'First Century Mark' Now Dated to Second/Third Centuries

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Secret Alias
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Re: 'First Century Mark' Now Dated to Second/Third Centuries

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https://www.ees.ac.uk/news/poxy-lxxxiii-5345

P.Oxy LXXXIII 5345
In the latest volume of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri, volume LXXXIII text 5345, Professor Obbink and Dr Colomo publish a fragment from a papyrus codex (book). The two sides of the papyrus each preserve brief traces of a passage, both of which come from the gospel of Mark. After rigorous comparison with other objectively dated texts, the hand of this papyrus is now assigned to the late second to early third century AD. This is the same text that Professor Obbink showed to some visitors to Oxford in 2011/12, which some of them reported in talks and on social media as possibly dating to the late first century AD on the basis of a provisional dating when the text was catalogued many years ago. Papyrus 5345 was excavated by Grenfell and Hunt, probably in 1903 (on the basis of its inventory number), and has never been for sale, whatever claims may have been made arising from individual conversations in the past. No other unpublished fragments of New Testament texts in the EES collection have been identified as earlier than the third century AD.

Published: 24th May, 2018
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JoeWallack
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Post by JoeWallack »

Nefarious

JW:
For the serious Textual Criticism student who is more interested in the Textual Criticism than the related misdirection/apologies/accusations/lying:

“First-Century Mark,” Published at Last? [Updated]
1. The text of P.Oxy. LXXXIII 5345 is Mark 1:7–9, 1:16–18
and the only significant Textual Criticism issue identified (so far):
REPLIES

Peter M. Head5/23/2018 4:52 pm
That omission is the omission of O IHSOUS[Jesus] from Mark 1.17, which is interesting because it agrees with Matthew at this point (not mentioned in NA28 but is in Huck/Greeven Synopsis; this manuscript [which I'm deducing is P137] with some much later support).
Of course the superior Skeptical Textual Criticism is most interested here in 1:9
And it came to pass in those days, that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized of John in the Jordan. (ASV)
Does the fragment include this part of 1:9? The omission of "Jesus" in 1:17 here which agrees with GMatthew is further (weak) evidence that original GMark lacked "Narareth" and that is why GMatthew lacks it (spin, look out!).

Note that the current orthodox claim of dating is second/third century, Skeptical translation = post 2nd century. The Lucian Recension was the end of the third century so if the fragment is earlier, as The Evil Emperor said, "It would be a valuable asset."


Joseph

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Kunigunde Kreuzerin
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Re: 'First Century Mark' Now Dated to Second/Third Centuries

Post by Kunigunde Kreuzerin »

Secret Alias wrote: Thu May 24, 2018 5:10 am Image
Thanks. On the right side is Mark 1:16-18. One can read the letters

17 καὶ εἶπεν αὐτοῖς δεῦτε ὀπίσω μου καὶ ποιήσω ὑμᾶς γενέσθαι ἁλιεῖς ἀνθρώπων 18 καὶ εὐθὺς ἀφέντες τὰ δίκτυα ἠκολούθησαν αὐτῷ

The left side is hard to read. On the left side below is a "καὶ", above that perhaps "βαπτίσει ὑμᾶς" (?). It will take more time.
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Re: 'First Century Mark' Now Dated to Second/Third Centuries

Post by Kunigunde Kreuzerin »

Kunigunde Kreuzerin wrote: Thu May 24, 2018 8:00 am The left side is hard to read. On the left side below is a "καὶ", above that perhaps "βαπτίσει ὑμᾶς" (?). It will take more time.
Above that perhaps "ἐβάπτισα" (?).
8 ἐγὼ ἐβάπτισα ὑμᾶς ὕδατι αὐτὸς δὲ βαπτίσει ὑμᾶς ἐν πνεύματι ἁγίῳ 9 καὶ ἐγένετο ἐν ἐκείναις

Stuart
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Re: 'First Century Mark' Now Dated to Second/Third Centuries

Post by Stuart »

Secret Alias wrote: Thu May 24, 2018 6:29 am This is the conservative equivalent of the Gospel of Jesus's Wife scandal. Not a forgery of course but similar in terms of the corruption and deceit.
I think you are getting the nature of the scams in Religious related artifacts, especially Christian and Jewish. There is tremendous seller, scholar and eventual public presenter pressure for as early a dating as even remotely possible be accepted. On top of that there is traditional orthodox belief bias (e.g, desperately wanting to do an end run on all the critical analysis which has been steadily pushing composition dates back for all NT books) making even those who should be highly skeptical less than that.

I would actually be very surprised if ANY of the scraps of Papyri found is actually from prior to the Dioceltion persecution. I include those currently "held" to be late 2nd and 3rd century like P52. This is because of the wide range of dates possible yielded from the methods used to determine age (e.g., hand writing, and when possible carbon dating ... these are better for general dating than specific). The reality is Christian manuscripts were seized and burned during the Great Persecution, and if the Donatists are to be believed also in The Decian Persecution -at least in Africa- destroying all but a handful of random copies. When Christianity started to recover in the fourth century, what survived almost certainly was copied over and over again until it became unusable.

We really need to get our minds to accept that evidence is deductive for pre-Nicene material. Unless some high mucky muck did a Thomas Moore in being executed during the Decian persecution and was buried/mummified and placed in his tomb with some manuscripts, or some monk carry manuscripts in a jar doing an early version of the Nag Hammadi traveler, getting buried in a freak sand storm, we are very unlikely to even find anything legitimately prior. It is both a numbers game (many fewer manuscripts) and survival probability (a very large percentage of what existed prior to Diocletian was burned, what wasn't was worn to pieces in the recovery process) which makes it exponentially more unlikely anything at all survived. It's not a linear fall off in probability, it's a cliffs of Dover sort fall off. For Christian manuscripts it is a KT boundary.

That said, this is still a very early scrap and might yield a previously unknown variant reading, a minor prize for textual critics.
“’That was excellently observed’, say I, when I read a passage in an author, where his opinion agrees with mine. When we differ, there I pronounce him to be mistaken.” - Jonathan Swift
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toejam
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Re: 'First Century Mark' Now Dated to Second/Third Centuries

Post by toejam »

No surprise. Seems only gullible evangelicals were the only ones buying the first-century claims.
My study list: https://www.facebook.com/notes/scott-bignell/judeo-christian-origins-bibliography/851830651507208
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Re: 'First Century Mark' Now Dated to Second/Third Centuries

Post by Joseph D. L. »

Jax wrote: Thu May 24, 2018 4:45 am
Joseph D. L. wrote: Wed May 23, 2018 10:46 pm What ever happened to the fragment found in a mummy wrapping that supposedly was also first century and was a verse from Mark?
That is addressed here http://evangelicaltextualcriticism.blog ... -last.html
Does anyone know what verse(s) was on the fragment?
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Ben C. Smith
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Re: 'First Century Mark' Now Dated to Second/Third Centuries

Post by Ben C. Smith »

Joseph D. L. wrote: Fri May 25, 2018 1:33 am
Jax wrote: Thu May 24, 2018 4:45 am
Joseph D. L. wrote: Wed May 23, 2018 10:46 pm What ever happened to the fragment found in a mummy wrapping that supposedly was also first century and was a verse from Mark?
That is addressed here http://evangelicaltextualcriticism.blog ... -last.html
Does anyone know what verse(s) was on the fragment?
Look upthread, especially at Kunigunde's posts. Everything is there.
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StephenGoranson
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Re: 'First Century Mark' Now Dated to Second/Third Centuries

Post by StephenGoranson »

The Egyptian Exploration Society has very kindly placed the Mark 1 papyrus fragment (p.Oxy. 5343) edition online. The link is here (at "available here"):
https://www.ees.ac.uk/news/poxy-lxxxiii-5345
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Ben C. Smith
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Re: 'First Century Mark' Now Dated to Second/Third Centuries

Post by Ben C. Smith »

Excellent. Thank you!
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