Oxford professor who worked at Baylor allegedly stole ancient Bible fragments, sold them to Hobby Lobby

"In February 2012, speculation spread that the oldest known biblical fragment had been discovered and examined by a small and tight-lipped group of scholars and artifact dealers. Those who had seen it couldn’t say much about the so-called “First-Century Mark.” They all described the text as the first few verses from the Gospel, which was allegedly recorded in the first 100 years after the birth of Jesus. The lucky few who claimed to have laid eyes on the rare and invaluable artifact said they were bound by nondisclosure agreements to keep secret the identity of the Mark’s owner.

For many prominent religion scholars, the NDA may as well have been a name tag. Only the Green Collection required scholars to sign the agreements at the time, the Daily Beast reported earlier this year. Steve Green, the president of Hobby Lobby who amassed one of the largest private collections of biblical artifacts in the world in just 10 years, even hinted that the fragment might be part of his massive archive. “At some point it was like, this is an item I want to pursue,” he told the authors of “Bible Nation,” when they asked the crafting mogul what he knew about the first-century Mark while researching their 2017 book.

Scott Carroll, who served as director for the Green Collection, publicly said he’d first seen the fragment in late 2011, laid out on a pool table in Obbink’s Oxford office among classical busts and Egyptian funerary masks. He refused to say who owned the verses or whether he’d helped Green buy them."

[link to www.wacotrib.com (secure)]