Is 7Q5 a Fragment of Mark?
I came across reference to 7Q5 at this blog (originally from here ). 7Q5 is a fragment of a scroll found at Qumran - part of the famous Dead Sea Scrolls. If the fragment really is part of Mark, specifically Mark 6:52-53, that would date Mark to around AD 50, significantly earlier than the usual dating of AD 70. From the blog: "A final piece of evidence comes from the Dead Sea Scrolls Cave 7. Jose Callahan discovered a fragment of the Gospel of Mark and dated it to have been written in A.D. 50. He also discovered fragments of Acts and other epistles and dated them to have been written slightly after A.D. 50." This is what the fragment looks like (image is from Wiki commons ), so you can see how small it is and how many letters are present: There is an excellent web pages on this topic at Bible.org , which is a nondenominational Christian web site that appears to be well respected. From the conclusion: First, what is the hard evidence on which O’Callaghan’s ide...