OLDEST KNOWN GOSPEL RETRIEVED FROM MUMMY MASK, RESEARCHERS CLAIM

Breitbart/UPI ^ | Jan 21, 2015 | staff

[zot]

Thanks for the ping. It would be very interesting if they found another few verses that fit into the end of Mark’s Gospel. The two most reliable early manuscripts we presently have do not go past verse 16:8. [As noted in the NIV]

[Grateful2God]

I read an article years ago in Reader's Digest. It showed beautiful Japanese paintings in the "Ukiyo-e" or "Floating World" style. The article stuck with me, first because of the beautiful artwork; second, because these were duplicates used to wrap porcelain when it was shipped away!

It's called, "Evening Snow at Kanbara" by Ando Hiroshige

I guess what I'm trying to say is that some of the world's most interesting and beautiful treasures have been found in odd places! This is definitely an interesting story to follow!

[GreyFriar]

thank you

[Verginius Rufus]

Morton Smith (1915-1991) was a professor at Columbia University for many years. His supposed discovery of the Secret Mark is controversial. The Wikipedia article on him treats the whole Secret Mark business in detail. It does seem to be a modern forgery and a lot of people seem to think Smith himself was the forger.

I once saw Morton Smith at a conference but didn't talk to him--couldn't think of anything to say to him. I had read his book on the Secret Mark.

[faithhopecharity]

Yes indeed.
He might have forged it (there was some indication he had some sort of prank in mind...and he was one of very, very few possessing the expertise...and having the opportunity...to do it)...
but we just don’t know...he was also a highly-respected, quite expert scholar. AND...
since the monestary people promptly hid (or shredded) the document, all we have are Morton’s notes and pictures (which are fine and dandy , except of course they can’t be lab-tested for, say, inks or age).

It is a difficult one, really. Yes he may have forged it, but then again maybe not. Also, if we take his report as being a correct one of an actual find.... then its proper interpretation is most interesting... and not necessarily being how the mass=media took it (as a homosexual reference), though that was clearly a possibly correct way to read it.

Its intriguing. That’s about all I can conclude about it.
All my best,, and thanks
fhc

[1010RD]

Academics practice all Seven Deadly Sins. They’ll stake out a position and hold it despite the contrary evidence, because, well, because it’s mine!

[faithhopecharity]

and they will hurl personal insults and ostricize a colleague too, who dares to advance a non-conforming opinion or theory

whether right, or partly right, or maybe a little bit right, or wrong

its not just in theology or old manuscripts or archeology
it includes the hard sciences too

Velikovsky
Tesla

[al_c]

I’ve been Catholic since 1992 and have never heard any squabble over it. Any commentary I’ve heard about always has said Mark was first.

[SunkenCiv]

The search engine around here could be better. :’)

[SunkenCiv]

Scrolls which had come to the end of their useful life, or had been ruined by scribal errors, mold, whatever, wound up getting recycled as mummy wrapping. Some of these texts don’t exist in any other example. I think the oldest extant fragment of the Iliad (seems like it’s 3rd c) was pulled off some mummy when it was stripped nekkid.

[Verginius Rufus]

When I read the book the homosexual implication about the secret rite seemed clear. Whether Smith forged it because he had an agenda, or was taken in by someone else's forgery, I don't know. Apparently there was a list of manuscripts at that monastery compiled in 1923 which did not include the text he publicized, so it may have made its appearance there after 1923.

In the book Smith makes a case for this being an authentic early text but the chain is a very precarious one between the first century and the twentieth century.

[Resettozero]

I think the oldest extant fragment of the Iliad (seems like it’s 3rd c) was pulled off some mummy when it was stripped nekkid.

Another reason I leave mummy-unwrapping to the professionals in another locale. Just don't have the genes for desiring to do that sort of work.

[faithhopecharity]

Yes it’s not been proved The monetary library was never secure either before or since ( the latter is manifest by how fast it lost the manuscript in question ). The book was a bit of an oddity there, being a Latin title in a Greek orthodox library ( and a Protestant argument to boot ) but that’s not a proof. There’s been much argument over the ms handwriting and some over the quill apparently used to produce it, all limited to smith’s pictures since the monks lost the original for us. So we really don’t know. My personal thought is that it could have been an oldie but even if it was, that it probably only reflects one of the many variant spins in the second and third centuries (sometimes all catalogued as “gnosticisms”) That would be interesting but not necessarily an earlier or more complete v of the received G. Mark. Rather, just one of the many variants that were defeated ( or just died out on its own) in the period of the canonicity struggle, if that be the word, At any event, I’m not suggesting it’s much for us to worry about theologically. (And I mentioned it in humor as a means of questioning the way the new “discovery” is not being released, only teased Thanks! All the best, fhc

[FredZarguna]

My High School religion classes in New Testament history were in the 1960's.

[FredZarguna]

No doubt.

If the USCCB is now admitting Matthew was not the first Gospel, that is the catechetical position as well.

[BlueDragon]

"...we have 300+ known, unread, lumps of charcoal that originated as books in Herculaneum, very precisely dated by their conversion by Vesuvius..."

"...Given time they’ll probably develop that tech and software so that supercomputers can read all the text therein."

I'm Just an Old Chunk of Coal

[wbarmy]

I was reading a later, by two weeks, article on the same find and noticed this line;

That's at least a decade older than any known gospel copy, so the fragment could potentially show how the gospel was changed over time.

I noticed there have been few articles after this, maybe it showed how the Gospel had NOT changed over time.