Day: January 20, 2015

In case you missed it, recently the web site “livescience” published an update on the mummy mask mutilation controversy.

http://www.livescience.com/49489-oldest-known-gospel-mummy-mask.html

For a little background on the matter, see Brice Jones’s blog post from last May.

http://www.bricecjones.com/blog/the-first-century-gospel-of-mark-josh-mcdowell-and-mummy-masks-what-they-all-have-in-common

I can’t deny that finding new and perhaps much older papyrus fragments of NT manuscripts sounds fascinating, but it’s a bit gut-wrenching to see apologists ripping apart archaeological items, destroying them forever. It doesn’t matter if they’re “low quality” masks or not. They’re priceless and irreplaceable. Furthermore, they’re part of the heritage of humanity; they shouldn’t be thought of as “owned” by private individuals who can do whatever they want with them.

Bart Ehrman has posted his thoughts about it on Facebook.

https://www.facebook.com/AuthorBartEhrman/posts/809740275764435

From his post:

This complete disregard for the sanctity of surviving antiquities is, for many, many of us not just puzzling but flat-out distressing. It appears that the people behind and the people doing this destruction of antiquities are all conservative evangelical Christians, who care nothing about the preservation of the past – they care only about getting their paws on a small fragment of a manuscript. Can there be any question that with them we are not dealing with historians but Christian apologists?

Nope.  No question about it.