Dr. Bock:

I must be overlooking the obvious here. This 'slow' process to which you are referring is now more than 30 years!! Once they were photographed, and I'm referring to the 1,000s of fragments, was not the next step to read them immediately, if not faster :o ) If there is only one scholar working on this, are there not 20 more scholars ready and willing to help out?

I'm really struggling with why we discover ancient fragments and some scholar is not on that like white of rice. What am I missing? When Dan went into the Benaki Museum in Athens, it didn't take him very long to assess the contents of the manuscripts. Within just a very short period of time, he initially estimated a discovery of 8 uncatalogued mss. If you add up the other locations he's checked (and has not even photographed yet), the uncatalogued mss are approaching 22!!

I just don't understand why new discoveries like these are not assigned a priority almost immediately. I guess there are fewer Coptic scholars, but are there not at least a dozen or so who would jump at the chance to read these mss days after they are discovered? This is exciting stuff!

Brett