Is there a first century papyrus of the Gospel of Mark in the Qumran caves?

 Is there a papyrus of the Gospel of Mark from the first century in the Qumran caves?

Papyrus 7Q5
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( The number 7 means the seventh cave of the Qumran caves in Palestine, the letter Q means Qumran, and the number 5 means the fifth papyrus discovered in the seventh cave )

• In 1962 , M. Baillet, J.T. Milik, and R. de Vaux published the text of the manuscripts discovered in the six Qumran caves (2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 10).
• Papyrus 5 of Cave 7Q5 is written in Greek, five lines, 20 visible letters , no complete word except ( καιv = w ) , and only 10 letters of it can be read , as Daniel Wallace said .

“Chapter 3 (“7Q5—The Earliest New Testament Fragment?”) is the most substantial of the booklet, covering nineteen pages (23-41). Thiede puts forth a meticulously argued and somewhat technical case for the identification of this fragment with Mark 6:52-53 He points out, among other things, that even though at most ten of the twenty letters can be positively identified, (1) the three-letter space before και indicates the beginning of a. new paragraph (a not uncommon feature in ancient MSS), corresponding to the content break at Mark 6:53," [1]

• In 1972 AD, the Spanish priest José O'Callaghan Martinez, a papyrologist , published an article entitled " New Testament Papyri in the Seventh Qumran Cave ? "

"New testamentary papyrus in the 7th cave of Qumran?" It
states that the papyrus is a scrap of a few letters from Mark 6:52-53 , and that it dates back to before the year 68 AD because the Qumranites had left these caves in the year 68 AD .
For they did not understand about the loaves , for their hearts were hardened . ^Mark 6:52
And when they had crossed over, they came to the land of Gennesaret and anchored . ^AVD Mark 6:53
SCR Mark 6:52 αὐτῶν πεπωρωμένη.
SCR Mark 6:53 προσωρμίσθησαν.

• According to Daniel Wallace , " This led to a wave of scholarly reviews and reactions — most of which rejected O'Callaghan's view . "

" This produced a spate of scholarly reviews5 and interactions—most of which rejected O'Callaghan's identification ." [2]

• Daniel Wallace gives three reasons why O'Callaghan's argument is incorrect :

1. The papyrus is so badly worn and damaged that it is difficult to determine its text ; there are also errors in O'Callaghan's reading of the text .
2. Scholars do not believe that Mark had finished drafting his Gospel before the 1st century AD , at a time when the Qumran community had abandoned those caves before the 1st century AD , which makes the idea that they had a copy of Mark unlikely, as it would require that Mark wrote his Gospel at an early period and then it spread until a copy of it reached the Qumranis .
3. The differences between the Qumran community ( identical to the Essenes ) and the Christians in doctrine are so great that communication between the two communities is unlikely .

Daniel Wallace says :
“(1) principally, the papyrus itself was so fragmentary that any identification would be tenuous at best (not to mention the fact that there were several textually intrinsic problems with O'Callaghan's proposal); (2) since the Qumran community almost certainly disbanded in 68 CE—and hence the MS must be dated before that time (in fact, most likely, no later than 50 CE)—the majority of NT scholars felt that even the original draft of Mark's Gospel was not this early, obviously precluding the possibility that a copy of Mark could have existed before the fall of Jerusalem and (3) the differences between the Qumran community (usually considered to be identical with the Essenes) and the nascent Christian community are so clearly that contact between the two seemed improbable (and a literary contact, as O'Callaghan proposed, seemed to imply that not only was there communication between the two groups, but open and somewhat friendly communication).” [3]

• In 1982 , the scholar Peter Theed published his book ( The Earliest Gospel Manuscript ? ) in support of O'Callaghan's idea .
• The most important evidence of Theed and Rod :

1. The fourth line has 4 consecutive letters ννησ , a rare combination in Greek, and is from the word ( genesaret γεννησαρετ ) in Mark 6:53.

But when looking at the manuscript we cannot see the letter sigma at the end of the fourth line ννη σ , and the first letter in the same line can be imagined as the end of the letter ( ni ν ) or omega ( ω ) as in the second line or the fusion of the letters alpha and utah as in the third line . See the two pictures :

1. According to Theed , the third line contains the word ( flamā ; w = Καὶ ) which is equivalent to the word that begins text number 53 , and it is preceded by a blank space approximately equal to the space of three letters, which indicates that the word ( Καὶ ) is the beginning of a sentence or paragraph , as is the custom in early manuscripts , in which paragraphs often begin with a blank space , and this supports the word being the beginning of number 53.

But the letter after the word is the letter Tau and not the letter Delta with which the word ( abarwa ) begins at the beginning of the number 53. See the picture :

O'Callaghan responded to this by saying that he had observed 20 cases , 18 in the Old Testament and 2 in the New Testament , in which scribes changed the delta to tau in the Greek vernacular in which the New Testament was written , as a spelling error that led to confusion between the delta and tau because the scribe did not know the correct spelling and the pronunciation of the two letters is close, see note 13 in Daniel Wallace :
" ¹³ See especially O'Callaghan, “El cambio δ>τ en los papiros biblicos,” Bib 54 (1973) 415-16, as a demonstration of this point. O'Callaghan finds twenty places in biblical papyri (18 for LXX, two for NT) where this interchange takes place. " But
the vast majority of cases in the manuscripts did not have this change in thousands of places, which means that this is the exception rather than the rule, and what is more important is that such an error in this particular word ( (διαπεράσαντες ) is inconceivable , because the word ( to such and such = for such and such = δια ) is a well-known and commonly used word , so it is rare for the letters delta and tau to be confused to become τ ια without the copyist noticing . Daniel Wallace gave an example of this , such as someone who wrote ( tiameter ) instead of ( diameter ) . Such a confusion would not be conceivable for the copyist to have occurred except by mistake. As for It is impossible to confuse because of not knowing the correct spelling . This is like an Arab confusing ( bayt ) with ( beeth ) and not knowing the correct spelling of the word ( bayt ) so he writes it ( beeth ) because of his ignorance of the correct spelling and the similarity of the pronunciation of the letters bā’ and thā’ at the end of the word. This is inconceivable because of the great popularity of the spelling of the word ( bayt ).
Even if such confusion is permissible , it is rare, and its occurrence in a common word makes it extremely difficult for it to occur .

1. Among the evidence that scholars present against Theede’s argument is that there would not have been enough space to write texts 52 and 53 unless the scribe had dropped the phrase ( to the land of ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν ) . Daniel Wallace says :

" In order to make the lines be of somewhat equal length and correspond to Mark's text, the ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν of v. 53 must be omitted—even though no extant MSS omit this expression "

1. Theed sees that there is a letter ( Ni ) in the second line , which Wallace rejected and called on all fair-minded people to reject. Look at the picture. Wallace says :

" In particular, an unbiased reader looking at the photograph will almost certainly disagree with O'Callaghan's reconstructed nu in line 2. "

1. O'Callaghan says that he used a program called Epicus to scan thousands of ancient Greek texts and found that these particular letters in the manuscript did not overlap with any of them except in Mark 6:52-53 . Wallace replied that this was because he had misread some of the letters. Wallace said that if he had done the same thing - meaning if he had allowed himself to change some of the letters - and then searched the ancient Greek documents with Epicus , he would have obtained results. Wallace said that he himself had obtained 16 results this way , none of which were from the Testaments .

" Second , when one allows for different possibilities than just O'Callaghan's for the partially legible letters , the Ibycus program19 does , indeed, seem to
permit other texts to be identified with 7Q5 . In my own cursory examination of the TLG via Ibycus , I found sixteen texts which could possibly fit ( though only if one stretched both his or her imagination and the textual evidence). " Conclusion : Daniel Wallace says : " To put
all this in its proper place , we conclude this review by addressing two issues : evidence and trends . First, what is the conclusive evidence on which O'Callaghan relies for 7Q5 ? His date? A piece of papyrus smaller than a man's thumb with one unmistakable word (και) only six other indisputable letters ( τω ( line 2, τ ( line 3 , immediately after και) νη ( line 4, η ( line 5 ). Building a case on such meager evidence seems almost impossible even if it were



All other circumstances are favorable .
To consider it as parallel to Mark 6:52-53 would require (1) two important textual modifications ( tau instead of delta in an unparalleled manner ; and the omission of ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν even though this phrase is not omitted from any other manuscript ) ; and ( 2) the improbable reconstruction of several other letters — the latter being to give Timothy a later date because he also claims to have found it in the cave — add to this the fact that the manuscript is from the Qumran cave and is dated no later than 50 CE, and the argument against the Markian papyrus seems decisive . Were
it not for the fact that José O'Callaghan is a reputable papyrologist and C. B. Thede is a German , one might wonder whether this hypothesis has received any more than a bit of amusement in the scientific community ?

Secondly, on the subject of trends, I find it disturbing that so many conservatives are so uncritically eager to accept O’Callaghan ’s thesis . Paragraph 7Q5 does not mean , as one conservative put it , “ that seven tons of German studies may now be burned . ”26 On the other hand , I find it equally disturbing that “ To sum up : Not only are O'Callaghan and Thiede arguing that 7Q5 is a fragment from Mark 's Gospel , but they are also appealing to Kurt Aland to list this document officially as a NT papyrus: “Future editions of the Greek New Testament will have to include 7Q5. It should , at long last , receive a ' p ' number , it must be recognized in the apparatus , with its variants ” ( p . 41 ) . Here is no detached

plea; rather, it is an indictment. And this not-so-subtle indictment takes on parabolic overtones in the concluding statement of the book, where Thiede comments about the alleged early Christians who orchestrated the burying of these documents in Qumran's Cave 7 (p. 63):

Using papyrus instead of the more expensive parchment, these first Christians were eager to share the first fruits of their own literary harvest with those who were hungry for the good news. When it was a question of promoting the gospel about Jesus they showed a spirit which was at the same time innovative and open-minded. Of them, it could not be said what Mark writes, preserved in 7Q5, about the first disciples after the feeding of the five thousand: 'Their minds were closed.'

Putting all this in perspective, we conclude this review by addressing two concerns: evidence and attitudes. First, what is the hard evidence on which O'Callaghan's identification is based? A scrap of papyrus smaller than a man's thumb with only one unambiguous word—και. Only six other letters are undisputed: τω (line 2), τ (line 3, immediately after the και), νη (line 4), η (line 5). To build a case on such slender evidence would seem almost impossible even if all other conditions were favorable to it. But to identify this as Mark 6:52-53 requires (1) two significant textual emendations (tau for delta in a manner which is unparalleled; and the dropping of ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν even though no other MSS omit this phrase); and (2) unlikely reconstructions of several other letters. Add to this that the MS is from a Qumran cave and that it is to be dated no later than 50 CE and the case against the Marcan proposal seems overwhelming. If it were not for the fact that José O'Callaghan is a reputable papyrologist and that CP Thiede is a German scholar, one has to wonder whether this hypothesis would ever have gotten more than an amused glance from the scholarly community.

Second, regarding attitude, I find it disturbing that many conservatives have been so uncritically eager to accept the O'Callaghan hypothesis. 7Q5 does not, as one conservative put it, mean “that seven tons of German scholarship may now be consigned to the flames.”26 On the other hand, I find it equally disturbing that many liberal scholars have uncritically rejected O’Callaghan’s proposal without even examining the evidence. Higher criticism must of course have a say in this discussion; but it must not preclude discussion. Both attitudes, in their most extreme forms, betray an arrogance, an unwillingness to learn, a fear of truth while clinging to tradition." The scholar Keith Elliott

says :
" Many who have accepted O'Callaghan's argument have done so because they like to date the canonical writings as early as possible . On the false pretext that this would protect the truth of its contents , more than fifty articles
were published in the four years following the article 's publication in Publica [ the academic journal in which O'Callaghan 's original article appeared ] .
Most popular writers agreed with O'Callaghan; most scholarly articles rejected his conclusions . "

"Many of those who accepted O'Callaghan's position did so because they were encouraged to date the canonical writings as early as possible on the basis of the specious argument that this would safeguard the veracity of their contents.
More than 50 articles were published in the 4 years following the article in Biblica [the academic journal in which O'Callaghan's original article appeared].
Most popular writers agreed with O'Callaghan; most scholarly articles
rejected his conclusions. " [4] Scholars Peter Geary and Elijah Hickson
state :
" Today, the broader academic community agrees that 7Q5 is not a copy of Mark . Hans Forster has recently published a comprehensive summary and critique of the position, showing how speculative the argument is . Dead Sea Scrolls scholar Timothy H. Lim also rejects O'Callaghan's claims, adding that others have identified the text of the manuscripts in question as 1 Enoch . Lim concludes , “ Prudence should guide one to be cautious in reading so much significance out of so little evidence .
” [5]
Praise be to God, Lord of the Worlds




[1] 7Q5: The Earliest NT Papyrus? Here
[2] 7Q5: The Earliest NT Papyrus? Here
[3] 7Q5: The Earliest NT Papyrus? Here
[4] Elliott, “Review of The Earliest Gospel Manuscript,” 99.
[5] MYT HS AND MI STA KES IN NEW TE STAMENT TE XTUA LCRITICISM,EDITEDBYELI JAH HIX SON AND PETERJ . GURRY FOREWORD BY DA NIELB . W ALLACE, intro 17