From: bivalve (bivalve@mail.davidson.alumlink.com)
Date: Thu Oct 03 2002 - 12:50:46 EDT
As none of the replies quite matched what I remembered, I actually
looked at the book. It is Carsten Peter Thiede and Matthew d'Ancona.
1996. Eyewitness to Jesus: Amazing New Manuscript Evidence about the
Origin of the Gospels. The focus overall seems to be what a big
scoop the story is (d'Ancona pushed the story in the Times), which
does not inspire great confidence. The scraps in question contain
bits of Matthew 26 and are in the Magdalen library. This book argues
that the paleographic evidence supports a pre-AD 70 date, but seems
dismissive rather than analytical with regard to the
counter-arguments. Though I am sympathetic to their doubts about the
merits of the presuppositions and arguments that claim that Matthew
could not have been written so early, I do not find the approach very
convincing. Some of the arguments about the dating also simply show
that it could be early rather than that it is early.
It also advocates the existing argument that Thiede and others have
made for identifying some Dead Sea scraps as NT fragments; in
particular, 7Q6I is identified as a bit of Mark. In this case, the
fragment is so small as to make the identification of the text
questionable; the only definite word is the Greek for "and", which
does not narrow down the options much. The idea was initially
proposed by O'Callaghan, who identified several even more fragmentary
pieces as other NT scraps, not inspiring confidence. On the other
hand, Geza Vermes, in The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English, 4th
ed., seems equally dismissive about the possibility of its being Mark
as Eyewitness to Jesus is of the contrary views of scholars on dating
the Magdalen scraps. In partial defense of Vermes, this is just a
paragraph rather than a full-scale attempt at addressing the question.
Dr. David Campbell
Old Seashells
University of Alabama
Biodiversity & Systematics
Dept. Biological Sciences
Box 870345
Tuscaloosa, AL 35487 USA
bivalve@mail.davidson.alumlink.com
That is Uncle Joe, taken in the masonic regalia of a Grand Exalted
Periwinkle of the Mystic Order of Whelks-P.G. Wodehouse, Romance at
Droitgate Spa
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