A fragment of the Gospel of Mark dating to AD 80 has been discovered with the remains of an Egyptian mummy.
This could be powerful ammunition for Christian apologetics, or a complete waste of papyrus. Let’s review the evidence.
So far, pride of place for the earliest New Testament manuscript is a fragment of the Gospel of John displayed at the John Rylands Library in Manchester. Practically all scholars support a date c.AD 120, meaning that this fragment is within a generation of the original writing of the gospel.
The latest discovery has been circulating on the Internet for two years, but in January 2015 the Washington Post published the claim under the headline: ‘Biblical scholar claims to have found the oldest known Gospel – inside a mummy mask’. Craig Evans and Daniel Wallace are evangelical scholars who have given support to the claim. The fragment of Mark may predate the Rylands manuscript by 40 years.
Papier-mâché masks
The heads of mummies, wrapped in their linen, look quite unremarkable. To add some dramatic flourish to their burial, Egyptians created funerary masks that included colourful faces. The most famous is that of King Tutankhamun, beautifully coated in gold. However, less wealthy burials could include a low budget funerary mask of papier-mâché. The mask could be made from disused papyri dried hard and then painted to resemble the face of the deceased.
It is from such a mask that the fragment of Mark has been extracted. The mask, belonging to a private collection, was destroyed in the process of extracting the original papyri, cleaning them and reading their contents. Scott Carroll, the scholar behind the discovery, has developed a technique using little more than water, tweezers and Palmolive soap to break down the ancient masks and remove the papyrus without ruining the ink. Having now subjected other masks to this process he has accumulated many other biblical manuscripts, including Romans, 1 Corinthians and an early copy of The Iliad.
But it is the gospel manuscript that is about to cause a stir. The earliest manuscript of Mark that is generally agreed upon is part of what is called P45 and dates to c.AD 200-250. This new discovery is 170 years older.
Caution needed
Most dating of manuscripts relies upon clues in handwriting. A modern handwritten letter (are there still such things?) looks quite unlike a letter from 200 years ago. This new manuscript has the added advantage of being found in a dateable context – a funerary mask. New Testament scholar Dan Wallace comments: ‘we are inching our way towards the autographs’.
However, before we include this discovery in our apologetics it is worth exercising caution. The problem is that the claim has been circulating for two years, along with the tantalising promise of publication. But the evidence has not yet emerged. Not even a photograph of the manuscript has been released. Anyone involved directly in the project has signed a non-disclosure agreement. Presumably, this is to ensure rigorous assessment is made prior to publication, but a cynic might wonder whether it is to help generate sales.
The scholarly community has been generally unimpressed. Roberta Mazza, Research Fellow at the John Rylands Research Institute, dismisses the claims as ‘pseudo-scholarship’. Turning her attention to the use of this evidence in apologetics she writes: ‘apologists’ speeches are not only misinformed, but can even encourage more people to buy mummy masks on the antiquities market and dissolve them in Palmolive soap’. Ouch! Perhaps we had better wait until full publication before we include this evidence in our case for defending the Bible.
Three points
In the meantime, how does this story inform the defence of the faith? Three points can be made.
First, we must not lose sight of the elephant in the room. There is a vast amount of manuscript evidence for the reliability of the New Testament. Given how rapidly papyrus disintegrates and turns to dust, we should not forget just how remarkable it is to have part of the Gospel of John that is nearly 2000 years old.
Secondly, this story reminds us that manuscript discoveries continue to be made. As the vast body of New Testament manuscripts continues to grow, our confidence in the reliability of modern Bible translations is confirmed. As imaging technology improves and private collections become public we will need to keep up with the growth of evidence.
Thirdly, perhaps we should keep the Palmolive soap for the bathroom. Archaeology is a painstaking process rather unlike treasure hunting. Sensational claims may prove genuine and we should look forward to the publication of the Mark manuscript. But, rather too often, sensational claims that circulate on the Internet turn out to be more hype than help, fuelled more by a desire for publicity than a desire for the truth.
