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by romaaeterna 2436 days ago
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...

1 comments

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.

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.