The fact is that the earliest manuscripts of all or parts of Mark that we do have show remarkable consistency and stability. And none of the minor variations between different manuscripts affect any major doctrine of Christianity at all

Much of the biblical scholarly world has been buzzing since Feb. 1, when a New Testament professor made a claim during a debate that was news to most everyone who heard it — a first-century fragment of Mark’s Gospel may have been found.

It would be the earliest-known fragment of the New Testament, placing it in the very century of Christ and the apostles.

The claim by Dallas Theological Seminary’s Daniel B. Wallace took place during a debate with University of North Carolina professor Bart Ehrman, an author whose popular books claim the New Testament cannot be trusted because the original manuscripts aren’t in existence.

The Mark fragment has yet to be made public, but Wallace provided a few more details on his website, saying information about the fragment would be published in the form of a book in “about a year.”

“It was dated by one of the world’s leading paleographers,” Wallace wrote. “He said he was ‘certain’ that it was from the first century.”

But if it is true that a first-century fragment has been found, it would be big news both in the scholarly world and in the larger Christian world.

Baptist Press asked Andreas Köstenberger, senior professor of New Testament and biblical theology at Southeastern Baptist Theological in Wake Forest, N.C., to explain the significance of a possible first-century Mark fragment. Köstenberger attended the Wallace-Ehrman debate.

BAPTIST PRESS: If there is a first-century fragment of the Gospel of Mark, what is the significance?

KOSTENBERGER: Currently, the earliest known available Gospel fragment is p52 (the John Rylands papyrus), which contains portions of John 18 and dates to around A.D. 125. So any find that gets us a quarter-century or so closer to the time the original Gospels were written would be highly significant, even sensational. Of course, in part the significance of the discovery depends on the size of the fragment, not to mention the verification of the date.

[Editor’s note: This article is incomplete. The source for this document was originally published on bpnews.net—however, the original URL is no longer available.]