How Should We Respond to Reports that a Fragment of Mark Dates to the First Century?
Justin Taylor
It was reported yesterday that a three-dozen member team of scientists and scholars—apparently including the well-respected New Testament historian Craig Evans—is working on a papyrus fragment of the Gospel of Mark, discovered as part of an ancient Egyptian funeral mask.
Due to the expense of securing clean papyri sheets in the ancient world, the papier-mâché of these masks was made from recycled papyri that already contained writing. Evans explains, “We’re recovering ancient documents from the first, second and third centuries. Not just Christian documents, not just biblical documents, but classical Greek texts, business papers, various mundane papers, personal letters.”
It is not entirely clear from the report whether Evans himself is part of the research team (although it leaves that impression). It could be, however, that he is speaking with more of an editorial use of “we.” Evans explained the discovery ten months ago at the 2014 Apologetics Canada Conference (Northview Church in Abbotsford, BC and Willingdon Church in Vancouver, BC Canada) on March 7-8.