Dirk Obbink

He was Lecturer in Papyrology and Greek Literature in the Faculty of Classics at Oxford University until 6 February 2021, and was the head of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri Project until August 2016.

Obbink was also a fellow and tutor in Greek at Christ Church Oxford,[1] from which role he was suspended in October 2019, as a result of allegations that he had stolen some of the Oxyrhynchus papyri and sold them to the Museum of the Bible.

[citation needed] Obbink's father Jack was director of the Federal Housing Administration office in Omaha; his mother worked for the state government.

[citation needed] In 1987, he received his PhD in Classics at Stanford University with his 1986 dissertation entitled Philodemus, De Pietate I.

[13] In August 2016 the Egypt Exploration Society (EES) decided not to reappoint Obbink a general editor of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri series, stating this was “because of unsatisfactory discharge of his editorial duties, but also because of concerns, which he did not allay, about his alleged involvement in the marketing of ancient texts.”[14] In May 2018 Obbink and Daniela Colomo published the papyrus fragment P.Oxy.

[15] This fragment contained portions of six verses from the first chapter of the Gospel of Mark, and was designated 𝔓137 in the standard classification of New Testament papyri.

In 2011/2012 the papyrus was in the keeping of Obbink, who had shown it to Scott Carroll, then representing the Green Collection, in connection with a proposal that it might be included in the exhibition of biblical papyri Verbum Domini at the Vatican during Lent and Easter 2012.

In the July/August 2019 issue of Christianity Today, Jerry Pattengale wrote an article in which he published for the first time his own perspectives on the 'First Century Mark' saga.

According to Pattengale, he had undertaken due diligence in showing images of the four fragments to selected New Testament textual scholars, including Daniel B. Wallace – subject to their signing non-disclosure agreements in accordance with Obbink's stipulations; and the purchase was eventually finalised, with the fragments agreed to remain in Obbink's possession for research prior to publication.

It was not until a gala dinner in November 2017, celebrating the opening of the Museum of the Bible, that Pattengale realised that the First Century Mark fragment had been the property of the Egypt Exploration Society all along, and consequently had never legitimately been offered for sale.

[21][22] In a statement to the Waco Tribune-Herald, Obbink denied all accusations of wrongdoing and claimed that documents linking him to the sale of the papyrus fragments were forgeries deliberately intended to damage his reputation and career.

Obbink's arrest by officers from Thames Valley police was reported on 16 April 2020 in the student newspaper The Oxford Blue.

Hobby Lobby, the company behind the Museum, alleges that Obbink sold fragments of papyrus and ancient objects stolen from an Oxford University collection in seven private sales between 2010 and 2013, worth a total of $7,095,100.