Stolen Fragments: Black Markets, Bad Faith, and the Illicit Trade in Ancient Artefacts

In 2012, Steve Green, billionaire and president of Hobby Lobby, announced a purchase of a Biblical artefact-a fragment of papyrus carrying lines from Paul's letter to the Romans, and dated to the second century CE. Noted scholar Roberta Mazza was stunned. When was this piece discovered, and how could Green acquire such a rare item? The answers, which Mazza spent the next ten years uncovering, came as a shock: the fragment had come from a famous collection held at Oxford University, and its ...