The First New Testament

Some friends from America visited the other month and he mentioned the manuscript finds at Qumran that some claim are fragments of the New Testament. It rang no clear bells with me and so he has kindly sent me a 1978 book by two Westminster graduates (David Estrada and William White Jr) called The First New Testament. The foreword is by Jose O'Callaghan who first suggested in 1972 that papyrus fragments in Cave 7 at Qumran near the Dead Sea might be NT ones. O'Callaghan died in 2001 and the cause was taken up in the eighties by Peter Carsten Thiede who died prematurely in 2004 but I don't think there have been any major changes to the situation since 1978, which is that liberals do not like this idea of such an early NT and conservative evangelicals do. The illustrated book is 140 pages in length and simply walks through the argument giving a little of the necessary background. The most interesting aspect of it is that it blows the pre-suppositons of liberalism and neo-orthodoxy pretty much out of the water. The suggested finds are as follows

7Q4 I Timothy 3.16, 4.1-3

7Q5 Mark 6. 52, 53,

7Q6 Acts 27.38

7Q7 Mark 12.17

7Q8 James 1.23, 24

7Q9 Romans 5.11-12

7Q10 II Peter 1.15

7Q15 Mark 6.48

7Q5 Mark 6. 52, 53

 

Fascinating stuff.