Peter Carston Thiede is a German papyrologist, who claims to have re-dated a number of early fragments from the New Testament to the first century CE.
Since his claims arise frequently in internet "discussions" on the history of Christianity, I felt it might be useful to create a page listing some of the refutations of his work by the academic community.
Thiede's claims for the Qumran fragment 7Q5 are dealt with on my web page 7Q5: Is it 'Mark' and does it matter?.
(This document is a work in progress. Please contact me with any further information.)
"Thiede is no stranger to controversy. Threaded through all of his arguments is his view that a portion of Mark 6:52-53 is among the 18 Greek fragments found in Qumran cave seven. And since Qumran was destroyed in a.d. 68, this would make the scrap of Mark (known as 7Q5) early indeed. If true, this finding would suggest that copies of the Gospels were circulating widely much earlier than is generally believed. But this theory has been vigorously challenged, and at least for this reviewer, the fragment from Qumran is far too uncertain to support Thiede's conclusions. (Thiede even has to emend Mark 6:52-53 in order to make the Qumran papyrus work for him!)..." - Indiana Jones and the Gospel Parchments, Gary Burge, Christianity Today, October 28, 1996.
"Thiede's 1995 article suggests a lowered date for {P}64 -- P.
Magdalen Gr.17 -- by arguments which are methodologically
unsound. His further argument that there are nomina
sacra used in place of IHSOUS and KURIE is an
extremely flimsy one. These fragments of papyrus do not witness
directly to the reconstructions with recognizable inked letters
on physical papyrus. The layout of visible letters in one case
supports Thiede's (and Roberts's) observation that the text
contains Greek letters which represent the numeral 12, rather
than the Greek word for 12. In the other cases, other plausible
reconstructions of the lines are also possible. In the absence
of more data, such as the Barcelona fragments might provide,
these fragments do not provide any firm evidence for the
existence of nomina sacra in either
Roberts's date of ca. 200, or Thiede's 1st century dating."
- Media Papyri: Examining Carsten Thiede's Rediscovered Fragments, by Sigrid Peterson, PhD, University of Pennsylvania, May 14, 1995, (Revised September 1995)
"So, ignoring all the hype, the whole caboodle is a confidence trick. Sigrid Peterson of the University of Pennsylvania has comprehensively shown in Judaios Thiede's lowering of the date for P64 - P Magdalen Gr 17 - is methodologically unsound. Mistaken methods invalidate Thiede's inference about the date of the copy of Matthew from the P Magdalen Gr fragments. His redating is opposed to those of Bell, Skeat, Turner, and Roberts, all of whom agree that these fragments should indeed be redated but from the third or fourth centuries to c 200 AD, not the first century. Thiede does not explain why these authorities on papyrology are wrong. Skeat completely ignores Thiede in a 1997 review of work of these papyri in New Testament Studies. Thiede's is a minor contribution - he has shown simply that what was once P Magdalen Gr 18 is now P Magdalen Gr 17."
- The Jesus Papyrus: Eyewitness to Jesus?, Askwhy Publications.
'D. C. Parker of Birmingham University, UK, wrote an article - 'Was
Matthew written before 50 CE? The Magdalen Papyrus of Matthew" in
"Expository Times, 107.2 (November 1995)" pp.40-43. In his penultimate
paragraph, Parker writes -
"This is not an exhaustive description of the shortcomings in Thiede's
paper. It is a list of the chief of them. They are so fundamental as to
render his paper worthless. I find it extraordinary that any one could
even have thought of comparing the Magdalen papyrus with these hands
from Qumran, or, having done so, find it closer to them than to the
early stages of biblical majuscule. Thiede has failed to achieve his
necessary objectives. It is a matter for sorrow that such a claim should
have been made in so public a manner."'
- quoted at Re: Thiede and Qumran, Brian E. Wilson, 11 February 1999
"We agree with Thiede when he wrote ‘Caution is always the best approach in the dating of manuscripts’. In this article an attempt has been made both to hear and to critically investigate his claims regarding the date of P. Magd. Gr. 17 = P64. Although we recognise the service that he has performed in facilitating a reexamination of methodological presuppositions, our verdict on his claims is a negative one. The very early manuscripts to which Thiede appealed for close parallels to P64 turned out to be not as close as the somewhat later ones which he had overlooked. Although there is no absolutely definite evidence by which P. Magd. Gr. 17 = P 64 can be dated with certainty, the available evidence points to a date around AD 200. To be on the safe side I would suggest plus or minus fifty years as the possible range."
- The Date Of The Magdalen Papyrus Of Matthew (P. Magd. Gr. 17 = P64), A Response To C.P. Thiede, By Peter M. Head, Published In Tyndale Bulletin, 46(1995)251-285
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