Like many of you I have many questions about the bizarre way the discussion of the so-called “First-Century Gospel of Mark” unfolded.  I was intimately connected with the first announcement of the discovery, which was made precisely in order to trump me in a public debate.  As it turns out the announcement was based on false information acquired through hearsay.  But that’s the past, and Dan Wallace has apologized, so that is that. There are still questions about how the affair unfolded, but I’m not going to go into that here.   What there is now no longer any doubt about is the manuscript fragment that is involved.  It is not from the first century but from the late second or early third.  That’s not nearly as impressive but it is still mighty impressive.   Until now we had only one manuscript of Mark that dated that early.  Now we have two. The other one is P45 (P means “Papyrus” manuscript and 45 means it is the 45th papyrus ms. discovered and published) which is highly fragmentary, … Continue reading What the New Fragment of Mark’s Gospel Looks like (the so-called First-Century Mark)