Questions Regarding Marzeah Papyrus
08/23/2005 23:14 Filed in: Faith & Reason
In my review of Ink & Blood (below), I mentioned that until my tour of the exhibit, I'd never heard of the Marzeah Papyrus. Since then, I've had time to do a brief survey of opinions, and I've found that there's quite a bit of question regarding its authenticity. That doesn't surprise me. I'm no expert on such things, but it just seems too clean to be a 7th century BC (pre-Babylonian Exile) document. And evidently, there's been some resistance on the part of the exhibit's curator, Dr. William Noah, to allow the papyrus to be examined. Well, he shouldn't be resistant. If it's a fake, it's a fake and there's no reason not to try to determine it's authenticity.
Heck, the "meteorite" in my 4th grade science fair project turned out to be a regular old lava rock. Oh well--my mistake--but I'm glad I know (and I stopped calling it a meteorite).
According to the exhibit catalog, the papyrus can be translated, "Thus says God (Elohim) to [Gera]: The marzeah and the millstones and the house are yours. As for [Yisa], he should keep away from them. And Malka is the depositary (guarantor)."
Regardless, you could take the Marzeah Papyrus out of the exhibit and it does not detract from what's still there. In fact, other than presenting an older form of Hebrew script, the papyrus really doesn't even add all that much to the history being presented. As you can see in the translation above, it's not an actual biblical text. It's only purported connections to the Bible are the Hebrew script and the reference to elohim. However, elohim can also be translated "gods" according to the context in which it's used. Considering that the Marzeah festival was pagan, this might be the case with this artifact (IF it's genuine--and that's a very big IF). As I mentioned in the review, I was much more impressed with the many first editions of the English Bible. These and the other papyri, scrolls, and tablets stand on their own as part of an exhibit that gathers together many unique and priceless items all in one place.