WP: How Harvard scholars may have been duped by a forged ‘Gospel of Jesus’s Wife’

[Zguy28]

How Harvard scholars may have been duped by a forged ‘Gospel of Jesus’s Wife’

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/05/05/how-harvard-scholars-may-have-been-duped-by-a-forged-gospel-of-jesuss-wife/

 

Two years after the academic world first learned of the so-called “Gospel of Jesus’s Wife,” and less than one month after the note card-sized document was seemingly proved authentic, a Smithsonian documentary trumpeting the artifact will air tonight.” This new fragment,” intones Karen King, a distinguished Harvard professor who first presented the papyrus fragment, “actually has Jesus saying, ‘My wife.’”

“Damaged and fragile, a fragment of ancient papyrus has unleashed a new interpretation of a religious story we thought we knew,” Smithsonian says of the documentary.” In one of the most startling discoveries in recent memory, scholars confirm that a codex written in the ancient Coptic language refers to the wife of Jesus.”

The documentary, which had been on hold for two years, got the green light after Karen King published a blockbuster study in the Harvard Theological Review in April. “I’m hoping now that we can turn away from the question of forgery and talk much, much more about the historical significance of the fragment and precisely how it fit into the history of Christianity and questions about family and marriage and sexuality and Jesus,” King explained.

She stated in the study: “I concluded this article by stating it would not be that last word on the subject.”

Indeed, it would not be. Last week, an American researcher named Christian Askeland published findings that scholars say represent the most convincing evidence yet that the ‘Gospel of Jesus’s Wife’ is a forgery.

 

Full article at link.

[Predicto]

Doesn't surprise me.   It is in the nature of that area of study that forgeries and misinterpretations will be made.

 

I suspect the same problem plagued the Council of Nicea, the Council of Rome, the Council of Hippo, the Council of Carthage, and so on.  

[grego]

Well, that's embarrassing.

[twa]

was she riding a megalodon?

[Zguy28]

Doesn't surprise me.   It is in the nature of that area of study that forgeries and misinterpretations will be made.

 

I suspect the same problem plagued the Council of Nicea, the Council of Rome, the Council of Hippo, the Council of Carthage, and so on.  

I was trying to explain to my wife about this and the nearest comparison I could come up with was journalism. Sort of like Dan Rather except not as bad.

[s0crates]

I'm impressed the Post editors had the good sense to put "may have" in the title, since it seems this remains an open question.

[drtdrums]

The question isn't open. It is 110% a fake, and this has been known for weeks. Askeland is only one source, but is exceedingly credible.

http://ntweblog.blogspot.com/2014/04/illustrating-forgery-of-jesus-wifes.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter&m=1

This is just another example of how uncaring certain sensationalist factions are when it comes to making a buck in this field. Simply put, the necessary work wasn't done to begin with, and this embarrassment was easily avoidable.

[s0crates]

The question isn't open. It is 110% a fake.

Seems like smart people in the field disagree. I'm not the expert, but it sounds like there isn't a consensus on the document's authenticity yet.

King published her findings in a serious peer-reviewed academic journal (Harvard Theological Review), a lot of her detractors look more like bloggers than academics (your source, for example, appears to be a blog). Have any of the people who claim its a forgery had their claims published in a legit journal yet?

And this is from the article:

Still, King and her work are not without defenders. One Coptic expert at Macquarie University in Australia told the New York Times the new findings were “persuasive,” but “we’re not completely there yet.”

As I said, I don't know, but it seems like the people who do know disagree. I think it is fair to call this an open question at the moment.

[drtdrums]

I certainly understand how it can appear that way given the WP article. Within the field, however, this entire issue has been handled irresponsibly by some and all "serious" scholars have been practically dismissive from the jump; given Askeland's findings (and the many other issues that were raised with the manuscript even before -- extremely few within the scholarly community ever thought this thing had a snowball's chance of being real), there is 0.0000% chance that the manuscript is "real".

 

A single unnamed "coptic expert" at an Australian University notwithstanding, the legitimacy of the manuscript isn't on thin ice -- it's dead of hypothermia and buried under twelve feet of snow.

 

To put it in perspective, the fragment had about 0.00001% chance of being "real" before this latest stuff.

 

Again, though, I totally understand why most folks didn't perceive the issue this way. It stems from the aforementioned irresponsibility from certain parties. Why wouldn't folks take the Smithsonian seriously? Why shouldn't they believe "Harvard scholars"?

 

There's a process for this type of thing, and publishing anything to the mass audience before the process is complete is total hackery. Sadly, it's become the norm in this field.

[s0crates]

A single unnamed "coptic expert" at an Australian University notwithstanding, the legitimacy of the manuscript isn't on thin ice -- it's dead of hypothermia and buried under twelve feet of snow.

What about all the experts at Harvard Theological Review? Is King herself not an expert?

Why wouldn't folks take the Smithsonian seriously? Why shouldn't they believe "Harvard scholars"?

I'd take both those sources over Christian bloggers with an axe to grind.

Again, this is well outside my expertise, but it seems the experts don't think the issue is settled. Some say its fake, some think its authentic.

[drtdrums]

Ah. I'd respectfully suggest your perception of who's holding an axe may need examination. Askeland's findings are a death knell, regardless of his personal belief system.

[The Evil Genius]

I think the inability of either side to be objective (as well as the inability to see that lack of objectivity) is quite human.

[Bliz]

as long as we all agree that the Shroud of Turin is legit

[Riggo-toni]

as long as we all agree that the Shroud of Turin is legit

Brilliant!

[MEANDWARF]

 

"Heh, heh those Harvards think their brain is so big"

[drtdrums]

Not to beat this to death, but from PaleoJudaica:

 

FURTHER TO ROGER BAGNALL'S STATEMENT, "I don’t know of a single verifiable case of somebody producing a papyrus text that purports to be an ancient text that isn’t. There’s always the first," quoted yesterday, two people have e-mailed with examples of forged papyri.

Joseph D. Reed at Brown University:

Though not a Coptic specialist or religious historian, I've been following the news about the Jesus' Wife fragment, including the notices on your blog. I'm reminded of an evident forgery of a papyrus fragment of Bion of Smyrna that I came across while researching Bion years ago. I'm attaching the ZPE article in which C. Gallazzi analyzes it as modern (though written on ancient papyrus); there's a photo of the papyrus at the bottom of the last page. Some of Gallazzi's arguments are similar to the ones raised against the two Coptic fragments, especially those concerning the John fragment by Hagen et al. I was reminded of it by Bagnall's statement that he knew of not a "single verifiable case of somebody producing a papyrus text that purports to be an ancient text that isn’t"; the Bion case is at least in some ways parallel.

The article is Claudio Gallazzi, "Un papiro falso con un frammento di Bione, cm.6.4 ×4.3," Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 34 (1979): 55-58.

Pierluigi Piovanelli at the University of Ottawa:

[With regard to Bagnall's statement] here is an excerpt from footnote 106 (devoted to illustrious forgeries) of my article in Burke's volume

Ancient Gospel or Modern Forgery?

, p. 183.

(... on) the Artemidorus Papyrus (attributed to the Greek forger Constantine Simonides [1820-1867?]) (... see) Luciano Canfora,

The True History of the So-called Artemidorus Papyrus

(Bari: Edizioni di Pagina, 2007); idem,

Il viaggio di Artemidoro. Vita e avventure di un grande esploratore dell’antichità

(Milan: Rizzoli, 2010); idem,

La meravigliosa storia del falso Artemidoro

, La memoria 855 (Palermo: Sellerio, 2011); Kai Brodersen and Jaś Elsner, eds.,

Images and Texts on the “Artemidorus Papyrus”: Working Papers on P.Artemid. (St. John’s College Oxford, 2008)

, Historia, Einzelschriften 214 (Stuttgart: Steiner, 2009); Federico Condello, “ ‘Artemidoro’ 2006-2011: l’ultima vita, in breve,”

Quaderni di storia

74 (2011) 161-248 (kindly brought to my attention by Claudio Zamagni) (...).

Larry Hurtado has recently blogged on the notorious hoaxer and forger Constantine Simonides. It seems Simonides was responsible for a number of forged papyri.

So if the Gospel of Jesus' Wife and the Harvard John fragment are papyrus forgeries, they are not unprecedented. There is even precedent for the use of ancient papyrus to make a forgery.

Background here and links.

UPDATE: Joseph Reed e-mails a follow-up:

Thanks for calling attention to the Bion forgery on your blog. That papyrus has some general similarities to the new Coptic ones—size, shape, appearance of the writing (though the letter forms are different)—common signs of a cautious counterfeiter? I believe the jury is still out on the fascinating Artemidorus papyrus that P. Piovanelli brought to your attention; despite the vigorous warnings of Canfora and Janko most researchers, it seems, incline toward authenticity—but its alleged fabricator, Constantine Simonides, did apparently forge texts on authentically old papyri

And:

I don't think the people arguing it's a fake "wanted it to be a fake." I was originally suspicious because it sounded too good to be true, and subsequent evidence has continued to point considerably more in the direction of a forgery than not. In any case, ad hominem criticisms can go in both directions and are ultimately unhelpful. The evidence remains to be evaluated on its own terms after all the accusations are done. The Lycopolitan John manuscript (the Qau Codex) was buried in a tomb, so it's hard to see how the Harvard John fragment could have been copied from it. I suppose it's possible that the Lycopolitan John manuscript had been copied (exactly according to its lineation) and the Harvard John fragment was copied centuries later (uniquely for a manuscript in the Lycopolitan dialect and, again, exactly following the lineation, this time of alternate lines) from this lost intermediate manuscript. Neither this nor any other scenario I can think of sounds likely to me.

I don't know of any verified modern forgeries using papyrus, but there has been at least one modern (1960s) forgery using parchment: the notorious Hebron "Philistine" scrolls. It was a bad forgery, but it managed to fool a number of scholars. Producing a papyrus forgery is not greatly different in principle, although this one, if that is what it is, is more sophisticated in that it uses ancient materials. But we would expect the arms race between scholars and forgers to result in more sophisticated forgeries.
 

[AsburySkinsFan]

Bottom line for me is this, I could care less if it's fake or not. It isn't first century (like every New Testament text is, it is similar to other Gnostic teachings of the 3rd-4th centuries which is where this is "supposed" to originate from. Which means that if I write that "George Washington was gay" on a piece of scrap paper today then my "gospel of GW" is actually closer in history to my subject than this fragment is to Jesus. Yet, 2,000 years from now when someone finds my text they shouldn't take it as authoritative in any way shape or form.

That said, the text is probably fake like most things of the magnitude normally are.