Book on the Green Collection and Museum of the Bible

Before the recent news about Hobby Lobby broke, Facebook alerted me to the book by Candida Moss and Joel Baden titled Bible Nation: The United States of Hobby Lobby (Princeton). Amazon lists it as coming in October and Tommy’s post says there will be an SBL panel on the book which will no doubt be even more important now. Here is the description:

How the billionaire owners of Hobby Lobby are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to make America a “Bible nation” 

Like many evangelical Christians, the Green family of Oklahoma City believes that America was founded as a Christian nation, based on a “biblical worldview.” But the Greens are far from typical evangelicals in other ways. The billionaire owners of Hobby Lobby, a huge nationwide chain of craft stores, the Greens came to national attention in 2014 after successfully suing the federal government over their religious objections to provisions of the Affordable Care Act. What is less widely known is that the Greens are now America’s biggest financial supporters of Christian causes—and they are spending hundreds of millions of dollars in an ambitious effort to increase the Bible’s influence on American society. In Bible Nation, Candida Moss and Joel Baden provide the first in-depth investigative account of the Greens’ sweeping Bible projects and the many questions they raise.

Bible Nation tells the story of the Greens’ rapid acquisition of an unparalleled collection of biblical antiquities; their creation of a closely controlled group of scholars to study and promote their collection; their efforts to place a Bible curriculum in public schools; and their construction of a $500 million Museum of the Bible near the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Bible Nation reveals how these seemingly disparate initiatives promote a very particular set of beliefs about the Bible—and raise serious ethical questions about the trade in biblical antiquities, the integrity of academic research, and more.

Bible Nation is an important and timely account of how a vast private fortune is being used to promote personal faith in the public sphere—and why it should matter to everyone.

For a taste of the book, see the authors’ Atlantic article from a few years ago where they first broke the news about the Department of Justice investigation.

I do worry about how intent some people are on politicizing the Museum before it even opens. Is this book, for example, really a must read “in our increasingly polarized country” as Reza Aslan blurbs?

This unnecessary politicizing has only worsened since news broke of the settlement. Some people clearly have it in for the Museum because of the connection with the Greens and their victory at the the Supreme Court over the Obama administration’s contraception mandate. (For a case in point, see Donna Yates’s “fantasies.”)

Let me say clearly that there are very serious questions that need answering about the Museum’s artifacts in light of the DOJ settlement. These questions are not helped and the issues are not clarified in the least by animosity toward the Greens because of their religious or political views. I hope the book does not traffic in them, but the marketing for it does not give me hope. Regardless of your political or religious views, let’s deal with the issues as they are. 

New NT Papyrus Manuscripts

One of the great things about working in the field of NT manuscripts and textual criticism over the last decades has been the steady flow of new material. Just to show two strands of that flow:

• NA26 (published in 1979) listed NT papyri up to P88; and majuscules up to 0276. 
• NA27 (published in 1993) listed NT papyri up to P98; and majuscules up to 0301.
• NA28 (published in 2012) listed NT papyri up to P127; and majuscules up to 0303.

 Recently new manuscripts of both types have been added to the online list in the VMR:

P128: VI/VII  (5 frags; single col.): John 9.3-4; 12.12-13, 16-18. New York; MMA Inv. 14.1.527

P128 is the Johannine portion of P44, now categorised as a separate papyrus, following (I presume) the conclusion in the IGNTP John Papyri volume that the two fragments ‘are without doubt by different hands’. (photos of the small John fragments are in that book as well as at the VMR). Interesting that the Liste states that they are all from a single page, this would suggest a possible liturgical text (as the original editors). The John transcript folk have provided a transcript (the clue is in the name) which places the different fragments over three separate pages (and hence reflecting a continuous text).

P129: III (4 frags; single column): 1 Cor 7.36-39; 8.10-9.3; 9.14-17; 9.27-10.6

P130: III/IV (1 frag; single col.): Heb 9.9-12, 19-23

P131: III (1 frag.; single col.): Rom 9.18-21, 22- 10.3

These three are not attributed to any particular location, but clearly are the first fruits of the Green Collection papyri. So congratulations are due to the Green Collection for that. Clearly they are making progress on the publication of the first volume of their Greek papyri (mentioned previously on this blog). No photos are available as yet (although somewhere on this blog there is a fuzzy photo of the Romans papyrus). It is, of course, interesting to note that the dates now assigned to these papyri are a century later than were first pronounced (as this blog has suggested on many occasions). On other details we await the forthcoming publications.

Majuscules up to 0323 are also listed. Many of these are extremely interesting, but I don’t have time right now to work through them all.

Museum of the Bible: Interesting interview with David Trobsich

David van Biema has an interesting interview with David Trobisch: “David Trobisch lends Green family’s Bible Museum a scholarly edge”

The interview poses the question of the nature of the theological tensions between Trobisch and Steve Green as, in Trobisch’s words “two parties standing at opposite ends of the Christian spectrum talking to each other and working together”.

Cf. also here.

Breaking News on the First-Century (?) Fragment of Mark

Over at Brice C. Jones’ blog there is more news about the alleged first-century fragment of Mark, and many other recently discovered manuscripts (a 38 page manuscript of 1 or 2 Corinthians, the oldest copy of Romans, etc). Apparently, all the information is disclosed in a video featuring evangelist Josh McDowell, who has been involved in working on this fantastic discovery and even in the process of extracting the manuscripts from Egyptian mummy masks(!).

It seems that the Markan fragment is soon to be published. McDowell assumed it would be in November last year. We certainly look forward to that.

Update: photos of some of these manuscripts:

More on the Green Scholars Initiative and "Logos at Baylor University"

In this interview with Jerry Pattengale in Indiana Wesleyan University (2012-08-02) there is further information about the forthcoming Brill series. Apparently, the first volume will not contain the NT MSS:

Comprising of one to two new volumes per year, the new series will publish approximately 20 papyri with a thorough description, commentary with images, and web-based support for further resources.

The first forthcoming volume in the series, planned to be released in early 2013, is dedicated to an early 3c BCE papyrus containing an extensive, undocumented work by Aristotle on reason, and is currently being analyzed by a research group at Oxford University.

Further, Steve Green has taken the initiative to organize and fund "Logos at Baylor University" which is a summer institute hosted by Baylor University for students interested in textual scholarship and Christian apologetics. The first ever Logos institute was organized in June when 31 international students were chosen to attend the institute doing hands-on research with scholars-mentors who are connected to the Green Scholars Initiative. 

The Baptist Standard reports (2012-07-10) from the same summer institute citing Jeff Fish (editor of the new Brill series) who said:
Scholars also mentored students editing some of the earliest fragments of the New Testament, with some dating to the second century, Fish said. Other discoveries are fragments of copies of some of St. Augustine's commentaries on John's Gospel and the Psalms, . . .

More here.

So editing is being done on these MSS. In fact, co-blogger Michael Holmes is also involved as mentor in the Green Scholars Initiative working on one of these fragments together with students, as mentioned in the Faculty Accomplishments of Bethel University for Spring last year.

– Yes, I am jealous!

The Green Scholars Initiative: Papyrus Series (eds. Obbink & Pattengale)

As already conveyed by Peter Williams in February (here), Brill has partnered up with the Green Scholars Initiative to start a new monograph series. Today it has become official as Brill announces the new forthcoming series: The Green Scholars Initiative: Papyrus Series, edited by Dirk Obbink and Jerry Pattengale which will include hitherto unpublished papyri texts from the private Green Collection. Jeffrey Fish, professor of Classics at Baylor University, will be editor of volume one. Perhaps this volume will include the seven early New Testament papyri which have been discussed on this blog (e.g., here), one of which is a purported first-century fragment of Mark.

Here is the news from the Brill website:

Brill has signed an agreement to publish The Green Scholars Initiative: Papyrus Series, edited by Dirk Obbink and Jerry Pattengale – a new book series that will include rare, unpublished papyri texts from the private Green Collection. Brill is quite pleased with the collaboration and looks forward to working with the Green Scholars Initiative (GSI). The collection itself is an untapped repository of extremely significant papyri, and the GSI provides access to the leading specialists in the field working on the project.

Dirk Obbink (University of Oxford)directs the Oxyrhynchus Papyri Collection and publications, and  Jerry Pattengale (Indiana Wesleyan University and Baylor University) directs GSI, is a prolific author, international speaker, and oversees the publication of all Green Collection and GSI research projects.

The new series fits well among Brill’s strong portfolio of Classical Studies and Biblical and Religious Studies publications, as well as its extensive list of digitized primary source manuscript collections. Comprising of one to two new volumes per year, the new series will publish approximately 20 papyri with a thorough description, commentary with images, and web-based support for further resources. The first forthcoming volume in the series, planned to be released in early 2013, is dedicated to an early 3c BCE papyrus containing an extensive, undocumented work by Aristotle on reason, and is currently being analyzed by a research group at Oxford University.

The Green Collection contains over 50,000 items, and now holds nearly 15,000 papyri acquired from private collections in Europe, and continues to grow. The collection is approximately 70% Greek, 15% Coptic and 15% late Egyptian. The collection is currently unpublished and contains items of extraordinary importance, including some of the earliest Greek literary texts known, dating to the early 3c BCE. A major building near Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. was purchased in July 2012 to house an international museum for these items.

For more information about this forthcoming new book series, contact Senior Acquisitions Editor Suzanne Mekking (mekking@brill.nl).