'Gospel of Jesus's Wife': Doubts Raised About Ancient Text

[xchrom]

http://www.livescience.com/45020-gospel-of-jesus-wife-questioned.html

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This papyrus, said to be from ancient times, says that Jesus had a wife. Its discovery was announced in 2012 and new information uncovered by Live Science casts doubt on its origins.
Credit: Karen L. King, 2012

The authenticity of the "Gospel of Jesus's Wife" has been debated since the papyrus was revealed in 2012. Now, new information uncovered by Live Science raises doubts about the origins of the scrap of papyrus.

The gospel, written in the ancient Egyptian language Coptic, has made headlines ever since Harvard University professor Karen King announced its discovery. The business-card-size fragment contains the translated line "Jesus said to them, 'My wife …'" and also refers to a "Mary," possibly Mary Magdalene. If authentic, the papyrus suggests that some people believed in ancient times that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married.

At the time of the discovery, King tentatively dated the papyrus to the fourth century A.D., saying it may be a copy of a gospel written in the second century in Greek. [Read Translation of Papyrus]

Recently, several scientific tests published in the journal Harvard Theological Review have suggested the papyrus is authentic, but a number of scholars, including Brown University professor Leo Depuydt, dispute the papyrus's authenticity.

[stopbush]

1. The money quote:

"The arguments against the papyrus's authenticity by Depuydtand others are complex, but a key problem they cite is that the Coptic text is full of errors, to the extent that it is hard to believe that an ancient Coptic writer could have composed it."

[demwing]

5. Exactly, authentic Coptic scrolls

are always spell-checked, or at least show evidence of some use of liquid papyrus -

[stopbush]

12. I think you're missing the point of who normally produced such scrolls and how.

[demwing]

14. Actually, I was just being silly.

Sorry

[cbayer]

17. Silliness is strictly forbidden in the religion group.

[okasha]

6. This comes down to a problem with provenance.

There is a.huge food fight currently going on among scholars about whether any item without a documented origin or clear chain of ownership should be published or even studied at all.

[skepticscott]

7. No, it comes down to promoting a religious agenda

and whether the alleged authenticity of a piece weighs for or against a particular agenda. That's what both sides in all of these fights are really concerned with.

If the fragment had Jesus saying "My friends.." Or "My lunch...", there wouldn't be a controversy beyond very narrow scholarly circles, and even then, not much of one.

[struggle4progress]

8. You're welcome to provide any argument you can, one way or another, regarding

the papyrus scrap or its meaning

The first four chapters of Ehrman's Lost Christianities may provide an interesting peek into the problems scholars in this field face: Ehrman names those chapters The Ancient Discovery of a Forgery, The Ancient Forgery of a Discovery, The Discovery of an Ancient Forgery, and The Forgery of an Ancient Discovery

The matter can be regarded as reasonably well-settled if one finds multiple independent lines of evidence pointing to the same conclusion. Radiocarbon dating can be helpful but not definitive; period style of the text can be helpful but not definitive; knowledge of provenance can be helpful but not definitive; possible ancient reference to the text can be helpful but not definitive; and so on

[skepticscott]

9. You're welcome to provide

a response that is relevant to what I posted, i.e. the only reason this "controversy" is getting any attention in the mainstream media.

[struggle4progress]

11. I don't see cause to suspect that scholars study such objects only because

they have some axe to grind: there are interesting questions here

[skepticscott]

13. As I said

feel free to post something relevant to what I said.

Or just go off on your own meaningless tangent, as usual. Feel free to throw in some links and stuff.

[TexasProgresive]

2. People can believe what they want

I don't think there is anyway to prove what this papyrus is, was or means. It is just too little - perhaps if it can be connected to other manuscripts something will come of it.

It makes no difference to me if Jesus was married, just like I have no problem believing in God and science.

The Jewish testament has strong imagery of of Israel being the spouse of God. The Christian testament is replete with Jesus identified as the Bridegroom and the church as his bride. So a sketchy reference of Jesus' wife from a vague source is close to meaningless.

[hrmjustin]

3. it was interesting while it lasted.

[Brettongarcia]

4. Opinion on this text has flip-flopped 3 or 4 times already. This article does not look definitive.

This article at times seems to claim that the problem is the spelling; though often scribes made many errors.

The bulk of the article is devoted to failing to find out who previously owned the fragment. Which in itself, does not say anything much.

It mentions triumphantly that the allegedly owner, now diseased, was not known to collect specifically writings. But he was known to collect some things, unnamed, in foreign travels.

This is a popular science mag that does not specialize in ancient manuscripts; and that is not citing any technical objections to the age of the paper, etc..

[struggle4progress]

10. Provenance matters because there's a lucrative phony antiquities market, so folk want to know

as much as possible about the prior ownership of a purported antiquity for which discovery information is unknown. If an object can be reliably traced back (say) to a reputable collector, one might form a different view of its probable authenticity than one would form, if the supposed provenance involves someone, now dead and not known to have collected such objects, with critical documents for the provenance also involving persons now deceased

[Brettongarcia]

15. Provenance matters. But it was unavailable in this owner, who requested anonymity

If the document is thought to be otherwise authentic, the fragment will increase in value; and prior to sale the owner might necessarily reveal himself to serious buyers.

[struggle4progress]

16. "... King published a contract provided by the current anonymous owner that .. indicates

it was purchased .. from .. Laukamp in November 1999 and that Laukamp had obtained it in 1963 from Potsdam ... Documents filed in Sarasota County, Fla., show .. Laukamp was based in Germany at the time of his death in 2002 and .. Ernest was named as the representative of his estate ... Ernest said .. Laukamp did not collect antiquities, did not own this papyrus and .. was living in West Berlin in 1963, so he couldn't have crossed .. into Potsdam ..."

http://www.livescience.com/45020-gospel-of-jesus-wife-questioned.html