Ancients apparently used various papyrus documents to create mummy
masks—including what may be the earliest known fragment of a New
Testament gospel, LiveScience
reports. Confirming a three-year-old leak, professor Craig Evans says
he's among researchers who unwrapped a mummy mask and discovered a
Gospel of Mark fragment dating to 90AD or earlier. That's at least a
decade older than any known gospel copy, so the fragment could show how
the gospel was changed over time. The find will be published this year,
but Evans won't say more because he's signed a non-disclosure agreement.
In fact, he says, he's only talking now because another researcher
already blabbed about it. They "have to honor the request of the
museums, universities, private owners, so forth," says Evans.
Other scholars are fuming over the practice of un-gluing the ancient
papyri, saying it destroys bona fide mummy masks. Evans is "totally
oblivious to the destruction of archaeological material," writes an archaeologist
in what LiveScience calls a "scathing blog post." (But Evans says the
masks are just ordinary people's "low-end" fare—not the Pharaohs'
magnificent gold.) Another blogger
contends that Josh McDowell, "a Christian evangelical apologist with no
scholarly credentials," is part of the project and admits in a video
"that he doesn't know what he is doing." Evans, however, says the team
will recover hundreds "if not thousands" of papyri from the first three
centuries AD, including Christian documents, "classical Greek texts,
business papers ... personal letters" and copies of stories by Homer.
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The burial mask of
Minirdis, a 14-year-old Egyptian boy who was the son of a priest, is
positioned for conservation work Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2014, in Chicago.
(AP Photo/Charles
Rex Arbogast)
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