The recent redating of three papyrus fragments containing Greek script from the twenty-sixth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew provides a starting point for an examination of this evidence and a watershed for reassessment of the dates of the original authorship of the four Gospels. These three fragments were acquired at Luxor, Egypt, by the Reverend Charles Huleatt and were donated to Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1901. Known as the “Magdalen fragments,” they appear to come from a codex, not a scroll, since the script appears on both sides of the papyrus.
17
In 1994 Carsten Thiede, a renowned papyrologist and director of the Institute for Basic Epistemological Research in Paderborn, Germany, saw the fragments for the first time and was perplexed at the second-century date that had been assigned to them. He began a full study and analysis of the Magdalen fragments that resulted in an assignment of a new early date for the Gospel of Matthew.
The Magdalen fragments contain a description from the twenty-sixth chapter of Matthew of the anointing of Jesus in the house of Simon the leper at Bethany, his betrayal to the chief priests by Judas Iscariot, Judas’s negotiations with the chief priests for the price of Jesus, the last supper, and the promise of Jesus to return after his death. The fragments contain not only the words of Jesus but also the narrative and words of others, such as Judas.
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Thiede has also concluded that related fragments from an earlier portion of the Gospel of Matthew that are held in Barcelona are probably from the same codex.
19
These Barcelona fragments describe the meeting of John the Baptist and Jesus and the Sermon on the Mount. Thiede has now reported that the three Magdalen fragments were dated circa
ad
66 at the
latest
, within thirty-three to thirty-six years of the death of Jesus. Because they were already in wide circulation at that time, however, an earlier date is probable.
Dating of manuscripts, or a fragment of a manuscript, is accomplished in various ways. The papyrus fragments of the Gospel manuscripts cannot be tested by radiocarbon dating because they are too small and too light. Thiede concluded that even the technology of accelerator mass spectrometry was unavailable because the fragments are so light that there would be danger of destroying them in the process. Because the letters extend to the edges of the fragments, it is not even possible to separate a piece and test it experimentally since portions of the text would be destroyed.
20
Other methods have therefore traditionally been used in the analysis of papyrus fragments.
Thiede and his colleague first compared the Magdalen fragments with a leather scroll manuscript of the book of Leviticus found at Cave 4 at Qumran. The Leviticus scroll is written in a style that predates the so-called later biblical uncial style. Handwriting styles, as well as the size, shape, and groupings of letters by scribes underwent a gradual process of change over the centuries, and this assists in dating a manuscript.
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The texts of both the Magdalen fragments and the Barcelona fragments from the Gospel of Matthew use the particular type of writing that was popular in the mid-first century and share other characteristics of that period. The combination of these early fragments gives us a reliable picture of the original Gospel of Matthew and provides a good comparison with later complete Gospel manuscripts such as the third-century Chester Beatty manuscript.
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The dating of the Magdalen fragments, and possibly the Barcelona fragments, by comparison to the Leviticus text at Qumran would set an initial outside date for the fragments from the Gospel of Matthew at
ad
68 because the caves at Qumran, where the Leviticus text was found, were abandoned after that date due to the Roman invasion. Thiede has stated that the similarity of the Qumran text and Magdalen fragments in overall appearance and individual letters is remarkable.
23
For example, the style of the drawings of letters on the Qumran and Magdalen fragments places the letters so close that they nearly touch each other, an early characteristic that Thiede informs us was abandoned in Bible manuscripts of the second and third centuries.
A papyrus held in Paris (known as P4) from the Gospel of Luke is also believed by some papyrologists and scholars to have come from the same scribal school as the Magdalen and Barcelona fragments, though probably not from the same codex. The expert assessment based on the similarities implies that this fragment from the Gospel of Luke should be dated not much later than the Magdalen fragments.
24
This is the earliest known fragment in existence from the Gospel of Luke.
25
But Thiede did not base his analysis solely, or even primarily, on comparison to the Leviticus scroll. The Magdalen fragments (and by extension the Barcelona fragments and the fragment described above from the Gospel of Luke) strongly resemble a letter actually bearing a date that translates in our own calendar to July 24,
ad
66. Thiede reports that the writing style of the dated letter is almost identical in general appearance, shape, and formation of individual letters to the Magdalen papyrus.
26
This letter was written by, or perhaps on behalf of, a farmer in Egypt to authorities at Oxyrhynchus, Egypt, to report the fact that he owned twelve lambs and had a desire to add seven new lambs to his inventory. The letter matching the writing style of the fragments is signed, attested, and dated by three officials and by the farmer.
Another way to date or to identify the fragments is by the use of textual reconstruction, by which papyrologists will calculate such things as the average number of letters per line and note any variations from this measurement. Thiede has noted that each of the Magdalen fragments has twenty-four total lines, with an average of sixteen letters per line, with a maximum of eighteen and a minimum of fifteen.
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This type of reconstruction of complete lines, known as stoichiometry, is a decisive instrument for the reconstruction of a text.
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The ends and beginnings of fragmentary lines are matched against a comparative yardstick, which for the New Testament is a standard edition of a Greek text. Similarly, analysts scrutinize the spacing of words, similarities in spellings, and such stylistic elements as the projection of letters into the margin to indicate the date of the writing, or the beginning of a new paragraph, or to facilitate the reconstruction of words.
The precision of the various analytical techniques used to redate the Magdalen fragments is illustrated by Thiede’s description of an examination of a small spot on one under a microscope, an epifluorescent confocal laser scanning microscope developed and patented by Thiede and a colleague, George Masuch.
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The question at issue was whether the spot was merely an accidental ink blot on the page or part of a letter, which would have changed the entire meaning of the sentence being reconstructed. The microscope differentiates between twenty separate layers of the papyrus manuscript, as well as measuring the height and the depth of the ink. The results were shown on a video printout that could detect even the imprint (without ink) of the scribe’s pen or stylus on the papyrus. This information was then shown on a three-dimensional photograph, which supported the particular reconstruction that Thiede was proposing. The reading of the text resulting from this examination was shown to be consistent with the original interpretation given it by Thiede. In turn, comparison of this fragment text further verified the accuracy of the third-century Chester Beatty manuscript, the oldest copy containing all four Gospels.
Thiede and many other papyrologists have concluded that a small fragment found in Qumran Cave 7, referred to as 7Q5, comes from a scroll containing the Gospel of Mark.
30
Since the caves were abandoned in
ad
68, this would provide an outside date for that fragment. Because the fragment is from a scroll and not a codex, it probably dates from a much earlier time, scrolls having been used prior to the introduction of the codex.
Many biblical scholars disputed the conclusion that fragment 7Q5 is from the Gospel of Mark because they were convinced there was no way for the Gospel to have reached the Qumran caves at such an early time, but recent studies of the Roman transportation system have undermined this argument. The caves at Qumran contained not only writings of the sect of the Essenes and other early inhabitants but also scrolls that appear to have been transported from Jerusalem, Damascus, and Rome, pointing to an efficient postal system in the Roman Empire that permitted early and easy movement of the Gospel manuscripts from one city to another.
In support of this conclusion, Thiede has noted that a jar was found in Cave 7 at Qumran that had the word
ROMA
inscribed on it in two places, indicating its origin as Rome. Six Greek documents were also found in Cave 4, and nineteen in Cave 7 at Qumran, for a total of twenty-five.
31
The normal time for postal service from Corinth, Greece, to Puteoli, Italy, has been estimated at about five days; from Rome to Alexandria, three days; from Thessaloniki, in northeastern Greece, to Ascalon, Palestine, about twelve days.
32
This easily explains the early exchange of manuscripts of the Gospels throughout various parts of the Roman Empire, including the arrival at Qumran of this fragment from the Gospel of Mark.
The controversy between biblical scholars and scientists over the fragment 7Q5 resulted in heightened scrutiny and extensive analysis by leading papyrologists, who have now concluded—based on exhaustive study of the reconstruction of the text, the combination of letters, the application of stoichiometry, comparison to other texts from the Gospels, the study of variants in the text, and archaeological support for the analysis—that the fragment is, in fact, from the Gospel of Mark.
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The methodology employed combined expert forensic examination with good detective work.
For example, the number of letters visible on the fragment indicated that certain words commonly expected to have been included on those particular lines of the Gospel were missing. These were the Greek words
epi ten gen
, meaning “on to the land.” In later manuscripts of the Gospel of Mark these words appear before the words “of Gennesaret” in this passage so that the passage read “on to the land . . . of Gennesaret.” The puzzle of the missing words was resolved when it was realized that they were actually added by scribes for clarity in the second, third, and fourth centuries after destruction of the town of Gennesaret by the Romans in
ad
70. Prior to that event these missing words would have been completely unnecessary because everyone in the vicinity was familiar with the existence of the town. After its destruction the name was merely a reference to the region (see Mark 6:53).
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This reconstruction of the text lends further support to the early date of the fragment.
As a result of all of these investigations, Thiede and most papyrologists believe the scroll fragment is dated earlier than
ad
68 and that it is from the Gospel of Mark. This conclusion was summarized and affirmed by Orsolina Montevecchi, honorary president for many years of the International Assocation of Papyrologists: “I do not think that there can be any doubt about the identification of 7Q5.”
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The redating of the Magdalen fragments and the associated fragments from the Gospel of Luke, as well as the Qumran fragment from the Gospel of Mark, help establish the early authorship of those three Gospels—Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Juror, remember our goal—we are looking for witnesses testifying in this trial from personal knowledge, not through secondhand information. An early dating of these fragments permits us to assume the writers of those Gospels were alive at a date early enough reasonably to infer that they had the opportunity to observe the events reported, as required under the rules of evidence. Hard extrinsic evidence such as this for a particular date requires those who would argue against it to provide equivalent extrinsic proof outside of mere reasoned analysis.
The Gospel of John is believed to have been the last one written. The earliest known papyrus fragment of the Gospel of John, known as the St. John Papyrus P–52 (or, John Rylands Greek 457), is currently dated to the first quarter of the second century, though Thiede believes the actual date is probably much earlier. The fragment is held by the John Rylands University Library in Manchester, England.
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Again, the Gospel of John clearly reflects social and political conditions in Palestine, particularly Jerusalem, of the mid-first century. Just as important, it does
not
reflect the relationship between Christians vis à vis Jews, or of either group vis à vis Rome, after
ad
70. It presents Jesus in a particularly early and mid-century Jewish way as the hope and light of the world but transcending the legal limitations of Judaism.
37
The Gospel of John also contains many contemporary and familiar topographical references to places and things that were not in existence after
ad
70. Two clear indications that at the time it was written Jerusalem was still in existence can be illustrated, and many scholars have accepted these passages as absolute truth of the early date of this Gospel.
First, in the Gospel of John, Jesus is described as healing a man who had been paralyzed for thirty-eight years, at the sheep pool in a building in Jerusalem that has also now been historically identified by archaeologists (John 5:2). And the author of the Gospel uses the
present tense
to describe the sheep pool: “Now there
is
in Jerusalem by the sheep gate a pool, which
is
called in Hebrew Bethesda, having five porticoes” (John 5:2, emphasis added). The natural and reasonable inference is that the author of this Gospel was writing when the building was still standing. But by
ad
70 the Romans had completely destroyed the building and its porticoes. The location recently unearthed (recent in the context of two thousand years) dates to the fifth century; however, excavations have revealed two huge, deep rock-cut cisterns nearby, with stairs that originally led to the bottom of the pools, and these have been dated by the surviving masonry as being of the time of Jesus.
38
This same building is believed to be mentioned in the Copper Scroll of the Dead Sea Scrolls as Beth Eshdathayin, the “House of the Twin Pools.”
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