Onasander Posted January 20, 2015 Report Share Posted January 20, 2015 (edited) http://m.newser.com/story/201450/oldest-known-gospel-found-in-mummy-mask.html Not only do we get newer, and easier to date texts using this method, which is admittedly rather harmless (take a picture of the papyrus mask first, 3D) but it upsets the anal curmudgeon who has a horribly misplaced sense of righteousness. Clearly recovering the texts is more important than letting a mask degrade and mold in a university storage room. So it's a win-win, bring it on, we want more! And a christologist, especially one with a background in translation, is obviously qualified to translate a biblical text, as long as he follows a clear and established methodology and is peer review. It's not rocket science. Edited January 20, 2015 by Onasander Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Onasander Posted January 21, 2015 Author Report Share Posted January 21, 2015 http://m.bbc.com/news/science-environment-30888767 This technique, usuing X-rays to scan the texts, is obviously expensive, and currently only works with curved letters, not straight vertical or horizontal strokes. The masks mentioned in the first post are largely unimportant commoners masks, which we'll be unlikely to run out of supply of anytime soon..... they have several million graves in egypt outside of giza. But the wealth of knowledge.... hidden inside, priceless. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
indianasmith Posted January 22, 2015 Report Share Posted January 22, 2015 Some very interesting possibilities there. As an amateur scholar of New Testament origins, this could give us some of the earliest mss yet discovered! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hrodebert Posted January 23, 2015 Report Share Posted January 23, 2015 I wonder how much text would be in a mask, and how much we could recover. I am also an amateur NT scholar, with an interest in Mark, so this is definitely one to keep an eye on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Onasander Posted January 24, 2015 Author Report Share Posted January 24, 2015 I googled paper mache masks... I can't give a reliable answer, too much variability. I figure papyrus comes in leafs, and that it's fibers make it unsuited to me molded directly to the face like a roman death mask.... If I was making one myself, found a old book or pamphlet, tearing up a few pages, I'd want it a few pages thick at least on each side of my face. One layer would be a joke (but undoubtedly done often) to paint on and put on a face with an expectation that it would last. Issue is, the painted portion has text beneath it. If it is a important text like this, you would want experts, such as that bible museum in Washington DC could afford, to figure it out. Likewise if the person went crazy between each page with glue. I don't know how professional or standardize the mortuary field was for the common man in egypt was, so this may be up to considerable variation. Another issue is, we're dealing with waste paper. We might get rough drafts or scribal school horrors (F- material) that we'll mistake for the originals or desired product. A text the obviously ended up in the hands of a pagan so short after it was written likely wasn't valued very much by it's owner, we're talking first or second generation drafts here of the gosple. I'm guessing that the early communal christians didn't think that much of preserving this particular piece. I mean, honestly, how many could they of actually of produced by then? A few dozen max? I think it likely was asub-quality copy chucked out. But I'd like to have everyone see it too as well. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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