Oxford Professor Is Accused of Selling Ancient Texts
The Obbink stuff has been on slow boil for a few years now. Part of the problem is that even ancient papyri texts aren&#x27;t actually worth anything, unless they are really famous, but they are getting caught up by all the export regulations for gold and jewels (sometimes under new interpretations of law).<p>Obbink has made some poor decisions, but I feel that the rules have changed on his watch. Also, while &quot;Hobby Lobby&quot; is a fun way to denigrate the people involved here, they are actually behind the Bible Museum in D.C., probably the most important Biblical antiquities collection in the world, and were purchased for museum display.<p>That said, the museum acquisition team has run into export issues before, and their team was caught buying items from Saudi Arabians without a proper chain of custody (and therefore likely looted), and shipping it back to the US under false pretenses.<p>Not good, but a big part of it is that they have &quot;Bible&quot; in their museum name, and that gets all the bigots out in arms.<p>(I wish I could read this article, but my usual NYT tricks aren&#x27;t working.)