7Q5

Among the Dead Sea scrolls, 7Q5 is the designation for a papyrus fragment discovered in Qumran Cave 7. The significance of this fragment is derived from an argument made by Jose O´Callaghan in his work "¿Papiros neotestamentarios en la cueva 7 de Qumrân?" (New Testament Papyri in Cave 7 at Qumran?) in 1972, later reasserted and expanded by German scholar Carsten Peter Thiede in his work "The Earliest Gospel Manuscript?" in 1982. The assertion is that the previously unidentified 7Q5 is actually a fragment of the Gospel of Mark, chapter 6 verse 52-53. The majority of scholars have not been convinced by O'Callaghan's and Thiede's identification [cite book
pages=56
url=http://books.google.com/books?id=TCrfgC6QWp0C&pg=PA56&vq=%22without+convincing+the+majority+of+leading+specialists%22&dq=%22reading+and+writing+in+the+time+of+jesus%22&sig=bwLoqmD7bv1FhweRKjTUZ81RPkQ
quote=C.P. Thiede drew on papyrology, statistics and forensic microscopy to try to prove O'Callaghan's case, yet without convincing the majority of leading specialists.
first=A. R.
last=Millard
title=Reading and Writing in the Time of Jesus
publisher=NYU Press
date=2000
isbn=0814756379] [citation
pages=193
url=http://books.google.com/books?id=UB4u-y-4laEC&pg=PA193&vq=%22met+with+scholarly+skepticism%22&dq=%22Whose+Historical+Jesus%3F%22&sig=jVTfw5eyB8uwMMbrNhyJcjdCAZM
first=Wayne O.
last=McCready
contribution=The Historical Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls
editor-first=William E.
editor-last=Arnal
editor2-first=Michael
editor2-last=Desjardins
title=Whose Historical Jesus?
date=1997
publisher=Wilfrid Laurier University Press
location=Waterloo, ON
isbn=0889202958. "On the whole, O'Callaghan's thesis has met with scholarly skepticism since the fragments are extremely small, almost illegible, and his strongest case does not agree with known versions of Mark."] and it is "now virtually universally rejected" ["... Qumran ms. 7Q5 ... is captioned as if it contains a fragment of Mark: it was of course O’Callaghan who made that controversial — and now virtually universally rejected - identication of this Dead Sea text as a piece of the New Testament ..." Elliot (2004), JK, "Book Notes", Novum Testamentum, Volume 45, Number 2, 2003 , pp. 203.] [Gundry(1999), p.698] .

O'Callaghan's proposed identification

This shows the Greek text of Mark 6:52-53. Bold characters represent proposed identifications with characters from 7Q5: [cite book
pages=315
url=http://books.google.com/books?id=1u_QZmC8TesC&pg=PA315&vq=7q5&dq=7q5&sig=cWYQarqV0Vom3BzHZYM8R13AbTI
title=The Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls : Their Significance for Understanding the Bible, Judaism, Jesus, and Christianity
date=2004
edition=First HarperCollins paperback edition
publisher=HarperCollins
location=New York
isbn=0060684658
first=James
last=VanderKam
coauthors=Peter Flint]

ου γαρ
συνηκαν επι τοις αρτοις,
αλλ ην αυτων η καρδια πεπωρω-
μενη. και διαπερασαντες [επι την γην]
ηλθον εις γεννησαρετ και
προσωρμισθησαν. και εξελ-
θοντων αυτων εκ του πλοιου ευθυς
επιγνοντες αυτον.

for they did not
understand concerning the loaves
but was their heart harden-
ed. And crossing over [unto the land]
they came unto Gennesaret and
drew to the shore. And com-
ing forth out of the boat immediately
they recognized him.

Argument

The argument is weighted on two points.
* First, the spacing before the word και ("and") signifies a paragraph break, which is consistent with the normative layout of Mark in early copies. Secondly, the combination of letters ννησ found in line 4 is highly characteristic and may point at the word Γεννησαρετ <Gennesaret>, found three times in the New Testament.
* Furthermore, a computer search "using the most elaborate Greek texts ... has failed to yield any text other than Mark 6:52-53 for the combination of letters identified by O’Callaghan et al. in 7Q5". [Thiede n. 31, pp. 40-41]

Several counterarguments exist.
* The spacing before the word και ("and") might be a paragraph break. But spacings of this width can be found in papyri sometimes even within words (Pap. Bodmer XXIV, plate 26; in Qumran in fragment 4Q122). Other examples in the Qumran texts show that the word και ("and") in many cases was separated with spacings - and this has in many cases nothing to do with the text's structure.
* Although the sequence ννησ is unusual in Greek, the word εγεννησεν ("begot") also contains those four letters. In fact, this conjecture was proposed by the authors of the first edition ("editio princeps") published in 1962. In such case the fragment might be part of some genealogy.
* In order to identify the fragment with Mark 6:52-53, one must account for the replacement of original δ with τ in line 3, although this difference is not without parallel in ancient Greek.
*citation
first=Daniel
last=Wallace
title=7Q5: 'The Earliest NT Papyrus?'
journal=Biblical Studies
date=2000
url=http://www.bible.org/page.php?page_id=1196 quoted at cite book
pages=252
url=http://books.google.com/books?id=o7futW840scC&pg=PA252&vq=7q5&dq=7q5&sig=8F58TRztNf3hmnzAc2WveVI8v9U
first=Stephen L.
last=Cox
coauthors=Kendell H. Easley
title=Harmony of the Gospels
publisher=Broadman & Holman
date=2007
isbn=0805494448]
* As the lines of a column are always more or less of the same length, it must be assumed that the words επι την γην ("to the land") were omitted, a variant which is not attested elsewhere..
* The identification of the last letter in line 2 with "nu" has been strongly disputed because it does not fit into the pattern of this Greek letter as it is clearly written in line 4. [Gundry (1999)]
* The computer search performed by Thiede assumed that all the disputed letter identifications made by O'Callaghan were correct. However, a similar search performed by scholar Daniel Wallace, but allowing other possible identifications for the disputed letters, found sixteen matches . If a computer search is performed with the undisputed letters of the fragment 7Q5 it will not find the text Mk 6,52-53, because the undisputed letter τ in line 3 does not fit to this text.Fact|date=August 2007

Significance

If 7Q5 were identified as bibleref|Mark|6:52-53 and was deposited in the cave at Qumran by 68 CE, it would become the earliest known fragment of the New Testament, predating P52 by at least some if not many decades.

Since the amount of text in the manuscript is so small, even a confirmation of 7Q5 as Markan "might mean nothing more than that the contents of these few verses were already formalized, not necessarily that there was a manuscript of Mark's Gospel on hand". [cite book
pages=11
url=http://books.google.com/books?id=5VVcEmE6ZJMC&pg=PA11&vq=%22the+contents+of+these+few+verses+were+already+formalized%22&dq=7q5&sig=OqcqHfvyQZT1lm-uWslVZ6PtoTs
first=Robert E.
last=Picirilli
title=The Gospel of Mark
publisher=Randall House Publications
date=2003
isbn=0892655003
edition=first edition
location=Nashville, TN] Since the entirety of the find in Cave 7 consists of fragments in Greek, it is possible that the contents of this cave are of a separate "Hellenized" library than the Hebrew texts found in the other caves. Additionally, as Robert Eisenman points out: "Most scholars agree that the scrolls were deposited in the cave in or around 68 CE, but often mistake this date...for the "terminus ad quem" for the deposit of the scrolls in the caves/cessation of Jewish habitation at the site, when it cannot be considered anything but the "terminus a quo" for both of these, i.e., not the latest but the "earliest" possible date for such a deposit and/or Jewish abandonment of the site. The actual "terminus ad quem" for both of these events, however difficult it may be to accept at first, is 136 CE."("italics his") [cite book
pages=129-30
url=http://www.amazon.com/Dead-Sea-Scrolls-First-Christians/dp/0785818855/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1196029728&sr=1-1
first=Robert
last=Eisenman
title=The Dead Sea Scrolls and the First Christians
publisher=Element Books, Inc.
date=1996
isbn=1852307854
location=Rockport, MA] This is long after the currently accepted date range for the composition of Mark.

ee also

*4Q108
*4QMMT
*List of New Testament papyri
*List of New Testament uncials

Notes

References

* citation
first=Robert H.
last=Gundry
title=No NU in Line 2 of 7Q5: A Final Disidentification of 7Q5 With Mark 6:52-53
journal=Journal of Biblical Literature
volume=118
pages=698-707
date=1999
url=http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0021-9231%28199924%29118%3A4%3C698%3ANNIL2O%3E2.0.CO%3B2-B
*cite book
first=Carsten Peter
last=Thiede
title=The Earliest Gospel Manuscript?: the Qumran Papyrus 7Q5 and its Significance for New Testament Studies
publisher=Paternoster Press
date=1992
isbn=0853645078
location=Exeter

Further reading

* Enste(2000), Stefan: "Kein Markustext in Qumran. Eine Untersuchung der These: Qumran-Fragment 7Q5 = Mk 6,52-53", Freiburg/Göttingen 2000 (NTOA 45).
*Estrada, David and White, Jr., William: "The First New Testament", Nashville/Thomas Nelson Inc. 1978, ISBN 0-8407-5121-4.

External links

* [http://www.bible.org/page.asp?page_id=1196 7Q5: The Earliest NT Papyrus?]
* [http://www.breadofangels.com/7q5/key.html 7Q5: Key to the Controversy]
* [http://www.theologicallycorrect.com/studycenter/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=32 Greek Qumran Fragment 7Q5: Possibilities and Impossibilities]
* [http://www.stefan-enste.de/7Q5DetailEngl.htm 7Q5 – An Interesting Detail]
* [http://www.centuryone.org/essene.html Jerusalem´s Essenes Gate]
* [http://www.monografias.com/trabajos21/cambiar-pregunta/cambiar-pregunta.shtml 7q5: Cambiar la pregunta (In Spanish)]