The Jesus' Wife Fragment 2015

"In May, 2015, an agreement was signed by Harvard University and the owner of two
Coptic papyrus fragments (the Gospel of Jesus' Wife fragment and a Coptic fragment
of the Gospel of John). It provides for the fragments to be deposited at Harvard for a
ten-year period (renewable) for purposes of study and research."
(Harvard Divinity School, Q&A page, #14 "Where is the fragment being kept?")

?????: Karen King responds to a reader's query about the Hershel Shanks article The Saga
of the 'Gospel of Jesus' Wife' in the May/Jun 2015 issue of BAR. The undated response
appears in the Sep/Oct 2015 issue, but seems to have been written before the following.

Jun 24: New Testament Studies special issue (vol.61, no.3, July 2015)
Editorial by Francis Watson
The Gospel of Jesus' Wife: Constructing a Context, Simon Gathercole
A Lycopolitan Forgery of John's Gospel, Christian Askeland
The Gospel of Jesus' Wife: Textual Evidence of Modern Forgery, Andrew Bernard
Material Criteria and their Clues for Dating, Myriam Krutzsch and Ira Rabin
The Jesus' Wife Papyrus in the History of Forgery, Christopher Jones
How a Papyrus Fragment Became a Sensation, Gesine Schenke Robinson

Jun 25: Mark Goodacre publicizes NTS issue and posts associated Gathercole video

Jul 13: Simon Gathercole posts 5 Reasons Why the Gospel of Jesus' Wife is a Fake
to the Christianity Today website

Jul 14: Stephen Carlson posts Red Flags of Forgery on his blog Hypotyposeis

Jul 20: Larry Hurtado posts The Collective Negative Judgment on his blog

Jul 20: Mark Goodacre posts The Jesus' Wife Fake Latest on his NT blog
(many interesting comments, including several on the item below)

Aug 15: Watson E. Mills posts Did Jesus Have A Wife? to Times-Herald.com.
(Notable for the questionable assertion that "... many, if not most interpreters
... are ... satisfied, based on pure science, that the fragment is indeed ancient".
See my comments thereon to the contrary.)

Aug 24: Owen Jarus article Origins of 'Gospel of Jesus's Wife' Begin to Emerge
appears on LiveScience.com, sparking a flurry of internet activity with its reference
to a second ink-test comparison between the Harvard fragments by Columbia Univ.

Aug 24: Andrew Bernhard's guest post The Gospel of Jesus' Wife: A Call for Closure
appears on Mark Goodacre's NT Blog, requesting disclosure of Harvard documents.

Aug 24: Christian Askeland reflects on the King BAR response, the Jarus article,
and the Bernhard posting, in The Gospel of Jesus Wife -- the saga continues ...

Aug 27: Jim Davila surveys the online response to the LiveScience article in
No, no one thinks the Gospel of Jesus' Wife proves that Jesus was married

Aug 28: Karen King releases the owner's transcription and translation
(in her possession since at least 2012, it makes use of my 2002 interlinear)

Aug 28: Andrew Bernhard's guest post The Gospel of Jesus' Wife: "Patchwork"
Forgery in Coptic ... and English appears on Mark Goodacre's NT Blog


(image courtesy Andrew Bernhard)

(a shorter recap is posted the next day)

Aug 29: Christian Askeland posts The Gospel of Jesus Wife and Grondin's Interlinear
commenting on Bernhard's posting and the owner's transcription

Sep 5: Andrew Bernhard posts The Forger and the "Translator" on Goodacre's NT Blog

Sep 8: Andrew Bernhard posts The End of the Gospel of Jesus' Wife Forgery Debate
(a retrospective overview) on Goodacre's NT Blog

Sep 10: Joel Baden and Candida Moss article appears on TheAtlantic.com
Why Scientists and Scholars Can't Get Their Facts Straight

Sep 10: Bart Ehrman posts and comments on an invited Bernhard piece in
Back to the Forgery of the Gospel of Jesus’ Wife

Sep 26: York Symposium on Early Christian Apocrypha, Session 5
Carrie Schroeder, Gender and the Academy Online
James McGrath, “Jesus’ Wife, Her Sister-in-Law, and the Bloggers” (revised as
Slow Scholarship: Do Bloggers Rush in Where Jesus’ Wife Would Fear To Tread?
... for inclusion in forthcoming (2017) Proceedings
Mark Goodacre, “Blogging Jesus’ Wife”
Janet Spittler, Respondent
(Later blog comments by James McGrath and Tony Burke (page down))

Oct 05: Owen Jarus posts update on LiveScience.com
'Gospel of Jesus's Wife': Records Hint at Improbable Journey of Papyrus

Oct 13: NT scholar Sean Winter posts on TheConversation.com
The Gospel of Jesus' Wife can't be taken as gospel

Nov 29: The Boston Globe runs a featured article by Lisa Wangsness, one of three reporters
given inside access to King in 2012. Wangsness summarizes events thus far and indicates
that she had a hand in persuading King to release the "owner's translation", though King
still refuses to release copies of supposed authenticating documents. Mark Goodacre
comments and links at The Gospel of Jesus' Wife Latest: Boston Globe Article
Also posted or updated same date: Five questions about 'The Gospel of Jesus's Wife'

My contributions:
A Start at Identifying the Forger of the Jesus' Wife Fragment, pt.1 (GThomas, June 26)
A Start at Identifying the Forger of the Jesus' Wife Fragment, pt.2 (GThomas, June 28)
On the Limitations of the "Ink Test" (GThomas, Sept 13)

This page initially made publicly available 30 June 2015. Last rev 12 March 2017.
Send corrections and suggestions for improvement to: