Papyrus 137

An Announcement in a Debate

On 1 February 2012, in his third public debate with B. D. Ehrman at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the New Testament scholar D. B. Wallace said that a fragment of Mark's Gospel had been identified and dated to the first century. If that were right it would be the earliest copy of any part of the New Testament by half a century or more, and the claim spread accordingly. Wallace could say nothing further; later in 2012 he signed a non-disclosure agreement in order to be allowed to see the fragment, and for six years, at every speaking engagement where he was asked, that was the only answer he could give.

The fragment was published in 2018 as P.Oxy. LXXXIII 5345, edited by D. Obbink and D. Colomo, and catalogued as P137. It is a single small piece of a papyrus codex carrying, on its two sides, parts of Mark 1:7-9 and Mark 1:16-18. The Egypt Exploration Society, which owns it, put the date plainly in its own statement of 4 June 2018: "After rigorous comparison with other objectively dated texts, the hand of this papyrus is now assigned to the late second to early third century AD."

What the Owning Institution Says Happened

The Egypt Exploration Society's statement is unusually full and it is the primary source for this whole affair. The fragment was excavated by Grenfell and Hunt at Oxyrhynchus, probably in 1903; its inventory number is 101/14(b), and the Society apologised for a typographical error in the published volume. Its record card, made by R. Coles in the early 1980s to help the editors choose texts for publication, is marked "I/II" — a provisional guess at a first- or early-second-century date, made without detailed study and, in the Society's words, "without access to today's online search tools". R. Coles did not identify the text as Mark; the clearest clue is a word on the abraded side that a quick inspection would not have caught.

The identification as Mark was made in 2011 by a researcher working for Professor Obbink, then one of the General Editors of the Oxyrhynchus series, and Obbink decided to prepare it for publication himself. The Society says this is "the same text that Professor Obbink showed to some visitors to Oxford in 2011/12, which some of them reported in talks and on social media as possibly dating to the late first century AD on the basis of a provisional dating when the text was catalogued many years ago." On the question everybody asked, it is categorical: the papyrus "has never been for sale, whatever claims may have been made arising from individual conversations in the past". On the non-disclosure agreement it is equally direct: "The EES has no knowledge of, and has never seen, the NDA which Professor Daniel Wallace says someone required him to sign about the unpublished Mark fragment. Professor Obbink too says he has no knowledge of it."

Where the Accounts Do Not Agree

Two of those points are contested by name, and an article that printed only the institution's version would be misleading its reader. Wallace replied on 11 June 2018. He accepts that he signed nothing with the Society: "It is true that I never signed an NDA with the EES. The NDA I signed was with Jerry Pattengale, who represented a major collection that was interested in purchasing the papyrus." He dates it: "I signed the NDA in early October 2012; I still possess my copy of it along with the email it was attached to — an email that explicitly speaks of the purchase as the reason for the NDA." And on the sale he is blunt: "So far as I know, the fragment was most certainly for sale in 2012. This was confirmed to me by several individuals, Dr. Pattengale included." So "never for sale" and "most certainly for sale" both stand on the public record and neither has been withdrawn. The Society speaks for itself, as owner; Wallace reports what he says he was told by others, Pattengale among them, and Pattengale's own account of the affair is not represented here. What nobody disputes is that the fragment never actually left the Society's collection.

A much larger controversy about Oxyrhynchus papyri surrounds Professor Obbink, and it has to be stated carefully because it concerns a living man against whom nothing has been proved in court. The Society's statement of 14 October 2019 says that thirteen texts "were taken without authorisation from the EES" and were then held by the Museum of the Bible, and that the Museum told the Society eleven of them had been "sold to Hobby Lobby Stores by Professor Obbink, most of them in two batches in 2010"; a further twenty-one were identified during 2020 and returned. Obbink denies it, and his statement through his lawyers belongs beside the allegation every time it is printed: "The allegations made against me that I have stolen, removed or sold items owned by the Egyptian Exploration Society collection at the University of Oxford are entirely false. I would never betray the trust of my colleagues and the values which I have sought to protect and uphold throughout my academic career in the way that has been alleged. I am aware that there are documents being used against me which I believe have been fabricated in a malicious attempt to harm my reputation and career. I am working with my legal team in this regard." On the Society's own most recent word, an update dated 24 July 2025, the police investigation is still open and no charges have been announced. The fragment itself never left the Society's collection. The Society states that the four texts specified in the handwritten list published alongside the 2013 contract remain in its collection, and that two of them were published as P.Oxy. LXXXIII 5345 and 5346 — so this papyrus appears to have been named in that contract, and it was never sold and never went anywhere.

What Wallace himself wrote when publication released him is the part worth reading slowly: "In my debate with Bart, I mentioned that I had it on good authority that this was definitely a first-century fragment of Mark. A representative for who I understood was the owner of FCM urged me to make the announcement at the debate, which they realized would make this go viral. However, the information I received and was assured to have been vetted was incorrect. It was my fault for being naive enough to trust that the data I got was unquestionable, as it was presented to me. So, I must first apologize to Bart Ehrman, and to everyone else, for giving misleading information about this discovery." He had never seen the fragment before making the announcement, had not discovered it and was not editing it, and believed the group that approached him owned it — "had I known otherwise, I never would have made the public announcement." He also reported that "the world-class papyrologist who dated the fragment to the first century had already, prior to my debate with Ehrman, adjusted his views." Wallace does not name him and this article does not identify him. It is worth noticing that the Society's own account traces the early date not to a papyrologist's judgement at all but to R. Coles's provisional record card, and that the two accounts have not been reconciled.

So be precise about what went wrong, because it is misdescribed in both directions. This was not a forgery: the fragment is genuine, excavated, and owned by a scholarly society. It was not an institutional deception: the Society never dated it to the first century. What happened is that a provisional pencil note on a catalogue card from the early 1980s, made by someone who had not read the text, escaped into public advocacy through a chain of people who appear not to have checked it, and was then protected for six years by a non-disclosure agreement and by the reluctance of anyone who knew better to say so publicly. The scholars who have written this up most carefully are evangelicals — E. Hixson forced it into the open in May 2018 and wrote the post-mortem, and the volume he edited with P. Gurry made the wider point: overstated manuscript claims damage the case they are meant to serve, because the correction always arrives eventually and it arrives with the church's name on it. Hixson also says the thing that is easiest to forget: "P137 is still an amazing discovery! It is probably the oldest manuscript of Mark in existence."

Scripture references

• Mark 1:7-9 — Preserved on one side of the fragment
• Mark 1:16-18 — Preserved on the other
• Proverbs 12:22 — "Lying lips are an abomination to Yahweh, but those who do the truth are his delight"

Sources

• Holding institutionEgypt Exploration Society, "P.Oxy LXXXIII 5345" (statement, 4 June 2018) — The Egypt Exploration Society, London · The owning society's own account, read in full. Source of the date assigned on publication, the 1903 excavation, the corrected inventory number 101/14(b), Revel Coles's "I/II" record card, the 2011 identification, the statement that the fragment has never been for sale, and the Society's position on the non-disclosure agreementSupports: Every factual claim in the first two sections
• Holding institutionEgypt Exploration Society, "Professor Obbink and missing EES papyri" (statement, 14 October 2019) — The Egypt Exploration Society, London · The Society's update on the wider affair, read in full. It states that "the four texts specified in the handwritten list made public alongside the 2013 contract, which are probably the texts of that contract, remain in the EES collection, and two have been published as P.Oxy. LXXXIII 5345 and 5346" — which is why this article does not say that this fragment was soldSupports: That P.Oxy. 5345 remained in the Society's collection throughout
• Primary textD. B. Wallace, "First-Century Mark Fragment Update" — Daniel B. Wallace, Dallas Theological Seminary · 23 May 2018, on his own site; read in full so that his account and his apology are quoted whole rather than in fragments. Source of the debate date and venue, the non-disclosure agreement, the apology, and his statement that he had not seen the fragment before the announcementSupports: Wallace's own account of what he said and why, in his own words
• ReferenceP. Gurry, "Dirk Obbink Denies Wrongdoing" (Evangelical Textual Criticism) — Peter Gurry, quoting the Waco Tribune-Herald · 19 October 2019. Carries Professor Obbink's statement, issued through his attorneys to the Waco Tribune-Herald, in full. It is quoted here from this page, which was opened and read; the newspaper's own article was not reachable. The denial is reproduced in this article without omissionSupports: Professor Obbink's denial, in his own words
• Primary textD. B. Wallace, "'First-Century' Mark Fragment: Second Update" — Daniel B. Wallace, Dallas Theological Seminary · 11 June 2018, on his own site; read in full. His direct reply to the Egypt Exploration Society's statement, naming Jerry Pattengale as the counterparty to the non-disclosure agreement, dating it to early October 2012, and disputing the Society's account of whether the fragment was for saleSupports: That the Society's "never for sale" statement is contested on the record by a named scholar
• Holding institutionEgypt Exploration Society, "Museum of the Bible and missing EES papyri" (26 February 2021, updated 24 July 2025) — The Egypt Exploration Society, London · The Society's latest published word, read in full. It reports a further twenty-one fragments identified during 2020, and its update of 24 July 2025 states that "Thames Valley Police is continuing its investigation into the removal of papyri from the EES collection" — which is why this article says the matter is unresolved rather than concludedSupports: The current status of the police investigation, and that no charges have been announced
• ReferenceE. Hixson, "Taking Stock of the 'First-Century Mark' Saga" — Elijah Hixson, Text & Canon Institute, Phoenix Seminary · Published 25 January 2022 and read in full. Hixson traces the affair from Scott Carroll's tweet of 1 December 2011 onward and draws the lessons quoted here, including that thirty-four papyri were returned to the Egypt Exploration Society. The page's own title is "Taking Stock", not "Lessons from", which is only its URLSupports: The evangelical scholarly reckoning with the affair, and what the fragment is still worth
• EncyclopediaWikipedia: Papyrus 137

Further reading

• Egypt Exploration Society: statement regarding P.Oxy LXXXIII 5345
• D. B. Wallace, "First-Century Mark Fragment Update"
• E. Hixson, "Taking Stock of the 'First-Century Mark' Saga" (Text & Canon Institute)

Reflect

Someone repeated a claim he had not checked, and then said so publicly, under his own name. Which is harder for you: not repeating it, or saying so afterwards?