Papyrus 7Q5

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The papyrus fragment 7Q5

7Q5 is the abbreviation for a papyrus fragment that was found under the Dead Sea Scrolls in the seventh of eleven caves near Qumran . According to José O'Callaghan (1972) and, following him, Carsten Peter Thiede (1984ff), it is said to be the one and a half verses Mk 6.52f  EU . This hypothesis should justify an early dating of the Gospel of Mark and a contact of the supposed Qumran Essenes with early Christianity . Neither is scientifically recognized; the identity of the fragment with the Markus passage has been disproved since Stefan Enste's monograph Kein Markustext in Qumran (2000).

content

The remains of 5 lines with Greek letters in the so-called ornamental style are preserved on the papyrus fragment written on one side . Of these, a maximum of 10 letters can be read with certainty (printed in bold), the rest are doubtful (printed thin) or not identifiable (dotted). The first edition from 1962 according to RP Boismard read them as follows:

] . [
] .  τωι α . [
] η   και τ ω [
  ] ν νη σ [
  ] θ η εσ [

To enable identification with Mk 6,52f, the text would have to be reconstructed as follows:

ου γαρ συνηκαν] ε [τοις αρ πι
 τοις αλλ ην .alpha.] υ   των .eta [καρδια
πεπωρωμεν] .eta      και .tau iota [απερασ
αντες ηλθον εις γε] ν νη σ [αρετ
     και προσωρμισ] thetav .eta σα [ν

Linguistic reasoning

All attempts to assign the fragment to another known Greek text have so far failed. The identification with Mk 6,52f is based on two main arguments:

  • The clear distance in front of the word και <kai> (“and”) signals a paragraph of text that fits the usual image in early Markus manuscripts. Because with Markus a lot of sentences and sections start with this word. Thiede initially even referred to this distance as paragraphos , which would have meant a chapter structure of the text at this point.
  • The letter combination ννησ <nnes> in the fourth line is conspicuous and could point to the word Γεννησαρετ < Gennesaret >, which occurs only three times in the New Testament .

There are a number of arguments against this:

  • Papyrology describes a space between two words as “space”, not as paragraphos: That would be a horizontal line between the lines on the left edge of the text. Free space can be added, but does not have to be. Comparably wide spaces between letters occur in papyri sometimes even within individual words (Papyrus Bodmer XXIV, Plate 26), in Qumran with 4Q122 / 4QLXXDtn. Other Greek Qumran scripts also show a spacing before and after the και , which in most cases has no structuring meaning.
  • The fragment is small and so poorly preserved that reliable identification of the letters is difficult or impossible. To date, the fragment has not been restored, in the right area it has been displaced, probably even folded. This condition is already described in the first edition of the fragment: disloqué à droite (DJD III. P. 144). A restoration could possibly make more letters visible.
  • The four letters ννησ occur except in Gennesaret also in the word εγεννησεν <egennēsen> (“born, begot”). This reading was already conjugated in the first edition and suggested that the fragment was an excerpt from a genealogy . This possibility has not yet been ruled out.
  • In order to identify the fragment with Mk 6,52f, one must assume that the δ <d> in the third line has been replaced by a τ <t>. However, it is denied that this was conceivable in the Palestinian environment (see excursus).
  • The reading of the letter following τ as ι is also controversial. Even the first edition considered an ω to be more likely. The undisputed ι in line 3 and the probable ι in line 2 show a vertical smear that is not drawn all the way to the imaginary “baseline”. Instead, a small diagonal line is set at the foot of the ι (from the bottom left to the smear line to the top right). The letter following the τ in line 4 lacks this very typical expression. Instead, the ink traces obtained there show a very good match with the τω in line 2.
  • Since the lines of a column are always about the same length ( stitchometry ), one would have to assume that after τ ιαπερασαντες <tiaperasantes> (actually διαπερασαντες <diaperasantes>, lines 3 and 4) the words επι ττην γην gēn> ("on land") were omitted. However, this text variant has not been documented anywhere else. Should a later text increase at this point, an adjustment to the parallel text of Matthew would be expected. But that is not the case; instead, the text form of the Gospel of Mark is much more difficult at this point ( lectio difficilior ). - Johann Maier summed up the finding of the missing letters as follows: The Markus text only fits in the last two lines if one accepts a shorter version of it. There is no evidence of their existence in New Testament manuscripts.
  • The reading of the letter following Omega in line 2 as Ny is also disputed, as it shows significant deviations from the writing pattern, as can be clearly seen in line 4. The assertion that there is a so-called “rising type” Ny, as it is known from other manuscripts, fails because the undisputed Ny in line 4 is without a doubt a “falling type” Ny. The proponents of identification could not cite any text in which the two different Ny types were used side by side. Other researchers advocate the reading as Iota + Alpha (as in the first edition). - The proponents of the Ny reading claim residual traces of the missing diagonal slash. These can easily be explained as shadows cast by the uneven papyrus surface. To the right of the vertical line in line 2 (the alleged vertical line on the left of the Ny) a clear new assignment of the clerk can be seen. Nothing speaks against reconstructing the beginning of an alpha here.

Excursus on the alleged exchange of δ <d> and τ <t>

Line 3 of the fragment undisputedly shows a tau. The reconstruction of the Markus text actually requires a delta at this point, since the word δ ιαπερασαντες <diaperasantes> should follow in the text . The representatives of the New Testament identification claim at this point that one could instead reconstruct τ ιαπερασαντες <tiaperasantes> and claim here a confusion of the sounds delta and tau that is common in Palestine (CP Thiede and F. Rohrhirsch even speak of sound shift ; in connection with the exchanges observed However, the name does not fit because there is no systematic and permanent change in language).

(1) J. O'Callaghan already cited some evidence from Egyptian papyri in which the sounds delta and tau were actually confused in different words. CP Thiede has added a few more Egyptian documents to this list.

The argumentative value of the Egyptian evidence for the case of the 7Q5 papyrus is disputed because they come from a different language area than that which must be assumed for the creation of 7Q5.
The sound exchanges in Greek papyri from Egypt are related to the writers' Coptic mother tongue . The various dialects of Coptic do not distinguish between hard and soft dentals (comparable to some German dialects, which also have no audible difference between “shower” and “Indian ink” - e.g. Saxon). This native language peculiarity is carried over into the writing of Greek. It is noticeable that one of the cited documents comes from a writer with a very low level of education (the name is passed down in the Amh. 111 papyrus from the year 132 AD: Pakusis). This Pakusis writes 10 mistakes in a short text of 15 words. For the professional scribe who confirms the process to be notarized in the same papyrus, the editor of the papyrus only notes 2 deviations in approx. 200 words.
The Coptologist Francis Thomas Gignac therefore attributes such sound exchanges in Egyptian papyri to "bilingual interferences" between the Coptic mother tongue and the written Greek language.
In contrast to Egypt, however, this phenomenon cannot be documented once in any of the papyri published to date from the Israel / Palestine area. It should also be noted that the word “diaperasantes” includes the word “dia”, one of the most common words in the Greek language. A prescription for this particularly common and common word is particularly unlikely.

(2) Furthermore, an epigraphic evidence is claimed, the warning inscription from the Herodian Temple in which the word dryphakton (barrier) tryphakton was written.

This evidence of an allegedly locally specific pronunciation does not work. On Greek inscriptions from the entire Mediterranean area, both the spelling dryphakton and the spelling tryphakton are documented ( tryphakton from Jerusalem and from Delos , Oropos , Mylasa , Cyrene ). Such a widespread spelling cannot possibly be described as locally specific. Instead, it is undisputed in classical philology that there were two possible and correct spellings of the word for “barrier” in the entire Greek-speaking area, both dryphakton and tryphakton . A generally accepted explanation for this phenomenon has not yet been found, but the phenomenon itself is undisputed.

Conclusion: There is no papyrological and certainly no epigraphic reference to a linguistic peculiarity in the Jerusalem area that could explain the confusion of the sounds Delta and Tau.

Historical requirements

7. Cave, Waddy Qumran, Dead Sea

Familiarity of the Qumran people with the early Christians

The thesis that this fragment comes from the Gospel of Mark and quotes Mk 6,52f was first represented by José O'Callaghan in his essay ¿Papiros neotestamentarios en la cueva 7 de Qumrân? (1972). He found no recognition and the thesis was soon forgotten. Carsten Peter Thiede took it up again in 1984 in his essay 7Q - A Return to the New Testament Papyrus Fragments in the Seventh Cave of Qumran and represented it until his death in 2004. This led to a lively debate, mainly among New Testament scholars.

The thesis assumes that the presumed community of Qumran, which existed until 68 AD, had contacts with early Christians or at least had an interest in their writings, so they deposited the Gospel of Mark together with their own writings in one of their caves.

The objection was raised that the Qumran community, if they were Essenes , would have been a particularly law-abiding group that would have separated itself from other Jewish sects. The Gospel of Mark, here especially the chapter Mk 7 following the passage Mk 6,52f, again shows the delimitation of Palestinian early Christians from Pharisaism , so that the preservation of precisely this script by law-abiding Jews is improbable.

Dating before 68 AD

Assuming that the residents of Qumran also had the scrolls in the nearby caves, they would have had to deposit them there by 68 AD at the latest, because their settlement was destroyed during the attack of the Romans (68 AD). This means that the Gospel was written before 68. But even if the residents of Qumran were not the ones who put the writings in the caves, all fragments from the caves that were examined with the C-14 method have been dated to before AD 70. However, this age determination method was not applicable to the fragments from Cave 7, which were often only millimeters in size.

If 7Q5 were a Mark text, it would be the oldest known fragment of a New Testament text, a few decades older than papyrus P52 . This would suggest an earlier emergence of the Synoptics dependent on Mark as well as a closer acquaintance of the Essenes with the writings of the early Christians .

The debate about dating was drawn into theological battles at the front, so that Thiede's thesis was often hardly discussed impartially. According to Daniel P. Wallace, conservative theologians often accepted the thesis uncritically, while many liberal and historical-critical theologians rejected it just as unchecked. The historical credibility of all gospels was often made dependent on the early dating of the oldest gospel, after the postulates of the old church that the evangelists were apostles or their collaborators could no longer be upheld.

The vast majority of researchers believe that the Gospel of Mark was written after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem (AD 70), believing that some passages from Mark allude to it. Nonetheless, these researchers too often start from older, between 40 and 70 written sources or pre-forms that the author or final editor knew and integrated into his gospel.

In 1998, Klaus Berger pointed out that the fragment would prove nothing even if it were identical with the Mark text: it cannot be ruled out that Palestinian Jews or Christians deposited writings in caves near Qumran even after 70 years. This was shown by the writings found in other caves near Wadi Murabba'at , which are dated to around 135 AD. The fact that cave 7 only contained Greek fragments is an indication that it was used in isolation for later writings. Even if some of them got there before 70, this would not change the previous Gospel dating, since one has long been assuming older written sources by Mark, to which Mk 6.52f could have belonged. Since the deaths of Simon Peter and Paul of Tarsus were also dated to a few years before AD 70, early Christian writings could soon have come into circulation. However, these considerations are pointless, since the text base of 7Q5 is in any case too narrow for such assumptions.

literature

  • Stefan Enste: No Markus text in Qumran. An examination of the thesis: Qumran fragment 7Q5 = Mk 6.52-53. Universitätsverlag, Freiburg 2000, ISBN 3-7278-1286-9
  • Bernhard Mayer (Ed.): Christians and Christian things in Qumran? Friedrich Pustet, Regensburg 1992, ISBN 3-7917-1346-9
  • Carsten Peter Thiede: The oldest Gospel manuscript ?. The Mark fragment from Qumran and the beginnings of the written tradition of the New Testament. 2nd Edition. R. Brockhaus, Wuppertal 1990, ISBN 3-417-29518-1
  • Carsten Peter Thiede: 7Q - A return to the New Testament papyrus fragments in the seventh cave of Qumran. In: Biblica 65 (1984), pp. 538-559; Errata: Biblica 66 (1985), p. 261
  • José O'Callaghan: ¿Papiros neotestamentarios en la cueva 7 de Qumran? In: Biblica , 53, 1972, pp. 91-100

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Johann Maier: Die Qumran-Essener Volume I, p. 322
  2. ^ Daniel P. Wallace: 7Q5: The Earliest NT Papyrus? Review of Carsten Peter Thiede, The Earliest Gospel Manuscript? The Qumran Fragment 7Q5 and its Significance for New Testament Studies.
  3. ↑ Klaus Berger: Qumran: Finds - Texts - History. Reclam, Stuttgart 1998, p. 32f.