Mysterious Mark Fragment Published

A few days ago the mysterious fragment of the Gospel of Mark was published. In 2012 Dan Wallace said in a debate against Bart Ehrman that he had it on good knowledge that a first century fragment of the Gospel of Mark was discovered. This bit of news excited the apologetics community, but then began a period of silence. It was discovered that Wallace had signed a non-disclosure agreement after his debate and details about the fragment were kept under wraps … until now.

Elijah Hixson broke the news of publication at his Evangelical Textual Criticism blog. The most immediate piece of information one should know that that the fragment dates not to the first century, but the late second or early third century. It is a small fragment, containing Mark 1:7–9 on one side and Mark 1:16–18 on the other. In addition to this fragment there was a fragment of Luke and Philemon discovered. It is arguably the oldest piece of Mark that we have, and certainly is the oldest section of Mark 1 that is extant.

Wallace has issued an apology statement detailing that he was given misinformation and that he should have vetted his sources before making any public statement.

If you’d like to learn more about what happened with Dan Wallace, tune in to today’s episode of Veracity Hill at 1pm Central time. I’ll be interviewing him about what happened after his debate with Ehrman and to see what he can tell us now.