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Engaging Discussions about Early Christianity

Is the New Gospel Fragment a Modern Forgery?

The so-called “Gospel of Jesus’s Wife” has been publicly available for only three days now, and already New Testament scholars and scholars of Coptic and Gnosticism are hard at work on it. Most of the effort so far has been in deciding whether it is authentic or forged. And it ain’t lookin’ good for those who think it’s authentic! Some have pointed out that the fragment looks too neat around the edges to be believable; others have noted that the writing looks fake; others have argued that there are grammatical problems; and some have thought that it really is just absolutely too good to be true that of eight lines out of an entire Gospel, with only a couple of words surviving per line, two of those surviving words would just happen to involve Jesus saying “My wife”! As this all is unfolding, I am reminded once again that there are some *amazing* scholars out there who can do  brilliant work on very short notice.   The following was sent out by my colleague at Duke [...]

2025-09-10T12:18:54-04:00September 22nd, 2012|Christian Apocrypha, History of Biblical Scholarship, Religion in the News|
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The Gospel of Jesus’s Wife

The new Gospel “discovery,” the fragment of the so-called “Gospel of Jesus’s Wife”: I’m afraid I don’t have anything much to add to the conversations going on among experts and available to you by a simple Internet search. If you’re really interested, read around on the net. But I should say a few things, perhaps, from where I sit. First and most important for this post.  The big initial question is whether or not it is authentic.  I am not a Coptic palaeographer or a papyrologist, and so I cannot render an independent judgment.  A palaeographer is an expert in ancient handwriting, and is the kind of scholar who can look at a manuscript or a fragment of a manuscript (very carefully, magnified, from various angles!) and determine whether it is authentic or forged and if authentic when it probably dates from.   A papyrologist is an expert in ancient papyrus, especially papyrus manuscripts, who also can make judgments – based on the physical specimen rather than on the handwriting – about authenticity.   The initial appraisal [...]

2025-09-10T12:18:53-04:00September 20th, 2012|Christian Apocrypha, History of Biblical Scholarship, Religion in the News|
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BREAKING NEWS! A Significant New Non-Canonical Gospel Fragment

There is potentially exciting news just out this afternoon. Karen King, scholar of Coptic and Gnosticism at Harvard Divinity School, an expert on the Gnostic Gospels, has just released information about a newly discovered papyrus manuscript – a small fragment the size of a credit card. It is a Gospel fragment of only eight lines. But they are significant lines. On them, Jesus appears to refer … to his wife!! FOR THE REST OF THIS POST, LOG IN AS A MEMBER. IF YOU DON"T BELONG YET -- BETTER JOIN!! Here are the graphics and some links.   This is just breaking news, so I don’t have anything more to say about it. Front of fourth-century papyrus fragment Karen L. King's translation of the 8 lines from the front. Papyrus front text: Karen L. King 2012 Karen L. King's translation of the 6 lines on the back. Fourth-century CE codex in Coptic on reverse side.   Papyrus reverse side text: Karen L. King 2012.   http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/19/us/historian-says-piece-of-papyrus-refers-to-jesus-wife.html?src=me&ref=general&_r=0 http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/09/18/fragment-suggests-jesus-was-married/ And here’s a draft of [...]

2025-09-10T12:18:53-04:00September 19th, 2012|Christian Apocrypha, History of Biblical Scholarship, Religion in the News, Women in Early Christianity|
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My Colleague’s Archaeological Find!

You have probably noticed that almost every time an archaeological find makes its way into the major newspapers (or even the minor ones) it is a "discovery" that is very iffy, dicey, dubious, questionable and, to make a long story short, generally rejected by the real experts in the field. That's probably because real archaeologists are very careful, methodical, and, well, not all that interesting for the mass media. But they do the real work, and sometimes they come up with something really terrific. Their work may not make the front page of the NY Times, but it's the real thing, done by real, solid, labor, by real archaeologists. FOR THE REST OF THIS POST, log in as a Member. It doesn't cost much-- and all goes to CHARITY. Join today!! My colleague Jodi Magness is the real thing (I hired her into my department when I was chair, maybe 8 or 9 years ago; her office is across the hall from mine; we work together with our graduate students, etc.).   Her field is [...]

2025-09-10T12:17:55-04:00July 4th, 2012|Early Judaism, Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, Religion in the News|
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Religion in the News: Dating Jesus’ Death by the Earthquake

Geologists claim now that they have established the date of Jesus’ death. It was April 3, 33 CE. Thus: Jesus 'died on Friday, April 3, 33AD', claim researchers, who tie earthquake data with the gospels to find the date http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2149750/Jesus-died-Friday-April-3-33AD-claim-researchers-tie-earthquake-data-gospels-date.html For those who don’t know, the date of Jesus’ death has long been in dispute. The reality is, we are not sure when Jesus was executed (i.e., what year). It almost certainly happened during a Passover feast during the reign of Pontius Pilate as the Prefect of Judea. His rule lasted between 26-36 CE. All of our early Gospel accounts agree that the crucifixion happened on a Friday. In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, this Friday was the day after the Passover meal was eaten (and so, technically, it was still “Passover Day; see Mark 14:12). According to John the Friday was the day before it was eaten – on the day of Preparation for the Passover (John 19:14). But which year was it? FOR THE REST OF THIS POST, log in and access the membership [...]

2025-09-10T12:17:36-04:00May 31st, 2012|Canonical Gospels, Historical Jesus, Religion in the News|
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