[trhway]

>>The contract was made in 2013 between Dr. Obbink and Hobby Lobby Stores

>extremely prejudicial ... to emphasize the purchaser of the fragment when the story is really about the person who is accused of illegally taking and selling the fragments.

i think laws are pretty consistent everywhere in civilized world - knowingly purchasing stolen staff is a crime, and buying ancient texts from an Oxford professor instead of buying them from Oxford doesn't really pass smell test (or like they say in legalese something like what would a "reasonable man" do)

[romaaeterna]

That anything was stolen is a new accusation. The accusations against Obbink previously have all been impropriety-related, related to dealing with the Hobby Lobby people at all.

It's rather surprising (perhaps "fantastical" ?) that all of the rumors turned up such a smoking gun after all these years. This is a case where the 80%/20% rule didn't apply, and the real answer turned out to be 150%.

Here's where things stood a few months ago: https://brentnongbri.com/2019/07/03/dirk-obbink-and-the-muse...

[microtherion]

It seems to me that your link and its comments give plenty of hints that property is suspected of having been misappropriated, e.g. "The sheer volume of all these new texts was raising concern." or https://brentnongbri.com/2019/07/03/dirk-obbink-and-the-muse...

Given that some of the people involved are deep pocketed and litigious, and British defamation law appears to be fairly plaintiff friendly, the participants in that discussion probably exercised extra caution.

[romaaeterna]

Sure, but people were thinking artifact smugglers and shady dealers and Obbink looking the other way, not theft from collections under his own care. Obbink is famous and well-known. He has published some of the most important papyri of the last decade. This is pretty brazen, if true.