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Too bad it's Daniel Wallace making the claim, or it might have more scholarly authority. A well-known opponent of textual criticism that undermines biblical inerrancy ideas, he is controversial. As he writes in a review against his arch-nemesis, Bart Ehrman apparantly, "what I tell my students every year is that it is imperative that they pursue truth rather than protect their presuppositions" - THIS in an article that attacks a scholar who did just that, in opposition to what Daniel Wallace actively does. He believes the Bible is inerrant and fights tooth-and-nail anyone who disagrees - it has been the overriding concern of much of his "scholarship" lately: so annoyed with reputable scholars, that he must make it his goal to try to refute them - unsuccessfully. Wallace betrays his own "presuppositions" when he states that "if this Mark fragment is confirmed as from the first century, what a thrill it will be to have a manuscript that is dated within the lifetime of many of the eyewitnesses to Jesus’ resurrection!" At last we know he's already made up his mind, and working on certain presuppositions!
I notice when he writes "It was dated by one of the world’s leading paleographers. He said he was ‘certain’ that it was from the first century" - the "top paleographers" name is not mentioned. Not standard practice when attempting to be transparant in one's scholarship, or even normal scholarly behavior.
As much as I would like to get excited over these mysterious papyri, the fact that Daniel Wallace is involved makes the whole issue doubtful.
I wonder where it was found? Imagine it is a fragment of the original autograph .. How cool would that be not that they'd be able to tell if it was, unless of course by some stroke of luck it had Mark's signature on it
Tradition attributes the writing of the Gospel to Mark - not anything contained in the text. Tradition says a lot of things which we no longer accept as reliable. So I don't think you'll ever find a manuscript - even an original - that says "written by Mark".
We actually have over 5700+ manuscripts of the New Testament We find about 100+ new copies per decade with an increasing rate of finds over the last 5 years!
No other historical or classic literature comes even close. Of course, this does not prove that Christianity is true...but it sure does make you ask why the explosion of text after the death of Jesus.
I'm posting this from a different thread. You're going to have to come up with some pretty good references to counter what another member of this forum posted elsewhere.
If we go to the heart of the matter, we find that christians often make claims which are patently false in support of the beliefs. The claim that there are “25,000 ancient manuscripts from the New Testament, of which at least 5600 are copies from the original Greek. Of these there are only 40 lines of disputed text” is patently false, not to mention academically dishonest and grotesquely misleading.
There are no first century works. There are no second century works either. The earliest writings can only be dated to the first part of the third century, sometime between 200 and 225 CE. In spite of the fact that it is often claimed that there are 5,600 "ancient copies" of the New Testament, the reality is that there is one and only one complete version of the New Testament, and that is Codex Sinaiticus.
So, of the 5,600 alleged “ancient copies” of the New Testament, you have one complete copy (Codex Sinaiticus) and nearly 300 incomplete copies.
What about the other 5,300 “ancient copies?” They aren’t’ copies, as you will see.
Of the those, only a small percentage (12 out of 300 or 4%) even remotely resemble the New Testament. Those 12 are the only texts used when preparing editions of the New Testament (excluding the KJV which is based solely on the faulty Textus Receptus). The remaining 96% are not used because they are either too fragmentary, conflict with other texts, or both. I will list them in order of completeness:
1) Codex Sinaiticus circa 350 CE. Once again, this is the ONLY COMPLETE version of the New Testament.
2) Codex Alexandrinus circa 450 CE. It is nearly complete and very close doctrinally to Codex Sinaiticus, except for the Epistles. There are more than 40 disputed lines of text between Codices Alexandrinus and Sinaiticus.
3) Codex Vaticanus circa 350 CE. It is true that all of Revelation is missing, as are 46 chapters of Genesis, 30 Psalms, all of the pastoral epistles, and Hebrews 9 thru 13. This codex is doctrinally influenced by the Alexandrian school. The gospels differ greatly from Codices Sinaiticus and Alexandrinus (more than the 40 lines of disputed text).
4) Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus circa 450 CE. Most of you wouldn’t even recognize this as the New Testament, because there are 100s of lines of disputed text. It contains portions of every book except for 2 Thessalonians and 2 John.
5) Codex Bezae/Cantabrigiensis circa 450 CE. This book contains the gospels and Acts only. It is heavily Western influenced and contains dozens of lines of disputed text.
6) Codex Claromontanus circa 550 CE. It contains only the Epistles by Paul and Hebrews. This and the following two codices are based on Western Doctrine.
7) Codices Augiensis and Boernerianus circa 850 CE. Contains only Paul’s Epistles.
8) Codex Regius circa 750 CE. Only the gospels. It most often agrees with Codex Vaticanus. Again, several hundred lines of disputed text, not 40 lines.
9) Codex Washingtonianus circa 425 CE. No relation to President George Washington. A Byzantine work of portions of the gospels only. Parts of John appear to be copied from Codex Alexandrinus.
10) Codex Koridethi circa 850 CE. Gospel parts only. Parts of Mark appear to have been quoted from the works of Origen and Eusebius in the 3rd and 4th Centuries respectively.
11) Codex Athous Laurae circa 900 CE. Contains parts of gospels, Acts, most of Paul and the Epistles. A mix of the Alexandrian, Western and Byzantine doctrines. Hundreds of lines of disputed text.
That’s it.
All other copies are fragmentary. What about the other 280-odd “New Testaments?” The majority of those are the various versions of the Textus Receptus (there is no such thing as a “standard” Textus Receptus), a text which had at one time had 1,838 disputed lines of text, and all date after 1500, so they are by no means “ancient” in spite of what people claim.
The remainder are worse than Codex Athous Laurae. They exist only as a few chapters or parts of several chapters, and they conflict heavily.
Tradition attributes the writing of the Gospel to Mark - not anything contained in the text. Tradition says a lot of things which we no longer accept as reliable. So I don't think you'll ever find a manuscript - even an original - that says "written by Mark".
Interesting! So Hebrews isn't the only book where authorship isn't certain. Who knew?
Too bad it's Daniel Wallace making the claim, or it might have more scholarly authority. A well-known opponent of textual criticism that undermines biblical inerrancy ideas, he is controversial. As he writes in a review against his arch-nemesis, Bart Ehrman apparantly, "what I tell my students every year is that it is imperative that they pursue truth rather than protect their presuppositions" - THIS in an article that attacks a scholar who did just that, in opposition to what Daniel Wallace actively does. He believes the Bible is inerrant and fights tooth-and-nail anyone who disagrees - it has been the overriding concern of much of his "scholarship" lately: so annoyed with reputable scholars, that he must make it his goal to try to refute them - unsuccessfully. Wallace betrays his own "presuppositions" when he states that "if this Mark fragment is confirmed as from the first century, what a thrill it will be to have a manuscript that is dated within the lifetime of many of the eyewitnesses to Jesus’ resurrection!" At last we know he's already made up his mind, and working on certain presuppositions!
I notice when he writes "It was dated by one of the world’s leading paleographers. He said he was ‘certain’ that it was from the first century" - the "top paleographers" name is not mentioned. Not standard practice when attempting to be transparant in one's scholarship, or even normal scholarly behavior.
As much as I would like to get excited over these mysterious papyri, the fact that Daniel Wallace is involved makes the whole issue doubtful.
whoppers,
I know that some people wont take his claim seriously since he's a Christian, however, most of the people that do this studying are Christians so it makes sense that you have a Christian talking about this find. Likewise, about 90% of the books written about the Alamo are from Alamo historians. Same goes for other historical subjects. I think you're making a genetic fallacy here. The find is going through a peer reviewed study--if it doesn't make the cut for Dr. Wallace's claims then it will be called out. Lets wait.
The is a reason why the paleographer is not named: he asked to NOT be named until the study has been completed. Dr. Wallace is honoring his request.
About Bart Ehrman: as an amateur philosopher myself (we're talking really arm chair stuff...I didn't even take a college course in philosophy), I am aware that the reason why Ehrman is agnostic is due to philosophical reasons, not scriptural. For example, Ehrman argues that different parts of the Bible give different answers. One example is evil as punishment for sin or as a consequence of sin. Ehrman writes that this seems to be based on some notion of free will although this argument is never explicitly mentioned in the Bible. Another argument is that suffering ultimately achieves a greater good, possibly for persons other than the sufferer, that would not have been possible otherwise. etc. These are all philosophical reasons, not historical or textural, but this historian is meddling in a philosopher's realm.
I'm posting this from a different thread. You're going to have to come up with some pretty good references to counter what another member of this forum posted elsewhere.
If we go to the heart of the matter, we find that christians often make claims which are patently false in support of the beliefs. The claim that there are “25,000 ancient manuscripts from the New Testament, of which at least 5600 are copies from the original Greek. Of these there are only 40 lines of disputed text” is patently false, not to mention academically dishonest and grotesquely misleading.
There are no first century works. There are no second century works either. The earliest writings can only be dated to the first part of the third century, sometime between 200 and 225 CE. In spite of the fact that it is often claimed that there are 5,600 "ancient copies" of the New Testament, the reality is that there is one and only one complete version of the New Testament, and that is Codex Sinaiticus.
So, of the 5,600 alleged “ancient copies” of the New Testament, you have one complete copy (Codex Sinaiticus) and nearly 300 incomplete copies.
What about the other 5,300 “ancient copies?” They aren’t’ copies, as you will see.
Of the those, only a small percentage (12 out of 300 or 4%) even remotely resemble the New Testament. Those 12 are the only texts used when preparing editions of the New Testament (excluding the KJV which is based solely on the faulty Textus Receptus). The remaining 96% are not used because they are either too fragmentary, conflict with other texts, or both. I will list them in order of completeness:
1) Codex Sinaiticus circa 350 CE. Once again, this is the ONLY COMPLETE version of the New Testament.
2) Codex Alexandrinus circa 450 CE. It is nearly complete and very close doctrinally to Codex Sinaiticus, except for the Epistles. There are more than 40 disputed lines of text between Codices Alexandrinus and Sinaiticus.
3) Codex Vaticanus circa 350 CE. It is true that all of Revelation is missing, as are 46 chapters of Genesis, 30 Psalms, all of the pastoral epistles, and Hebrews 9 thru 13. This codex is doctrinally influenced by the Alexandrian school. The gospels differ greatly from Codices Sinaiticus and Alexandrinus (more than the 40 lines of disputed text).
4) Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus circa 450 CE. Most of you wouldn’t even recognize this as the New Testament, because there are 100s of lines of disputed text. It contains portions of every book except for 2 Thessalonians and 2 John.
5) Codex Bezae/Cantabrigiensis circa 450 CE. This book contains the gospels and Acts only. It is heavily Western influenced and contains dozens of lines of disputed text.
6) Codex Claromontanus circa 550 CE. It contains only the Epistles by Paul and Hebrews. This and the following two codices are based on Western Doctrine.
7) Codices Augiensis and Boernerianus circa 850 CE. Contains only Paul’s Epistles.
8) Codex Regius circa 750 CE. Only the gospels. It most often agrees with Codex Vaticanus. Again, several hundred lines of disputed text, not 40 lines.
9) Codex Washingtonianus circa 425 CE. No relation to President George Washington. A Byzantine work of portions of the gospels only. Parts of John appear to be copied from Codex Alexandrinus.
10) Codex Koridethi circa 850 CE. Gospel parts only. Parts of Mark appear to have been quoted from the works of Origen and Eusebius in the 3rd and 4th Centuries respectively.
11) Codex Athous Laurae circa 900 CE. Contains parts of gospels, Acts, most of Paul and the Epistles. A mix of the Alexandrian, Western and Byzantine doctrines. Hundreds of lines of disputed text.
That’s it.
All other copies are fragmentary. What about the other 280-odd “New Testaments?” The majority of those are the various versions of the Textus Receptus (there is no such thing as a “standard” Textus Receptus), a text which had at one time had 1,838 disputed lines of text, and all date after 1500, so they are by no means “ancient” in spite of what people claim.
The remainder are worse than Codex Athous Laurae. They exist only as a few chapters or parts of several chapters, and they conflict heavily.
chuckman, you are going to post a member of a forum as a source? I'll go ahead and stick with the scholars that do this for a living.
whoppers,
I know that some people wont take his claim seriously since he's a Christian, however, most of the people that do this studying are Christians so it makes sense that you have a Christian talking about this find. Likewise, about 90% of the books written about the Alamo are from Alamo historians. Same goes for other historical subjects. I think you're making a genetic fallacy here. The find is going through a peer reviewed study--if it doesn't make the cut for Dr. Wallace's claims then it will be called out. Lets wait.
The is a reason why the paleographer is not named: he asked to NOT be named until the study has been completed. Dr. Wallace is honoring his request.
About Bart Ehrman: as an amateur philosopher myself (we're talking really arm chair stuff...I didn't even take a college course in philosophy), I am aware that the reason why Ehrman is agnostic is due to philosophical reasons, not scriptural. For example, Ehrman argues that different parts of the Bible give different answers. One example is evil as punishment for sin or as a consequence of sin. Ehrman writes that this seems to be based on some notion of free will although this argument is never explicitly mentioned in the Bible. Another argument is that suffering ultimately achieves a greater good, possibly for persons other than the sufferer, that would not have been possible otherwise. etc. These are all philosophical reasons, not historical or textural, but this historian is meddling in a philosopher's realm.
AS for Bart Ehrman - I agree with you. His popular works are what Wallace is reacting against, and using them to undermine his scholarly, or more academic, works. Ehrman's work as a scholar is very good, well-respected and has been acclaimed in his field. It was his foray into the popular genre with his books - especially God's Problem (the one you refer to concerning his loss of faith) - that raised the ire of scholars. I personally did not care for God's Problem, and found it very poor in it's conclusions; as you say, he went outside of his field and stumbled. But his scholarly work is beyond question, unless by extremely conservative scholars. Whether he is a christian or not - his academic work is not affected by it to a large degree, for the whole point of scholarly work is to try to approach the texts without presuppositions (much like Wallace's quote conveys). Of course there are biases, and they try to weed those out.
The field of biblical scholarship is made up of christians, for the most part. The difference between Wallace and the majority of scholars is that he is a conservative quasi-fundamentalist, while the majority of scholars are not. It IS possible to be a christian and not be a conservative orthodox believer clinging to older ideas of biblical inerrancy. I think this point is missed by most orthodox believers, for they seem to automatically assume that the more liberal christians are not "real" christians. Christianity has been evolving towards these lines (a more liberal approach), and unfortunately the voice of fundamentalism has not had an active role in Theology precisely because of their clinging to older methods of investigation that have long been shown to be "filled with presuppositions". Theology moves on, biblical scholarship moves on - but conservatives are too busy engaging in fights against science and modernism to contribute much of real value to the ongoing Theological Dialogue.
I will wait and see, of course - what else can one do? I suspect that there's a very good reason why the paleographer did not want his name mentioned. If he is one of the top paleographers, then he knows full well the dangers inherent in Wallace's possibly premature conclusions, as well as his fundamentalist claims concerning the text as coming from the time of people who actually witnessed "the resurrection". And if his name is being held on request - it might be because of who the paleographer is: his reputation might not lend credence to the conclusion.
Interesting news, anyways. I agree that it would be most helpful to have an earlier portion of the Gospel of Mark, since it is widely considered to be the earliest Gospel we have. Now, an even more exciting find would be the various documents the author of the Gospel of Luke used, (in addition to Mark and possibly Matthew).
chuckman, you are going to post a member of a forum as a source? I'll go ahead and stick with the scholars that do this for a living.
The member in question is Mircea and I'll let him speak for himself, should he notice this thread.
In the meantime, you claim scholars that support your position of thousands of manuscripts, but I note that you provide no sources. I am happy to consider further reading, but, with al due respect, I do not accept hearsay.
whoppers, I agree with your comments for the most part, but I just think that it is possible this may be a genuine find regardless of the worldview. From reading blogs and other sources, we know that this paleographer is considered "the best in the field", so I doubt it's a credence issue.
Like you said, we will have to wait. I actually heard that it will take about a year before a conclusion is released to the public partly because they want to make it into a book (a process which is going to make the skeptics even more skeptical). On the other hand, the fact that he wants to take it through a publication process shows that he believes the discovered material is strong enough.
About the claim of the eyewitnesses actually "witnessing the resurrection"--that is the claim those witnesses make. This is why this is a big deal of a find.
That's great, now we have 5,000 and 1. Maybe that extra one will convince the skeptics.
If it's 100 years older than any we have had until now I don't give a rat's patootie what the "skeptics" think about it, I want to read it!
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not that they'd be able to tell if it was, unless of course by some stroke of luck it had Mark's signature on it 
We find about 100+ new copies per decade with an increasing rate of finds over the last 5 years! 
