5 ms·

A scandal in Oxford: the curious case of the stolen gospel

67 points by theprop 7y ago

pulisse 7y ago
A gem from near the end of TFA: > At present, just over 20 papyri are displayed on the museum’s website, out of 5,000. I asked Holmes whether one can therefore conclude that the Greens own around 4,980 papyri that lack reliable provenance. “In general, yes,” said Holmes.
- sramsay 7y ago
  I think the Greens get off way too easy in this article. "In 2017, for example, a consignment of ancient Iraqi cuneiform tablets they had purchased was found to have been smuggled into the US as 'tile samples'." To be more precise: The Green family bought over 5,000 ancient artifacts (mainly cuneiform tablets and cylinder seals from Iraq) -- at one point, wiring money to seven separate bank accounts to do so -- at a cost of $1.6 million. And they did this despite having been warned by their own legal counsel that the transaction was probably illegal. They subsequently paid a $3 million fine. They continue to insist that all of this was "inexperience" on their part. I think it was simple greed, combined with their certainty that any part of the cultural heritage of the world that pertains to Christianity properly belongs in the hands of American evangelicals. I appreciate Holmes's candor, but let there be no mistake. He was hired to cover their asses.
  - pyuser583 7y ago
    Greed?! They’re not making money on this.
    - yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
      Greed applies to possessions, not just money.
      - pyuser583 7y ago
        That’s fair.
pnathan 7y ago
Fascinating stuff. Brings to mind the fact that much of earlier antiquity artifacts were plain looted into museums, etc. Mummies were made into artists' paint, for instance.
- danharaj 7y ago
  There was a fad where posh victorians were really into eating mummies.
  - leoc 7y ago
    If so it wasn't the first outing: https://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/british-skulduggery-proved-a-healthy-export-155731.html https://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/british-skulduggery-pr... .
sudosteph 7y ago
In case anyone else is interested, I found that the org that handles the the papyri has a really cool write-up about how they handle the digitization process. http://www.papyrology.ox.ac.uk/POxy/imaging/imaging.html http://www.papyrology.ox.ac.uk/POxy/imaging/imaging.html According to the article: . Over the past century, just over 5,000 of the half-million Oxyrhynchus papyri have been published. So between the large data set and scanning process, I'm hopeful that all of these (and other) ancient manuscripts will be shared publicly. I love imagining all the potential studies we can do with proper machine learning once we have the data set.
- fernly 7y ago
  System run by a "power Macintosh G4". Not clear when that web page was composed, but G4 was introduced in 1999 and phased out in 2003.
jimhefferon 7y ago
> I have stolen, removed or sold items No Oxford comma?
- htfu 7y ago
  One may not wield it while suspended from the institution.
Jedd 7y ago
> which would make it the oldest surviving manuscript of the New Testament, copied less than 30 years after Mark had actually written it. I thought it was well understood that 'Mark' didn't write this, at least not the Mark the book is named after, and that we're not really sure who did write that first story, or indeed precisely when or where.
- AnimalMuppet 7y ago
  That's disputed, not "well understood". Precisely when or where are also disputed, as you said.
- GlenTheMachine 7y ago
  Nowhere in the Gospel of Mark is there a claim of authorship. The book is commonly attributed to John Mark, an associate of Peter, but this is just an (admittedly very early) church tradition. That being said, it had to have been written by someone, and shorthand that person is often referred to as “Mark”.
  - thaumasiotes 7y ago
    This comes up surprisingly often in discussions of old texts. There are a bunch of related questions you might ask: - These texts are all attributed to the same author. Were they all written by the same person? - This text is attributed to a historical person. Did he write it? - This text is attributed to a single person. Is it the work of a single person? Is it a compilation? And so forth. It is not in general true that an ancient text has to have been written by someone, unless by "writing the text" you mean nothing more than that a single person copied or bound other sources into one more comprehensive document. (Even that isn't true; there's no conceptual problem with multiple scribes copying different pieces of a long text.) All that said, I see no problem with using a convenient designation to refer to a hypothetical author. The opinion of other people varies; I have seen the argument made that the reason we don't consider medieval European philosophy to have accomplished anything is that medieval European philosophy texts are generally not attributed to a named author. I think this is ridiculous; if the texts were significant, they would have attributed authors, or conventionalized authors, because of their frequent use in society -- just as, in your example, the Gospel of Mark is attributed to an entity named "Mark" for no particular reason.
Merrill 7y ago
Paging Inspector Morse.
rayiner 7y ago
> While reserving respect for Holmes’s reforming efforts, Mazza did not pull her punches. The Greens have “poured millions on the legal and illegal antiquities market without having a clue about the history, the material features, cultural value, fragilities and problems of the objects,” she said. This irresponsible collecting “is a crime against culture and knowledge of immense proportions – as the facts unfolding under our eyes do prove.” That’s an interesting charge. The article repeatedly points out that the Bible Museum didn’t know anything was stolen, and cooperated to return things when they found out. But its the Oxford classics department that is keeping these artifacts hidden, inaccessible to the public or even other researchers for the last century. It was an Oxford professor that tried to sell them illegally, but that was made possible by the secrecy of and opaqueness of Oxford’s stewardship of the collection. Who exactly is the villain?
- pulisse 7y ago
  > The article repeatedly points out that the Bible Museum didn’t know anything was stolen, and cooperated to return things when they found out What the article repeatedly points out are circumstantial reasons for thinking the Bible Museum very much knew that they were not engaged in legitimate trade. 99.6% of the papyri the museum owns lack provenance and are still inaccessible to researchers and the public, even digitally. Artifacts were declared as "tile samples" when shipped to the US. The museum only returned pieces after years of controversy whose resolution came about without their cooperation (proof that the papyri were stolen was assembled without cooperation from the Greens).
- Doctor_Fegg 7y ago
  The article is carefully phrased because one of the parties is much more likely to sue the publishers than the other.
ngcc_hk 7y ago
Is this still an on-going investigation?

67 points by theprop 7y ago

A gem from near the end of TFA: > At present, just over 20 papyri are displayed on the museum’s website, out of 5,000. I asked Holmes whether one can therefore conclude that the Greens own around 4,980 papyri that lack reliable provenance. “In general, yes,” said Holmes.

sramsay 7y ago
I think the Greens get off way too easy in this article. "In 2017, for example, a consignment of ancient Iraqi cuneiform tablets they had purchased was found to have been smuggled into the US as 'tile samples'." To be more precise: The Green family bought over 5,000 ancient artifacts (mainly cuneiform tablets and cylinder seals from Iraq) -- at one point, wiring money to seven separate bank accounts to do so -- at a cost of $1.6 million. And they did this despite having been warned by their own legal counsel that the transaction was probably illegal. They subsequently paid a $3 million fine. They continue to insist that all of this was "inexperience" on their part. I think it was simple greed, combined with their certainty that any part of the cultural heritage of the world that pertains to Christianity properly belongs in the hands of American evangelicals. I appreciate Holmes's candor, but let there be no mistake. He was hired to cover their asses.
- pyuser583 7y ago
  Greed?! They’re not making money on this.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
    Greed applies to possessions, not just money.
    - pyuser583 7y ago
      That’s fair.

pnathan 7y ago

Fascinating stuff. Brings to mind the fact that much of earlier antiquity artifacts were plain looted into museums, etc. Mummies were made into artists' paint, for instance.

danharaj 7y ago
There was a fad where posh victorians were really into eating mummies.
- leoc 7y ago
  If so it wasn't the first outing: https://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/british-skulduggery-proved-a-healthy-export-155731.html https://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/british-skulduggery-pr... .

sudosteph 7y ago

In case anyone else is interested, I found that the org that handles the the papyri has a really cool write-up about how they handle the digitization process. http://www.papyrology.ox.ac.uk/POxy/imaging/imaging.html http://www.papyrology.ox.ac.uk/POxy/imaging/imaging.html According to the article: . Over the past century, just over 5,000 of the half-million Oxyrhynchus papyri have been published. So between the large data set and scanning process, I'm hopeful that all of these (and other) ancient manuscripts will be shared publicly. I love imagining all the potential studies we can do with proper machine learning once we have the data set.

fernly 7y ago
System run by a "power Macintosh G4". Not clear when that web page was composed, but G4 was introduced in 1999 and phased out in 2003.

jimhefferon 7y ago

> I have stolen, removed or sold items No Oxford comma?

htfu 7y ago
One may not wield it while suspended from the institution.

Jedd 7y ago

> which would make it the oldest surviving manuscript of the New Testament, copied less than 30 years after Mark had actually written it. I thought it was well understood that 'Mark' didn't write this, at least not the Mark the book is named after, and that we're not really sure who did write that first story, or indeed precisely when or where.

AnimalMuppet 7y ago
That's disputed, not "well understood". Precisely when or where are also disputed, as you said.
GlenTheMachine 7y ago
Nowhere in the Gospel of Mark is there a claim of authorship. The book is commonly attributed to John Mark, an associate of Peter, but this is just an (admittedly very early) church tradition. That being said, it had to have been written by someone, and shorthand that person is often referred to as “Mark”.
- thaumasiotes 7y ago
  This comes up surprisingly often in discussions of old texts. There are a bunch of related questions you might ask: - These texts are all attributed to the same author. Were they all written by the same person? - This text is attributed to a historical person. Did he write it? - This text is attributed to a single person. Is it the work of a single person? Is it a compilation? And so forth. It is not in general true that an ancient text has to have been written by someone, unless by "writing the text" you mean nothing more than that a single person copied or bound other sources into one more comprehensive document. (Even that isn't true; there's no conceptual problem with multiple scribes copying different pieces of a long text.) All that said, I see no problem with using a convenient designation to refer to a hypothetical author. The opinion of other people varies; I have seen the argument made that the reason we don't consider medieval European philosophy to have accomplished anything is that medieval European philosophy texts are generally not attributed to a named author. I think this is ridiculous; if the texts were significant, they would have attributed authors, or conventionalized authors, because of their frequent use in society -- just as, in your example, the Gospel of Mark is attributed to an entity named "Mark" for no particular reason.

Merrill 7y ago

Paging Inspector Morse.

rayiner 7y ago

> While reserving respect for Holmes’s reforming efforts, Mazza did not pull her punches. The Greens have “poured millions on the legal and illegal antiquities market without having a clue about the history, the material features, cultural value, fragilities and problems of the objects,” she said. This irresponsible collecting “is a crime against culture and knowledge of immense proportions – as the facts unfolding under our eyes do prove.” That’s an interesting charge. The article repeatedly points out that the Bible Museum didn’t know anything was stolen, and cooperated to return things when they found out. But its the Oxford classics department that is keeping these artifacts hidden, inaccessible to the public or even other researchers for the last century. It was an Oxford professor that tried to sell them illegally, but that was made possible by the secrecy of and opaqueness of Oxford’s stewardship of the collection. Who exactly is the villain?

pulisse 7y ago
> The article repeatedly points out that the Bible Museum didn’t know anything was stolen, and cooperated to return things when they found out What the article repeatedly points out are circumstantial reasons for thinking the Bible Museum very much knew that they were not engaged in legitimate trade. 99.6% of the papyri the museum owns lack provenance and are still inaccessible to researchers and the public, even digitally. Artifacts were declared as "tile samples" when shipped to the US. The museum only returned pieces after years of controversy whose resolution came about without their cooperation (proof that the papyri were stolen was assembled without cooperation from the Greens).
Doctor_Fegg 7y ago
The article is carefully phrased because one of the parties is much more likely to sue the publishers than the other.

ngcc_hk 7y ago

Is this still an on-going investigation?