According to Daniel B. Wallace the earliest manuscript of the Gospel of Mark has been discovered (see “Ehrman vs. Wallace: Round Three”). He writes the following in reference to a recent debate he had with Bart D. Ehrman:
“We have as many as eighteen second-century manuscripts (six of which were recently discovered and not yet catalogued) and a first-century manuscript of Mark’s Gospel! Altogether, more than 43% of the 8000 or so verses in the NT are found in these papyri. Bart had explicitly said that our earliest copy of Mark was from c. 200 CE, but this is now incorrect. It’s from the firstcentury. I mentioned these new manuscript finds and told the audience that a book will be published by E. J. Brill in about a year that gives all the data. (In the Q & A, Bart questioned the validity of the first-century Mark fragment. I noted that a world-class paleographer, a man who had no religious affiliation and thus was not biased toward an early date, was my source. Bart said that even so, we don’t have thousands of manuscripts from the first century! That kind of skepticism is incomprehensible to me.)”
It will be interesting to see what the scholarly community says about this in the months to come . (HT: Joel Watts)
the archives near Emmaus 
Looks like we’ll have to wait for Brill’s book on this curiosity.
Reblogged this on LXXI and commented:
Very exciting news from Dan Wallace. The Brill publication that is supposed to give the full scoop on this material will be most eagerly anticipated. This all sounds too good to be true.
You mean the academic community can’t see this fragment, but have to wait until there is a book on it?
And then read the book?
I think you will find that scholars actually want to see this fragment, not read a book about it.
@Steven: No, that wasn’t what I meant.
You mean that the manuscript will be made available before the book?
@Steven: I was speaking of the readership of this blog (not all of whom are scholars) WRT to E. J. Brill’s book becoming available. I look forward to the book by E. J. Brill as this is a very exciting find indeed. I was saying nothing about when the manuscript would be made available in relation to the book. I know not, when this will happen.
This isn’t the same fragment that Peter Carsten Thiede was going on about in the 1990s is it? This was supposed to be a fragment of Mark found amongst the DSS. If it is, it’s old news already. And Brain Davidson, if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is.
I think it is odd that he criticizes Mr. Ehrman for stating that “we have no first century manuscripts of the gospels” when he admits that the manuscript of Mark to which he refers is the only one and it has yet to be made public. How was Mr. Ehrman (or anyone) supposed to know this? It seems that the broader scholarly world has been kept in the dark about this document, therefore their ignorance of it should in no way be shocking. Is the so-called “incomprehensible” skepticism the mere fact that Mr. Ehrman does not believe something based on one persons unsupported claims? Show us the document…then we will talk…
Fair point.
Assuming that against all odds this fragment turns out to be Mark Chap 12:25 what would be the implications if it read, “For in the resurrection they marry but are not given in marriage.” This may sound like a strange direction to take this subject but let’s speculate: if anyone who has lost a spouse or significant other s/he never got a chance to marry before death took them asks any Christian, “Will I be with my lost spouse/loved one romantically after I die” I can say with 100% certainty (because I’ve tested it) that the Christian being asked will respond, “Nope. I’m sorry. Mark 12:25 (and Matthew and Luke by extension since they copied from Mark) explicitly says, “In the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage”. To which the bereaved’s countenance plunges, they are thrown into despair, even depression and/or walk completely away from Christianity because they want nothing to do with a religion that says they will not be joining their beloved in the afterlife.
This may sound far-fetched, but it is a more common occurrence than you can imagine based on my extensive research on the Internet scouring various forums, debates, blogs, etc. that deal with the issue.
On a side note, what is the possibility that these three little words, “they neither marry”, upon which an entire sub-theology has been built, were accidentally miscopied or deliberately changed because the words did not fit the copier’s personal beliefs about the afterlife? Given the explosive nature of the question of marriage in the afterlife, I would say that, like the question of eternal torment vs. universal redemption, the chances that Mark 12:25 was altered range from possible to very likely.