First Century fragments of Mark's Gospel found

An American New Testament scholar reports that a fragment of the Gospel of Mark dating from the first century has been discovered and is currently being prepared for publication.

Speaking at a debate at the University of North Carolina on 1 Feb 2012, Dr. Daniel Wallace of the Dallas Theological Seminary reported that seven New Testament papyri had recently been discovered.  Six of the fragments date from the second century and “one of them probably from the first. These fragments will be published in about a year.”

The discovery serves to confirm the veracity of the current texts of the New Testament, Dr. Wallace said, and supports the view the “original New Testament text is found somewhere in the manuscripts that have been known for quite some time.”

In his summary of the debate with Dr. Bart Ehrman, Dr. Wallace stated increased the store of knowledge about the New Testament.  “These fragments now increase our holdings as follows: we have as many as eighteen New Testament manuscripts from the second century and one from the first. Altogether, more than 43 per cent of all New Testament verses are found in these manuscripts. But the most interesting thing is the first-century fragment.”

“It was dated by one of the world’s leading paleographers,” Dr. Wallace said, adding this unnamed scholar “was ‘certain’ that it was from the first century. If this is true, it would be the oldest fragment of the New Testament known to exist.”

No first century manuscripts of the New Testament are known to exist at present.  The oldest known fragment of the New Testament is a fragment from John’s Gospel known as P52.  Discovered in 1934, this document has been dated to the first half of the second century.

Up until now, no one has discovered any first-century manuscripts of the New Testament. The oldest manuscript of the New Testament has been P52, a small fragment from John’s Gospel, dated to the first half of the second century. It was discovered in 1934.

The newly discovered fragment of Mark’s Gospel predates the oldest known example – P45 — by 100 to 150 years, Dr. Wallace claims.

“How do these manuscripts change what we believe the original New Testament to say,” Dr. Wallace asked in a statement published on the Dallas Theological Seminary website.

“We will have to wait until they are published next year, but for now we can most likely say this: As with all the previously published New Testament papyri (127 of them, published in the last 116 years), not a single new reading has commended itself as authentic. Instead, the papyri function to confirm what New Testament scholars have already thought was the original wording or, in some cases, to confirm an alternate reading—but one that is already found in the manuscripts.”

Other scholars have taken a skeptical approach to the news of the discovery, and have pressed Dr. Wallace to name the paleographer who has made the claim to a first century origin for the Mark fragment.

Writing in his blog, Dr. Jim Davila, Professor of Early Jewish Studies at the University of St. Andrews notes that while the claims are impressive and interesting  but “paleographic analysis generally can’t pinpoint a date more precisely than about a fifty-year range at best. That means that if we start with the generally accepted date of composition for Mark of 70 CE, we would be hard-pressed to distinguish a late first century script from one from the early second century, especially if the sample is small.”

However, Dr. Davila states he maintains an “open mind about the precision of the dating until the manuscript is published and numerous Greek paleographers have been able to evaluate it.”