Scholars question authenticity of 'Jesus' Wife' papyrus

Scholars question authenticity of ‘Jesus’ Wife’ papyrus

Friday, September 21st, 2012

Scholars have expressed doubt over the authenticity of a scrap of papyrus suggesting that Jesus had a wife.

Karen King, a professor of early Christianity at Harvard Divinity School, presented on Tuesday a 4th century fragment of papyrus that supposedly provided the first evidence that some early Christians believed Jesus was married.

An Associated Press report said scholars questioned the discovery. The report said experts in the illicit antiquities trade also wondered about the motive of the fragment’s anonymous owner.

Reports said the text, written in Coptic and probably translated from a 2nd century Greek text, contains a dialogue in which Jesus refers to “my wife.”

Christian tradition has long held that Jesus was unmarried, although there is no reliable historical evidence to support that, King was quoted as saying.

Stephen Emmel, a professor of Coptology at the University of Muenster who was on the international advisory panel that reviewed the 2006 discovery of the Gospel of Judas, said the text accurately quotes Jesus as saying “my wife.” But he questioned whether the document was authentic.

“There’s something about this fragment in its appearance and also in the grammar of the Coptic that strikes me as being not completely convincing somehow,” he said in an interview.

Alin Suciu, a papyrologist at the University of Hamburg, said the document is “a forgery,” adding that the script “doesn’t look authentic” when compared to other samples of Coptic papyrus script dated to the 4th century.

King acknowledged Wednesday that questions remain about the fragment, and she welcomed the feedback from her colleagues.

“We still have some work to do, testing the ink and so on and so forth, but what is exciting about this fragment is that it’s the first case we have of Christians claiming that Jesus had a wife,” she said.

Wolf-Peter Funk, a noted Coptic linguist, said there was no way to evaluate the significance of the fragment because it has no context. It’s a partial text and tiny, measuring 4 centimeters by 8 centimeters (1.5 inches by 3 inches), about the size of a small cellphone.

Sources