Among the Dead Sea Scrolls, 7Q5 is the designation for a small Greek papyrus fragment discovered in Qumran Cave 7. It contains about 18 legible or partially legible Greek letters and was published in 1962 as an unidentified text. The editor assigned the fragment to a date between 50 BCE and 50 CE on the basis of its handwriting.[1] In 1972, the Spanish papyrologist Jose O'Callaghan argued that the papyrus was in fact a fragment of the Gospel of Mark, chapter 6, verses 52 and 53. While most liberal theology scholars have been unpersuaded by this argument, a vocal minority continue to support the identification of the fragment as a part of the Gospel of Mark.[2][3]
O'Callaghan challenged the reading of the original edition of the fragment, largely because he misunderstood the original editor's use of an iota subscript in line 2 of the fragment.[4] The Greek text below shows O'Callaghan's reconstruction with bold font representing proposed identifications with characters from 7Q5:[5]
ου γαρ
επιγνοντες αυτον.
συνηκαν επι τοις αρτοις, |
hou gar
epignontes auton.
synēkan epi tois artois,
|
Proposed reconstruction: |
Mark chapter 6 verses 52-53 (New Revised Standard Version):
|
O'Callaghan's argument is as follows:
The reasons why most scholars have rejected O'Callaghan's arguments include the following:
Further counterarguments
Anachronism found in Mark's Gospel
If 7Q5 was actually a fragment of Mark 6:52–53 and was deposited in the cave at Qumran by 68 AD, it would become the earliest known fragment of the New Testament, predating P52 by at least some if not many decades. Yet, since the amount of text in the manuscript is so small, even a confirmation of 7Q5 as Markan "might mean nothing more than that the contents of these few verses were already formalized, not necessarily that there was a manuscript of Mark's Gospel on hand".[13] Since the entirety of the find in Cave 7 consists of fragments in Greek, it is possible that the contents of this cave are of a separate "Hellenized" library than the Hebrew texts found in the other caves.
Sunday April 12th, 1992 7q5 was examined forensically in the Investigations Department of the Israel National Police. The investigation was carried out by Chief Inspector Sharon Landau in the presence of Dr Joseph Almog, the Director of the Israel Division of Identification and Forensic Science and Curator Joseph Zias. The decisive parts of the analysis were “recorded by a TV team from the Bavarian Television Company, ARD.”[14] The ensuing examination of line 2 of fragment 7Q5 under the stereo microscope showed the clearly visible remains of…the diagonal middle stroke of a NU, as demanded by the identification of 7Q5 as Mark 6:52-53”[15] The identification of 7Q5 as Mark 6:52-53 is secured.
| |
---|---|
Bible chapters (New Testament) |
|
Events |
|
Phrases |
|
People |
|
Places |
|
Related |
|
In music |
|
Manuscripts |
|
Sources |
|
International |
|
---|---|
National |
|