Update on P137 (P.Oxy. 83.5345)

[Note of explanation: I wrote most of this post over the weekend before Dan Wallace released a second statement. Thankfully, I delayed posting it long enough to work his statement into my post. If you haven’t read Wallace’s second statement, stop what you’re doing and go do that now.]

I haven’t been able to post updates to the saga of the Early Mark Fragment as often as I wanted. Peter Gurry and I have been busy making last-minute edits to a project we’ve been working on for over two years, but we have finally submitted it to IVP, so I have a bit more time now.

A quick summary, if you’re just now tuning in

In the most recent volume of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri (vol. 83), the Egypt Exploration Society (EES) published a fragment of Mark 1 (P.Oxy. 83.5345; P137), edited by Dirk Obbink and Daniela Colomo and dated to the late second/early third centuries. Scott Carroll and Dan Wallace both verified that P137 is the fragment that they had spoken of as “first-century Mark”; the earlier dating was simply incorrect.

The EES made a statement that the fragment had never been for sale and even made the edition available online. Most of the back and forth from that point centered on Scott Carroll’s insistence that Dirk Obbink had offered the fragment for sale and the EES’s insistence that the fragment was never up for sale. These are the unresolved questions that give this fragment its continuing intrigue: Did Dirk Obbink try to sell it (possibly without its owners’ knowledge or approval), and if not, why in the world would anyone lie about that?

All of these discussions were happening while Brent Nongbri was writing a series of excellent blog posts on the Oxyrhynchus Papyri, which you should definitely read.

James McGrath has a great roundup of posts about the fragment, here.

Developments since my last update on the other post

Larry Hurtado spoke out in defence of Dirk Obbink, writing “I personally have great confidence in Dirk Obbink as a scholar and a person of honor and integrity” and adding “But I trust Obbink, and that means that the claim that he offered the item for sale like some huckster I regard as false and mischievous.”

Bart Ehrman echoed Hurtado’s defence of Obbink, “I believe Obbink is completely honest and innocent in the whole affair” (see the comment section, here).


The EES made a second, more substantial statement. This is old news, as it happened on 4th June, but I didn’t update the other post to include it. Some major points are:

• P.Oxy. 83.5345 has, since its excavation (probably in 1903), always belonged to the Egypt Exploration Fund/Egypt Exploration Society. 
• In the early 1980s, Revel Coles assigned a preliminary date of 1st/2nd century to the fragment but did not identify it as Mark. 
• The fragment was identified as Mark in 2011 by “a researcher working for Professor Obbink.” 
• The EES knew in 2016 that P.Oxy. 83.5345 was the alleged “first-century Mark” and prioritised publication to get it out as soon as possible. 
• Both the EES and Dirk Obbink claim to have no knowledge of Dan Wallace’s NDA, nor have they ever seen it. 
• The EES doesn’t use NDAs when it comes to publishing papyri. 
• Dirk Obbink did show the fragment to Scott Carroll, but to no one else except some Oxford Students. 
• “Professor Obbink insists that he never said the papyrus was for sale, and that while he did receive some payments from the Green Collection for advice on other matters, he did not accept any payment for or towards purchase of this text.” 

The Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) that prevented Dan Wallace from talking about the fragment is not from the EES (note: Wallace confirms; see below). One thing I find interesting is that the EES knew about all of this in 2016. One thing I find very interesting is that even the EES admits that the Greens paid Dirk Obbink for something. I will add that although I do not know the ins and outs of the Green Scholars Initiative (which became the Museum of the Bible Scholars Initiative), I was once a student on a GSI/MOTBSI project, and I do not think that the regular mentors were paid. I could be wrong, but I never got that impression. It seems to me that merely being a part of the GSI/MOTBSI is not enough to account for why the Greens would have paid Dirk Obbink for anything (contrary to what this person argued).

Then, just as the dust was starting to settle, Dan Wallace tagged back in.

In his post, Wallace raises some great questions about the timeline according to the EES. Additionally, Wallace confirmed that his NDA was with not with them at all but rather with Jerry Pattengale. I think that confirms the Greens/Museum of the Bible as the potential buyers. [Note: there is a technical distinction between the Green Collection and the Museum of the Bible Collection, so it is still a bit unclear of the two collections precisely which one the potential buyer was.] Wallace still has a copy of the NDA and the email that explains it. Also, Wallace signed the NDA because the seller requested it.

Wait, WHAT?

The seller requested the NDA?

Let’s get that straight. Wallace’s NDA was the request of the seller.

We can reasonably assume that the Greens/MOTB were attempting to buy it. But the seller, not the MOTB, is ultimately who requested the NDA.

From his post, it is unclear whether Wallace knows who the seller was, even though most people are starting to see a trail of breadcrumbs that go back to Christ Church, Oxford. Still, if the seller is requesting a NDA, then it is the seller who doesn’t want people knowing about this fragment, right? Is it a stretch to ask more specifically whether it was the sale of the fragment that the seller doesn’t want anyone finding out about?

This new revelation that the NDA was signed at the request of the seller potentially opens up a huge can of worms. We know that the MOTB uses NDAs, so one thing I am curious about is whether any other MOTB NDAs were signed at the request of a (this?) seller (and how many?). Is the use of NDAs for manuscript publication something that the MOTB learned from this seller?

Also, Wallace writes, “I was told that the condition of the sale was that the seller of the manuscript would be free to choose who would edit it.” How often does that happen? It seems that the seller must be 1. Someone who is competent enough in papyrology to decide who should edit the earliest-known fragment of Mark’s Gospel (I’m not accusing anyone of anything, but an editor of Oxyrhynchus volumes would fit the bill) and 2. Someone whom the buyer(s) trust enough to be competent to make that decision (again, not accusing anyone, but the EES themselves admitted that Obbink did “receive some payments from the Green Collection for advice on other matters”).

It seems to me that we have a he said/she said situation with a possible resolution. Some claim that the fragment was never for sale. Others claim that it was. If Wallace still has a copy of the NDA, then it looks like there is a paper trail that could vindicate him. If this were poker, it looks like Wallace is all in and starting to put his cards on the table. Who is bluffing? Will the others fold, or will they show their hands? 

What could be still to come?

We still have not had any official statements from the Greens/Museum of the Bible or anyone who works for them.

We’ve only had a non-statement statement from Craig Evans:

Given that Evans is one of the people who popularized the myth of the first-century Mark (including details about mummy masks and carbon dating that we now know to be incorrect), we would hope that he might take a page from Dan Wallace’s book and say something about the misinformation he spread (though I’m sure unintentionally and with the best of motives), but he maintains that his Facebook statement is enough.

Still no word from Gary Habermas, either (to my knowledge).

Dirk Obbink has been silent as well. He seems to have spoken to Candida Moss and Joel Baden, if only briefly. He must have spoken to the EES as well, according to their statement. He didn’t return my emails though, and I haven’t seen him making any statement anywhere else.

Finally

I’ll add as a final word that we do not know why any of the parties involved are speaking up or staying silent. It could be that some are not saying anything because they do not want to dig themselves deeper holes, but silence could be a number of other reasons. We do not know the end game here, so it is always possible that some parties are silent for [good and commendable] reasons we do not currently know.

More than anything, silence from some of those involved make me appreciate Dan Wallace (and likewise the EES) even more for having the integrity to make statements, clear the air and own up to past failures. That is nothing short of praiseworthy, in my opinion.