7Q5

O'Callaghan challenged the reading of the original edition of the fragment, largely because he misunderstood the original editor's use of an iota subscript in line 2 of the fragment. The Greek text below shows O'Callaghan's reconstruction with bold font representing proposed identifications with characters from 7Q5: 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. hou gar synēkan epi tois artois, all ēn autōn ē kardia pepōrō- menē. kai diaperasantes [epi tēn gēn] ēlthon eis gennēsaret kai prosōrmisthēsan. kai exel- thontōn autōn ek tou ploiou euthys epignontes auton. 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 ==

O'Callaghan's argument is as follows: • According to O'Callaghan, in line 2 "after the ⲱ, the ⲁ suggested by the editors seems inadmissible. The traces of the facsimile are too uncertain to allow a satisfactory reading, even though one comes to discover the left vertical stroke and the peculiar descending contour of a ⲛ similar to that of line 4." By reading a nu after the omega, O'Callaghan was able to reconstruct the words [α]υτων η [καρδια], which could be matched with a passage in Mark's gospel. • O'Callaghan pointed out that the combination of letters ννησ in line 4 may be part of the word Γεννησαρετ . • O'Callaghan argued that the spacing before the word και ("and") suggests a paragraph break, which is consistent with the normative layout for Mark 6:52-53. • 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". The reasons why most scholars have rejected O'Callaghan's arguments include the following: • Several of the letters read or reconstructed by O'Callaghan are highly debatable (especially the nu in line 2). • The spacing before the word και ("and") proposed as a paragraph break may not be indicative of anything. • In papyri spacings of this width can be also found within words (Pap. Bodmer XXIV, plate 26; in Qumran in fragment 4Q122). • Other examples in the Qumran texts show that the word και ("and") usually was separated with spacings – and this has nothing to do with the text's structure (as proposed by O'Callaghan). • The sequence ννησ can be also found in the word εγεννησεν ("begot"), a very common word used in biblical genealogies and the reconstruction suggested by the original editor. • To make 7Q5 'fit' Mark 6:52-53, the words επι την γην ("to the land") in line 4, which are found in Mark 6:53, would have to be considered as being omitted from 7Q5 in order to fit into its column. However, this omission is found in no extant manuscripts of Mark's Gospel. • The computer search performed by Thiede assumed that all the disputed letter identifications made by O'Callaghan were correct, an assumption which is rejected by scholars. • A similar search performed by scholar Daniel Wallace, which allowed other identifications for the disputed letters, found sixteen matches. Anachronism found in Mark's Gospel • Another problem with identifying 7Q5 as Mark's gospel is the argument that Mark 12:13–17 may potentially contain a reference to Vespasian's Fiscus Judaicus imposed in 71 AD, meaning the gospel had to be written after this date, while 7Q5 dates to before 50 AD. == Significance ==

If 7Q5 was actually a fragment of and was deposited in the cave at Qumran by 68 AD, it would become the earliest known fragment of the New Testament, predating P52 by at least some if not many decades. Yet, 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". 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. ==See also==