As you know, there is a good deal of discussion going on about the destruction of mummy masks in order to uncover New Testament papyri.   One point that I am not seeing discussed strikes me as the most important of all, and I want to address that here. But before doing so, I want to ask two questions, that maybe someone on the Blog can answer for me.   The first is actuallyseveral questions:  exactly how many masks are we talking about here?   How many have been destroyed?   And how many have been singled out for destruction?   Don’t we as a reading public have the right to know? And second: am I right that the only way to know if a New Testament papyrus was used as part of the “paper mache” in the mask, that first the mask has to be destroyed?  That is to say, this one mask – or these many masks? – is/are being destroyed not because it / they are known to house NT papyri, but in the hopes that they [...]

In yesterday’s post on New Manuscripts and the Destruction of Antiquities, I cited an article by Mary-Ann Russo that explained the situation about the mummy masks that were being destroyed in order to acquire papyrus fragments of the New Testament.  The scholar mainly cited in that article as being involved in that process was Craig Evans, a friend of mine with whom I have had several public debates.   Craig feels that he has been somewhat misrepresented in this article, and sent me a clarification.   I have asked and received his permission, and this is what he says:  (NOTE: after this paragraph is a lengthier explanation and justification of what they are doing when destroying mummy masks): THE REST OF THIS POST IS FOR MEMBERS ONLY. If you don't belong yet, YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE MISSING!! Last summer I gave a presentation on the number, age, and reliability of New Testament manuscripts. In this lecture I described the effort under way in recent  years to recover manuscript fragments, including biblical manuscripts, from ancient cartonnage, including [...]

As many of you know, in 2012 I had a public debate in Chapel Hill with Dan Wallace, professor of New Testament at Dallas Theological Seminary, on the question of whether we have the original New Testament or not.  During the debate he dropped a bombshell, on me and all of us.  He mysteriously claimed that now we have a first-century copy of the Gospel of Mark.   This would be a copy well over a century older than any other that exists, and would give us a copy that is very close in date to the original.  He dropped the bombshell purely as a debating strategy, not in order to provide real information  – when pressed he wouldn’t say anything about the copy, except that it is not anything like a complete copy, but a fragment with probably a few verses, at best, on it.   But he refused to answer, and continues to refuse to answer, all the relevant questions:  How extensive is the fragment?   How does he know it is from the first century?  [...]