Can We Defend Destroying Mummy Masks?

[00:00:02] Can we defend Destroying Mummy Masks? Written by Bart Ehrman, read by Mike Johnson Here is my second repost from 2015 about destroying ancient mummy masks in hopes of finding manuscripts. In yesterday's post I cited an article by Marianne Russo that explained the situation about the mummy masks that were being destroyed in order to acquire papyrus fragments of the New Testament. The scholar mainly cited in that article as being involved in that process was Craig Evans, a friend of mine with whom I have had several public debates. Craig feels that he has been somewhat misrepresented in this article and sent me a clarification. I have asked and received his permission and this is what he says after this paragraph is a lengthier explanation and justification of what they are doing when destroying mummy masks. [00:00:55] Last summer I gave a presentation on the number, age and reliability of New Testament manuscripts. In this lecture I described the effort underway in recent years to recover manuscript fragments, including biblical manuscripts from ancient cartonage, including mummy masks. All of these materials are from Egypt. Just over three years ago a fragment of Mark was recovered, which those studying it think dates to the 80s. If they are correct, this will be the first New Testament manuscript that dates to the first century. The fragment is to be published later this year by E.J. brill Someone video recorded my lecture and posted it on YouTube. Last week a reporter, Owen Jarris from LiveScience, contacted me and I gave him an interview. What he wrote was Posted on Sunday 18th January 2015 and is accurate. However, other journalists have made use of his story and or the video on YouTube and have misunderstood some aspects of it, claiming incorrectly that I was myself the discoverer of the fragment of Mark or that research on the papyri recovered from the mummy masks is going on here in Nova Scotia. Some have also posted a photo of a mummy mask, giving me credit for the photo. The photo is not mine. I have directed reporters who inquired to the person to whom the photo does belong. Unfortunately, not all reporters inquired at this point. In the blog there is a link to the LiveScience article. [00:02:26] After receiving this clarification, I felt somewhat that it did not directly address the issue that most people have from having read the article. Most people are less distressed by Craig's involvement than by what is happening to archaeological discoveries by those who simply want to get their hands on New Testament papyri. And so he wrote a much fuller and interesting response in defense of the practice. In reply, here is what he says. [00:02:52] Thank you. It's funny how these stories started spinning. The guy who actually interviewed me last week did a good job at it. But then a bunch of reporters who did not do any fact checking started writing what I might call Midrash. I was quite surprised to read the stuff. As to your question, I can say a little. As I understand it, there are thousands of these mummy masks and various shapes and sizes of cartonage, crocodiles, other types of animals, figures and the like. These things belong to various museums, universities and private collections. Many of them are in poor condition, either from exposure to the elements or to vermin or whatever. Some likely suffered damage from rough handling. See the attachment, which illustrates what I mean. Some are well enough preserved, but they are very poorly made and the artwork is quite shabby. These are the specimens that are being deconstructed in order to recover the papyri. Museum quality and display quality pieces are not candidates for this recovery work. Consequently, in the opinion of the owners, whether museums, private collectors, whatever recovery of written text outweighs the mask itself. Some of these masks are purchased by the Green Scholars Initiative and some are on loan to be deconstructed. But the owners of these masks still own the papyri that are recovered. Because of this, there are all kinds of agreements regarding copyright, publishing rights, display and publicity rights, and in some cases privacy and non disclosure. Even in the cases of purchased items, the supplier may well request privacy for whatever reason. The Green people do everything they can to honor these agreements. The Green Scholars are excellent people. Dirk Obink, Oxford Sackler Papyrus Room heads up the papyrus work while Mike Holmes heads up the textual analysis aspect. There are several professional curators who are full time. Others are part time or on retainer. A bunch of others, like myself and Larry Hurtado, are advisors and participants. My own contribution has centered, as I think you know, on the question of the longevity of books in antiquity. It has been great communicating with your retired colleague George Houston on this point. His recently published book Inside Roman Libraries is a delight. Among the Green Scholars are experts in ancient paper, ancient ink, writing implements, book scroll construction, all kinds of technical testing, photography and paleography. There are no slouches in this group. There are no theological pressures either. The Green family is Christian and conservative, but they've made it clear to all of us that we are to tell it like it is. Nothing is to force or made to fit a particular perspective. I know that no one is completely comfortable with the destruction of antiquities, but in this case we have a large number of duplicates, as it were. I've suggested that we think of it as a form of archaeology which in order to dig down to the desired level. Sometimes we dig through and therefore destroy another level. We always try to preserve at least a sample of the destroyed level, but this is the choice we have to make. I have observed this in the Mount Zion dig where we dig through the ruins of an Ottoman house or Byzantine era house in order to excavate the Herodian Roman era house beneath. But off to one side we leave some of the later era structure and over to another side we dig down past the Roman into First Temple. In 2013 I exposed a couple of square meters of tile floor. Shimon congratulated me, took pictures, talked to the students about it, and then had me dig it up. I wanted to cry. What we found below thankfully turned out to be far more interesting. At the risk of being a bit ahead of things, we are beginning to think we are in the lower level of a first century aristocratic home. The kind that may have been home to a ruling priestly family. Tiled bathroom floor, plastered walls, large well made stepped mikvah, a large kitchen that had at least three ceramic ovens and an arch. The kind that often supported a cellar for wine storage. We have a lot of work to do, but it does look very promising. [00:07:13] The disappointment is that I have just learned that the Mark fragment will not be published this year after all. The Green Scholar's manager, Jerry Pattengale, told me today that it will be another couple of years. Why the delay? I do not know. I suspect, and this is only a guess, is that there is interest to include a few more Old New Testament papyri recovered in the last year or so. I cannot tell you more, mostly because I do not know more. My guess is that there may be a couple more second century papyri to add to our list. End of response. [00:07:46] That was my post in 2015. We now know that the reputable scholar he mentions, Dirk Abenk, illegally sold manuscript fragments he did not own for display in the Museum of the Bible. In a judgment in March, he was found guilty and required to repay over $7 million for the manuscripts. The other person's mention, my friends Mike Holmes and Larry Hurtado and former colleague George Houston, had precisely nothing to do with it. And Mike was one of the major figures involved in helping to expose the fraud.