuracy of paleographical assessments. It does make sense to me, though - presumably styles of writing, ways of forming letters etc are things that cover a certain period of time in the fashion of a Gaussian curve - extreme dates from the period are unlikely but still possible, with higher probability for dates in the middle of the period.
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Post by sandwiches on Feb 21, 2012 12:25:19 GMT
Yes, there's an indication of the potential for dispute here: dropalmer.posterous.com/1st-century-mark-fragment. If that is the preserved passage in the image, the passage itself is of interest (regardless of the date of the fragment) as some see it as a clue to the dating of the Gospel: www.earlychristianwritings.com/mark.htmlMany scholars see another historical allusion in Mk 5:8-13 to a 'Legion' which had a pig as its emblem and which Josephus tells us remained in Jerusalem in the war's aftermath (Wars of the Jews 7.1.3). William Harwood writes in Mythology's Last Gods: "Since the fall of the city a few months earlier [in 70 C.E.], Jerusalem had been occupied by the Roman Tenth Legion [X Fretensis], whose emblem was a pig. Mark's reference to about two thousand pigs, the size of the occupying Legion, combined with his blatant designation of the evil beings as Legion, left no doubt in Jewish minds that the pigs in the fable represented the army of occupation. Mark's fable in effect promised that the messiah, when he returned, would drive the Romans into the sea as he had earlier driven their four-legged surrogates." |
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Mike D
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Post by Mike D on Feb 21, 2012 13:53:54 GMT
Mind you, the dispute here seemed to be about the remarkable lack of specialist knowledge of one D.M.Murdock... ;D If that is the preserved passage in the image, the passage itself is of interest (regardless of the date of the fragment) as some see it as a clue to the dating of the Gospel: www.earlychristianwritings.com/mark.htmlMany scholars see another historical allusion in Mk 5:8-13 to a 'Legion' which had a pig as its emblem and which Josephus tells us remained in Jerusalem in the war's aftermath (Wars of the Jews 7.1.3). William Harwood writes in Mythology's Last Gods: "Since the fall of the city a few months earlier [in 70 C.E.], Jerusalem had been occupied by the Roman Tenth Legion [X Fretensis], whose emblem was a pig. Mark's reference to about two thousand pigs, the size of the occupying Legion, combined with his blatant designation of the evil beings as Legion, left no doubt in Jewish minds that the pigs in the fable represented the army of occupation. Mark's fable in effect promised that the messiah, when he returned, would drive the Romans into the sea as he had earlier driven their four-legged surrogates."Yes, a good summary (at least to my non-expert eyes!) - just a shame he did the "Many scholars..." thing when talking about the episode with Legion and the pigs. A personal bugbear, but the use of this kind of expression does annoy me :-) because it so vague - you don't know which experts, you don't even know if 'many' = 'most' (knowing biblical studies, it probably doesn't!). The speculation about the underlying symbolism of the passage does offer a possible key to a rather mystifying incident in the gospels (well, one that has often mystified me, at any rate!). Mind you, if it was true that Mark's gospel was written in Rome for Gentile believers (as was claimed in the early church), it then loses its explanatory power somewhat! |
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Post by sandwiches on Feb 21, 2012 14:07:36 GMT
Yes, Acharya S/ D.M.Murdock has a different explanation of the passage:
Rather than representing implausible "history," this theme is highly suggestive of the myth of the Egyptian afterlife god Osiris in the Hall of Judgment, driving off the devilish swine when the deceased petitioner goes before him....It appears that, like so much else of the Christian effort, this demons-swine motif was borrowed from another religion/mythology, in this case the Egyptian. The adoption of much Egyptian religion and mythology into Christianity began in earnest during the second century and continued for several centuries afterwards.
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Mike D
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Posts: 204
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Post by Mike D on Feb 21, 2012 15:36:40 GMT
Ah, Acharya S  - once again she scores A for entertainment and imagination and E- for logical presentation and interpretation of evidence. I swear, she makes this stuff up as she goes along... |
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Post by timoneill on Feb 22, 2012 10:14:17 GMT
YWilliam Harwood writes in Mythology's Last Gods: "Since the fall of the city a few months earlier [in 70 C.E.], Jerusalem had been occupied by the Roman Tenth Legion [X Fretensis], whose emblem was a pig. Mark's reference to about two thousand pigs, the size of the occupying Legion, combined with his blatant designation of the evil beings as Legion, left no doubt in Jewish minds that the pigs in the fable represented the army of occupation. Legions were rarely ever at full paper strength, even ones that had just been in a war and were occupying recently rebellious territory. But even given that the Tenth may have had vexilliations deployed around the countryside, a mere two thousand troops is seriously understrength for a period in which a legion numbered six thousand. This sounds a little fanciful. |
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Mike D
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Post by Mike D on Feb 22, 2012 11:21:31 GMT
Legions were rarely ever at full paper strength, even ones that had just been in a war and were occupying recently rebellious territory. But even given that the Tenth may have had vexilliations deployed around the countryside, a mere two thousand troops is seriously understrength for a period in which a legion numbered six thousand. This sounds a little fanciful. Oh well - possibly another ingenious piece of speculation (and one supported by 'many scholars', to boot ;D) shipwrecked on the rocks of historical evidence... |
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Post by sandwiches on Feb 22, 2012 11:43:02 GMT
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Post by timoneill on Feb 22, 2012 19:54:03 GMT
That's really very strained. Two thousand is a very specific number and it's not even close to any specfic number that would even hint "a Roman legion" to readers of the time. It's not like the standing strength of the Fretensis was published each day in the Sepphoris Times or there were accurate casualty reports after the siege of Jerusalem that somehow became common knowledge in Galilee months/years later. And the original readership of gMark were most likely not in Palestine anyway - they were more likely to be in far off Rome where they would have had little idea of the strength of the legion in question. This is simply Biblical scholarship being way too fanciful, as all too often is. Too many people poring over too little material. |
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Mike D
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Post by Mike D on Feb 23, 2012 14:35:30 GMT
Tenth Legion seemes to have suffered possibly heavy losses and was "routed" at one point during the siege of Jerusalem - and interesting points about possible sacrifice of pigs in the Temple when captured. I can see the attraction of theories like this - there are a number of incidents in the gospels that just strike one as a bit odd, like Jesus' conversation with the Syrophoenician woman, Jesus cursing the fig tree and this one, to take 3 examples. One feels that they are almost out of tenor with the rest of the book, so one tries to explain them - so when you find out (for example) that the fig tree was a symbol of Israel, one feels like an explanation exists of an otherwise disturbing passage. (Mind you, if you follow that through to its logical conclusion - that Jesus (in that example) was cursing Israel - it doesn't feel like a particularly comforting explanation). However, I don't think we should overlook the very human capability to perceive connections between events when no connection exists i.e. just because an explanation is hypothesized doesn't mean the explanation is correct. This seems to be a case in point - the connection between the fact that pigs are mentioned in the story and the pig being the emblem of the 10th legion seems to be over-riding all other considerations. |
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Post by sandwiches on Mar 8, 2012 10:11:15 GMT
Astonishing, if true?: www.hughhewitt.com/transcripts.aspx?id=2ae35594-18e1-4776-bd4a-ca8f77c4deb6New Testment Scholar Daniel Wallace on the Gospel of Mark discovery, and other Biblical papyri with it
HH: I’ve got to tell you, Professor, you turned a lot of heads when you alluded in your recent debate with Bart Ehrman to a new manuscript, or fragment of a manuscript concerning the Gospel of Mark. I know you’ve got scholarly restrictions on what you can and cannot say, but can you tell the audience what you’re allowed to disclose about that?
DW: I’ll be happy to. 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 1st Century
HH: I’m talking with Professor Daniel Wallace of Dallas Theological Seminary. Professor, has your paleographer been able to date it within a decade? I know it has to go through additional confirmation, additional scholarly comparison and contrasting, but the original paleographer, has he come up with it’s the 80 AD, or 70 AD?
DW: If he did, he would be a miracle worker. Paleography is not that precise unless you have a manuscript that says this scribe wrote this in the third year of Augustus, you know. Then, you can be pretty sure when he wrote it. But paleography, you can get these earlier manuscripts dated to within about 50 years, and that’s actually better than what you can do for many of the later manuscripts. We actually have better evidence for the earlier ones, because the changes in the handwriting were more rapid in the ancient world than they were in the medieval world. And so he can date it within 50 years.
HH: And that will put it in the 1st Century, though?
DW: Not only that it will possibly do so, but his understanding is it definitely is.
HH: So it can’t be any later than 51.
HH: Wow. Now in terms of, for the lay audience, Professor Daniel Wallace, the significance of this work when it appears, how would you grade it, with an A being a Dead Sea Scroll sort of significance, and you know, flunking, it just doesn’t matter?
DW: I would grade it at least an A, maybe an A+.
Which means it could/would pre-date Paul's letters? |
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Post by ignorantianescia on Mar 8, 2012 18:18:58 GMT
DW: If he did, he would be a miracle worker. Paleography is not that precise unless you have a manuscript that says this scribe wrote this in the third year of Augustus, you know. Then, you can be pretty sure when he wrote it. But paleography, you can get these earlier manuscripts dated to within about 50 years, and that’s actually better than what you can do for many of the later manuscripts. We actually have better evidence for the earlier ones, because the changes in the handwriting were more rapid in the ancient world than they were in the medieval world. And so he can date it within 50 years.
HH: And that will put it in the 1st Century, though?
DW: Not only that it will possibly do so, but his understanding is it definitely is.
HH: So it can’t be any later than 51.Which means it could/would pre-date Paul's letters? Well, that it can't be any later than the year 51 is the conclusion of the radio host (and it seems completely out of the left field to me). If the host thinks the margins of fifty years would run from 1 to 51 he's free to believe that but I hope few would concur.  But yes, with roughly those margins (for instance) a late first-century date would still include dates that are earlier than some of Paul's letters. So it would be possible that it is pre-Pauline (but if so it couldn't be stated with reasonable certainty). One feels that they are almost out of tenor with the rest of the book, so one tries to explain them - so when you find out (for example) that the fig tree was a symbol of Israel, one feels like an explanation exists of an otherwise disturbing passage. (Mind you, if you follow that through to its logical conclusion - that Jesus (in that example) was cursing Israel - it doesn't feel like a particularly comforting explanation). It would fit well with the perspective that the gospel of Mark depicts an eschatological Jesus, though. Just as the fig tree was found to be barren (no buds on the branches) on examination, so Jesus (or the author of the gospel of Mark) found the people of Israel lacking. |
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Post by sandwiches on Mar 10, 2012 12:24:31 GMT
And on a separate but equally-fascinating note - Ben Witherington: 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! While I doubt this, and various eyes will need to go over the manuscript before any firm conclusion can be drawn, even if it were from the second-third century it would still be the earliest evidence of this size (it does not include the whole Gospel, sadly it does not include Mark 16) that we have....
One interesting point made by Carroll was that there is evidence of a first century copy of a NT text in codex form, whereas various scholars thought Christians probably didn’t use this practice before the second century. Stay tuned for more. |
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Post by ignorantianescia on Mar 11, 2013 17:33:17 GMT
Has anybody heard or read anything about the publication of this fragment?
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- once again she scores A for entertainment and imagination and E- for logical presentation and interpretation of evidence. I swear, she makes this stuff up as she goes along...
