Mummy Mask May Reveal Oldest Known Gospel

[SVPete]

Mummy Mask May Reveal Oldest Known Gospel
By Owen Jarus
news.yahoo.com
January 21, 2015 9:40 AM

A text that may be the oldest copy of a gospel known to exist — a fragment of the Gospel of Mark that was written during the first century, before the year 90 — is set to be published.

At present, the oldest surviving copies of the gospel texts date to the second century (the years 101 to 200).

This first-century gospel fragment was written on a sheet of papyrus that was later reused to create a mask that was worn by a mummy. Although the mummies of Egyptian pharaohs wore masks made of gold, ordinary people had to settle for masks made out of papyrus (or linen), paint and glue. Given how expensive papyrus was, people often had to reuse sheets that already had writing on them.

In recent years scientists have developed a technique that allows the glue of mummy masks to be undone without harming the ink on the paper. The text on the sheets can then be read.

This article, further down, speaks to how the manuscripts are being dated. It's a combination of dates written on other documents (probably the regnal year of the current Roman Emperor), C-14 dating, and the style of the writing. This find pushes the date for the oldest manuscript fragment of a New Testament book back several decades, into the century in which the books of the NT were written. By way of contrast, the oldest manuscript of Homer's Iliad was written some 16 centuries after Homer, and the oldest manuscript of Julius Caesar's Gallic Wars was written 9 or 10 centuries after Caesar wrote. So in just archaeological terms, this is an amazing find. Also pointed out in the article, the pieces of papyrus are like a grab-bag: fragments of classic texts (including some that may push back what we have of Homer and other authors quite a few centuries), legal documents, bills, and other fragments of the everyday lives of ordinary people. There is also some controversy, as the next article details some.

[SVPete]

Archaeologists May Have Found the Oldest Copy of One of the Gospels
by CHRIS QUEEN
pjmedia.com/tatler
2015/01/21

Lest you worry that scientists are destroying valuable antiquities, the discoveries in the papyrus fragments yield more thrilling finds than these particular mummies are worth.

Evans emphasized that the masks that are being destroyed to reveal the new texts are not high-quality ones that would be displayed in a museum. Some are not masks at all but are simply pieces of cartonnage.

Evans told Live Science, "We're not talking about the destruction of any museum-quality piece."

The technique is bringing many new texts to light, Evans noted. "From a single mask, it's not strange to recover a couple dozen or even more" new texts, he told Live Science. "We're going to end up with many hundreds of papyri when the work is done, if not thousands."

Naturally, Bart Ehrman, the leftist "Biblical scholar" that Kurt Eichenwald cited in his hit piece on the Bible in Newsweek, expressed his disdain for the find.

This complete disregard for the sanctity of surviving antiquities is, for many, many of us not just puzzling but flat-out distressing. It appears that the people behind and the people doing this destruction of antiquities are all conservative evangelical Christians, who care nothing about the preservation of the past – they care only about getting their paws on a small fragment of a manuscript. Can there be any question that with them we are not dealing with historians but Christian apologists?

Archaeologists are finding not just biblical texts, but fragments of writings by Homer and other Greek writers, as well as documents that capture slices of everyday life in that time period. The destruction of some masks that are less than museum quality is a small price to pay for such rich discoveries.

There are several key facts that have to be kept in mind in considering the objections:

* These papyrus mummy masks are not, for the context, rare;

* The mask being taken apart are not museum quality, which means their great significance for study is not their form, but what can be learned from the individual sheets of papyrus that make up those masks;

* The documents that are being discovered and studied are far more than this one fragment of the Gospel of Mark;

* The documents that are being discovered will be studied by scholars everywhere, not just this group who are about to publish their findings;

* Some destruction is intrinsic to many archaeological activities; e.g, when a city has gone through multiple levels of occupation and destruction, sections of upper occupation levels are studied and destroyed in order to study underlying levels of occupation.

When these facts are kept in mind, I have to wonder whether the objectors are incredibly ignorant of archaeology and this work, or if their objections are disingenuous, and they have a very different agenda. Bart Ehrman's objections, which ignore pretty much all the facts I listed above, is particularly "off" to me. New Testament texts and textual criticism are a part of his experise, but instead of welcoming an amazing find in his field of study, he sniped at who was doing the work, misrepresented the scope of their work, and basically argued that the fragment of mark and other documents should have remained undiwcovered. What's up with that?!

My speculation is that Ehrman feels his published opinions are more likely to be threatened than enriched by this discovery. And as much or more so for other theologians he considers to be peers and friends.

Ehrman has made much of the many thousands of variants among extant New Testament manuscripts, claiming that we do not have a reliable text of the New Testament. This claim mountainizes mole hills into Himalayas. Most variants are mispellings, variations in spelling and abbreviations, minor things that do not bring into doubt what that part of the NT text actually is.  This discovery threatens to highlight Ehrman's mountainizing, discrediting him among a trusting general public who buy his books.

This discovery is even worse for Ehrman's friends on the more liberal end of the spectrum, the ones who claim the Gospels were written in the Second Century, long after eyewitnesses were dead, and incorporate legendary material. Finding a manuscript fragment that is dated to the 80s or earlier, in Egypt, destroys that theory where the Gospel of Mark is concerned. And it is very suggestive that the Gospels of Matthew and Luke - which many scholars believe were written soon after and draw from Mark - are of First Century vintage. That would be all the worse if the estimated date range for this manuscript is partially or entirely prior to 70AD destruction of Jerusalem. More generally, this First Century manuscript fragment of Mark shines light on such scholars', "It can't be true!" attitude toward the Gospels and how they make assumptions and claims founded on that attitude.

[daidalos]

Just a question, is it possible this was included in the mask because of what was written on them? I know if I were going to be mummified and then buried with a mask, I'd include gospels on/in them. I know the article say's that the ancient Egyptian's had to settle for re-using papyrus. BUT Something I have observed, from keeping up with anthropology finds, is that often times ancient folks didn't do ANYTHING by accident, or without intent. Just thought I would propose an alternative "theory" to why they found this in the masks.

[Darth Fife]

I have a feeling that this might end up being a "be careful what you wish for" moment for Christians.

All religious movements evolve over time. The first hundred years of a movement is rather volatile. It takes a while for things to settle down. One need look no further than the first hundred years of the Mormon church to get an idea of what I'm talking about.

The fact that these manuscripts were not deemed important enough to be saved and ended up being "recycled" might mean that they contain teachings and dogma which were once held to be true but eventually either went were superseded for political expediency, reclassified as heretical, or just simply went out of style!

It will be interesting to see what comes of this. 

[Solar]

I have a feeling that this might end up being a "be careful what you wish for" moment for Christians.

All religious movements evolve over time. The first hundred years of a movement is rather volatile. It takes a while for things to settle down. One need look no further than the first hundred years of the Mormon church to get an idea of what I'm talking about.

The fact that these manuscripts were not deemed important enough to be saved and ended up being "recycled" might mean that they contain teachings and dogma which were once held to be true but eventually either went were superseded for political expediency, reclassified as heretical, or just simply went out of style!

It will be interesting to see what comes of this.

Or, because it was not the popular belief at the time, as in worshiping multiple Gods, as was seen as you and I look at the Koran, as back up toilet paper.

Remember paper-mache as a kid, where you took yesterdays newspaper to school? This is really no different in a sense.
Or, could it have been a secretive way of following the last wishes of the deceased, by making up part of their burial mask with holy script?

I only see good coming out of these discoveries.

[Darth Fife]

Or, because it was not the popular belief at the time, as in worshiping multiple Gods, as was seen as you and I look at the Koran, as back up toilet paper.

Remember paper-mache as a kid, where you took yesterdays newspaper to school? This is really no different in a sense.
Or, could it have been a secretive way of following the last wishes of the deceased, by making up part of their burial mask with holy script?

I only see good coming out of these discoveries.

I'm not so sure. At least not for the Christians.

Again, using the Mormon faith as an example, I would refer you to the Strange Case of Mark William Hoffman!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Hofmann

A good book on the subject is, The Mormon Murders, by Steven Naifeth, and Gregory W. Smith

[SVPete]

I have a feeling that this might end up being a "be careful what you wish for" moment for Christians.

All religious movements evolve over time. The first hundred years of a movement is rather volatile. It takes a while for things to settle down. One need look no further than the first hundred years of the Mormon church to get an idea of what I'm talking about.

The fact that these manuscripts were not deemed important enough to be saved and ended up being "recycled" might mean that they contain teachings and dogma which were once held to be true but eventually either went were superseded for political expediency, reclassified as heretical, or just simply went out of style!

It will be interesting to see what comes of this.

Darth, other than being careful not to make a lot of noise about what has to be regarded as tentative (in regard, mainly, to the dating), I'm not worried in the least about the content of this fragmentary manuscript. Wikipedia has a decent bare-bones intro to the state of New Testament manuscript evidence.

New Testament books were written in the 1st Century AD. The oldest (more or less) complete Bibles date to the first half of the 4th Century. Fragments with substantial portions of books date back to the end of the 2nd or beginning of the 3rd Century. Fragments large enough to be recognized as from some New Testament book date back to the first half  (or quarter!) of the 2nd Century. Though it is yet unsettled (AFAIK), according to two articles in Tyndale Bulletin 46.1 (you have to go a bit past mid-page to find 46.1 and then select the pdf articles) there are some small fragments of Matthew that may date to the 1st Century. That is just Greek manuscripts of what appear to be of actual New Testament books.

There are substantial fragments from translations of New Testament books into languages such as Latin (pre-Jerome) and Syriac that date to the 3rd-5th Centuries. And there are also lectionaries (listings with scripture passages to be read on particular days) of similar dates.

Then there are patristic writings (the writings of early church leaders) that date to the 2nd and late 1st Centuries. I've heard the claim that the New Testament could be reconstructed just from the writings of church fathers who wrote before the early 4th Century Council of Nicaea.

All in all, you won't find theologically conservative Christians pensive about the possibility that this might be a, "be careful what you wish for" moment. And not for ignorance of the topic.

[Dr. Meh]

Archaeologists May Have Found the Oldest Copy of One of the Gospels
by CHRIS QUEEN
pjmedia.com/tatler
2015/01/21Naturally, Bart Ehrman, the leftist "Biblical scholar" that Kurt Eichenwald cited in his hit piece on the Bible in Newsweek, expressed his disdain for the find.Archaeologists are finding not just biblical texts, but fragments of writings by Homer and other Greek writers, as well as documents that capture slices of everyday life in that time period. The destruction of some masks that are less than museum quality is a small price to pay for such rich discoveries.
There are several key facts that have to be kept in mind in considering the objections:

* These papyrus mummy masks are not, for the context, rare;

* The mask being taken apart are not museum quality, which means their great significance for study is not their form, but what can be learned from the individual sheets of papyrus that make up those masks;

* The documents that are being discovered and studied are far more than this one fragment of the Gospel of Mark;

* The documents that are being discovered will be studied by scholars everywhere, not just this group who are about to publish their findings;

* Some destruction is intrinsic to many archaeological activities; e.g, when a city has gone through multiple levels of occupation and destruction, sections of upper occupation levels are studied and destroyed in order to study underlying levels of occupation.

When these facts are kept in mind, I have to wonder whether the objectors are incredibly ignorant of archaeology and this work, or if their objections are disingenuous, and they have a very different agenda. Bart Ehrman's objections, which ignore pretty much all the facts I listed above, is particularly "off" to me. New Testament texts and textual criticism are a part of his experise, but instead of welcoming an amazing find in his field of study, he sniped at who was doing the work, misrepresented the scope of their work, and basically argued that the fragment of mark and other documents should have remained undiwcovered. What's up with that?!

My speculation is that Ehrman feels his published opinions are more likely to be threatened than enriched by this discovery. And as much or more so for other theologians he considers to be peers and friends.

Ehrman has made much of the many thousands of variants among extant New Testament manuscripts, claiming that we do not have a reliable text of the New Testament. This claim mountainizes mole hills into Himalayas. Most variants are mispellings, variations in spelling and abbreviations, minor things that do not bring into doubt what that part of the NT text actually is.  This discovery threatens to highlight Ehrman's mountainizing, discrediting him among a trusting general public who buy his books.

This discovery is even worse for Ehrman's friends on the more liberal end of the spectrum, the ones who claim the Gospels were written in the Second Century, long after eyewitnesses were dead, and incorporate legendary material. Finding a manuscript fragment that is dated to the 80s or earlier, in Egypt, destroys that theory where the Gospel of Mark is concerned. And it is very suggestive that the Gospels of Matthew and Luke - which many scholars believe were written soon after and draw from Mark - are of First Century vintage. That would be all the worse if the estimated date range for this manuscript is partially or entirely prior to 70AD destruction of Jerusalem. More generally, this First Century manuscript fragment of Mark shines light on such scholars', "It can't be true!" attitude toward the Gospels and how they make assumptions and claims founded on that attitude.

Your last paragraph is spot on. The fields of archeology and anthropology are filled with atheists who have often claimed (falsely) that the New Testament was written too late to be historically accurate. This finding would contradict that assertion and leave them struggling to come up with further lies and distortions in their wicked attempt to debunk the Bible. Sad that these liars are more focused on spreading their agenda than finding the truth. Sad but not surprising.

[Dr. Meh]

I'm not so sure. At least not for the Christians.

Again, using the Mormon faith as an example, I would refer you to the Strange Case of Mark William Hoffman!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Hofmann

A good book on the subject is, The Mormon Murders, by Steven Naifeth, and Gregory W. Smith

I'm not sure what you're suggesting. Are you saying this may be a forgery? If so, that's possible but does not really have any effect on Christians today. There are a lot of forged religious relics but that doesn't make the religion any less valid.

To your first post, it is possbile that whoever made this mask or was buried with it was not a Christian. Therefore, the spiritual value of the papyrus would be irrelevant to them. As Solar pointed out, it'd be like using newspaper today.

If it turns out to be a fake, it wouldn't change anything to Christians or Christianity. But if it turns out to be real, it would certainly take away the false assertions of many atheists.

[SVPete]

I'm not sure what you're suggesting. Are you saying this may be a forgery? If so, that's possible but does not really have any effect on Christians today. There are a lot of forged religious relics but that doesn't make the religion any less valid.

To your first post, it is possbile that whoever made this mask or was buried with it was not a Christian. Therefore, the spiritual value of the papyrus would be irrelevant to them. As Solar pointed out, it'd be like using newspaper today.

If it turns out to be a fake, it wouldn't change anything to Christians or Christianity. But if it turns out to be real, it would certainly take away the false assertions of many atheists.

I think Darth is suggesting that this fragment will have readings substantially different from the current Greek text as it has been derived by cross-comparing extant manuscripts. While that is hypothetically possible I don't that will be the case. If nothing else, there are enough quotes from Mark (and other NT books) in the patristic writings that there would be foreknowledge were that a significant possibility.

Looking over that list of papyri that I linked above, it looks like the oldest sources for the text of the book of Mark - not quotes from Mark in others' writings - are 4th Century. Even if further analysis proves the fragment to be 2nd Century, that pushes "oldest extant" back a couple of centuries. 2nd and 3rd Century fragments from other books have not altered the Greek text. I doubt this fragment will have much effect (unless it is from the 16th chapter and speaks to the TR vs. W & H controversy).

I think veneration of relics came a century or two after this fragment was used for a mummy mask. Maybe the family member who used it for such was not a Christian. Maybe the larger manuscript of the whole book was so spoiled as to render this fragment scrap papyrus. Maybe it was from a stolen or confiscated (set of) manuscript(s). It's a curious question, far from lacking reasonable possible answers, but I doubt the answer will be learned.

[Dr. Meh]

I think Darth is suggesting that this fragment will have readings substantially different from the current Greek text as it has been derived by cross-comparing extant manuscripts. While that is hypothetically possible I don't that will be the case. If nothing else, there are enough quotes from Mark (and other NT books) in the patristic writings that there would be foreknowledge were that a significant possibility.

Looking over that list of papyri that I linked above, it looks like the oldest sources for the text of the book of Mark - not quotes from Mark in others' writings - are 4th Century. Even if further analysis proves the fragment to be 2nd Century, that pushes "oldest extant" back a couple of centuries. 2nd and 3rd Century fragments from other books have not altered the Greek text. I doubt this fragment will have much effect (unless it is from the 16th chapter and speaks to the TR vs. W & H controversy).

I think veneration of relics came a century or two after this fragment was used for a mummy mask. Maybe the family member who used it for such was not a Christian. Maybe the larger manuscript of the whole book was so spoiled as to render this fragment scrap papyrus. Maybe it was from a stolen or confiscated (set of) manuscript(s). It's a curious question, far from lacking reasonable possible answers, but I doubt the answer will be learned.

I initially thought that's what he was implying too. Hence my confusion. If you read the link he posted, it's about a Mormon guy who forged some texts. I'm not so sure he's too confident about what his own objections are at this point.

[Darth Fife]

I think Darth is suggesting that this fragment will have readings substantially different from the current Greek text as it has been derived by cross-comparing extant manuscripts. While that is hypothetically possible I don't that will be the case. If nothing else, there are enough quotes from Mark (and other NT books) in the patristic writings that there would be foreknowledge were that a significant possibility.

I'm not saying "will", just that it might.

Looking over that list of papyri that I linked above, it looks like the oldest sources for the text of the book of Mark - not quotes from Mark in others' writings - are 4th Century. Even if further analysis proves the fragment to be 2nd Century, that pushes "oldest extant" back a couple of centuries. 2nd and 3rd Century fragments from other books have not altered the Greek text. I doubt this fragment will have much effect (unless it is from the 16th chapter and speaks to the TR vs. W & H controversy).

If I'm not mistake those texts would be the ones that date to the Council of Nicea, which was ordered by Emperor Constantine to codify the doctrine of Christianity. You had roughly 1800 bishops from across the known world and nearly as many "versions" of Christianity ordered by the Roman Emperor to come up with the theological equivalent of a Unified Field Theory of Christianity.

Part of this was deciding which books were "Gospel" and which books were heretical.

Given who the sponsor of the council was (i.e. the Roman Emperor) is it any surprise that versions of the story of the life of Christ that cast the Jews as the "bad guys" ("Crucify, Him!" "Give us Barabas!") and depicted the Roman Governor of Palestine as sympathetic to Jesus ("What has this man done?") made the "cut" if you will? While others, such as the Gospel of Thomas and the Gnostic Gospels,  have been forgotten by the ages?

I think veneration of relics came a century or two after this fragment was used for a mummy mask. Maybe the family member who used it for such was not a Christian. Maybe the larger manuscript of the whole book was so spoiled as to render this fragment scrap papyrus. Maybe it was from a stolen or confiscated (set of) manuscript(s). It's a curious question, far from lacking reasonable possible answers, but I doubt the answer will be learned.

All I'm saying is whatever they find, might not line up precisely with later versions of the Gospels, as has been the case with some of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

[Dr. Meh]

I'm not saying "will", just that it might.

If I'm not mistake those texts would be the ones that date to the Council of Nicea, which was ordered by Emperor Constantine to codify the doctrine of Christianity. You had roughly 1800 bishops from across the known world and nearly as many "versions" of Christianity ordered by the Roman Emperor to come up with the theological equivalent of a Unified Field Theory of Christianity.

Part of this was deciding which books were "Gospel" and which books were heretical.

Given who the sponsor of the council was (i.e. the Roman Emperor) is it any surprise that versions of the story of the life of Christ that cast the Jews as the "bad guys" ("Crucify, Him!" "Give us Barabas!") and depicted the Roman Governor of Palestine as sympathetic to Jesus ("What has this man done?") made the "cut" if you will? While others, such as the Gospel of Thomas and the Gnostic Gospels,  have been forgotten by the ages?

All I'm saying is whatever they find, might not line up precisely with later versions of the Gospels, as has been the case with some of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

What does your Mormon post and link have to do with the assertion you make here? Can you provide a credible link demonstrating where the Dead Sea scrolls significantly differ from modern translations of the Torah?

[Darth Fife]

What does your Mormon post and link have to do with the assertion you make here? Can you provide a credible link demonstrating where the Dead Sea scrolls significantly differ from modern translations of the Torah?

You're setting up a weak straw man argument. I said Bible, not the Torah (which is different than the Bible, and indeed, different that the Christian Old Testament).

However, without getting derailed into a side debate my point about Mormonism is simply this. All religious movements evolve over time. I doubt that Joseph Smith and Brigham Young would recognize the Mormon Church of today.

Likewise, I feel certain that if anyone of the 12 Apostles, or even Christ himself were to view what Christianity has evolved into over the past 2000 years, they probably wouldn't recognize this Paulist version of the religious movement they founded in the 1st Century.

Just my opinion.

[Dr. Meh]

You're setting up a weak straw man argument. I said Bible, not the Torah (which is different than the Bible, and indeed, different that the Christian Old Testament).

However, without getting derailed into a side debate my point about Mormonism is simply this. All religious movements evolve over time. I doubt that Joseph Smith and Brigham Young would recognize the Mormon Church of today.

Likewise, I feel certain that if anyone of the 12 Apostles, or even Christ himself were to view what Christianity has evolved into over the past 2000 years, they probably wouldn't recognize this Paulist version of the religious movement they founded in the 1st Century.

Just my opinion.

Yeah, that's not what straw man means and if you don't know that the Old Testament is the Torah, we're not going to make much progress here.

The Mormon link you posted has nothing to do with the evolution of Mormonism. That was about a guy who committed fraud.

You're kinda all over the place with what you're trying to say. You seem a bit flustered. Are you claiming this is a fraud? Are you claiming that this may contradict the modern interpretation of the Bible? Are you saying the modern Bible differs from its earlier predecessors? (If so, they have Bibles that have the direct Greek and Latin translations next to modern ones) Or are you saying today's Christians don't follow the Bible as well as they should?

If the latter of my questions is what you're trying to say, the Mormon fraud guy is irrelevant and confusing. If you're trying to say this may be fraud AND it may turn out to be different from today's Bible interpretation,you need to differentiate your posts better.