Apparently the Carbon-14 dating is all over the place. Of the three tests, two produced results that would place the papyrus' composition several hundred years BEFORE Jesus was even born and the last more than half a millennia AFTER:
http://larryhurtado.wordpress.com/20...tial-thoughts/
As for the scientific tests, those on the ink produced results consistent with the item being old, not modern. The two radio-carbon tests, however, are both a bit puzzling and interesting. The proposed dates of the two tests are out from each other by several hundred years. The one report (by Hodgins) notes the curious date-result (405-350 BCE and/or 307-209 BCE), about a thousand years earlier than the date from the other carbon-dating test (659-969 CE), and Hodgins suggests some kind of contamination of the sample. But I’d assume that a contamination would come from something later than the ancient setting, and so skew the date later, not earlier. I’ll need some help with this!
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