On the fake provenance of the "Jesus' Wife" ms

[StephenGoranson]

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc ... fe/485573/

[Secret Alias]

Very well researched article. I received it in an email shortly before you posted it here. Confirms my initial opinion about the document as a forgery.

[Ulan]

That story was much more interesting than I expected. Not regarding Christian writings, but it sure went places.

[Secret Alias]

Indeed what I found so suspicious initially was the idea that Jesus was married ... to a woman. Nothing is more consistent in early Christianity as the hatred of the female principle, of the feminine. Even the idea that love was sacred between male and male has an abundance of precedence. But God marrying something which is equal to an animal that struck me as wholly un-Christian. Even in the Gospel of Judas Thomas there is the mention of Mary 'becoming male' before being equal to the apostles. The equality of the sexes just isn't Christian or at least raises suspicions of it being entirely modern.

[DCHindley]

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc ... fe/485573/

I was impressed by the investigator's ability to follow up with records searches, considering that much of it requires in-person searching, not being available via internet. However that be, s/he also seems to wear his convictions on his sleeve. I am unsure whether the researcher has an agenda.

In my opinion, I think s/he has successfully identified a possible current owner, but it is by no means a "slam-dunk" ID. As someone who deals with records all the time, it has to be assumed that somtimes they are not maintained properly, or changes in ownership, etc., are not recorded as they should be.

A non specialist owner going about selling some possibly significant document may do odd things, as he or she does not know any better! Maybe I lost track of the leads, but the person who I think s/he identified had some familiarity with ancient manuscripts, and would have known better than to cut a sample piece out with a pair of scissors.

However, if it mentions Jesus' wife in multiple places, s/he may have expected the sample (which contains one of them) to be tested for authenticity, perhaps thinking it will more than likely be modern, and just felt this was the better course to determine whether s/he has anything valuable in his/her hands. Then s/he'd at least have a bargaining position (proved recent, it's worth nothing, if proved an authentic ancient document, s/he can get something for it).

That's a description of a business person, not as scholar. It is also true that an antiquities dealer is not always a scholar. Suppose the wife of a deceased collector has this in his collection, and knows only a little about it. Look what Theodore Geissel's wife did with licensing out his Dr Seuss book characters to movie producers etc. The depiction of the characters is nothing like Ted's original depictions, and if alive, he probably wouldnl't have allowed such liberties. Same goes for the relatively recent Our Gang movie compared to the old Movie/TV shorts. The originals had no sexual innuendo or bathroom humor at all, but the movies had bathroom humor (for example "Peetie" the salamander held out about trouser fly level of Froggy's hips so it resembled a, well, you know ... peetie).

DCH (lunch break during training class, boss)

[Ulan]

In my opinion, I think s/he has successfully identified a possible current owner, but it is by no means a "slam-dunk" ID.

You think the owner lied when he wrote the statement that he was, indeed, the sole owner of this papyrus fragment?

A non specialist owner going about selling some possibly significant document may do odd things, as he or she does not know any better! Maybe I lost track of the leads, but the person who I think s/he identified had some familiarity with ancient manuscripts, and would have known better than to cut a sample piece out with a pair of scissors.

He studied Egyptology in Berlin. He published an article in a good journal. His Coptic wasn't very good though, as one of his former colleagues said. Then there's the issue that the whole provenance of the papyrus is an obvious forgery. That may still not mean that the papyrus itself is a forgery, but it doesn't give much confidence.

[Peter Kirby]

I thought what took the cake is that he registered the domain name before Karen King announced it in September 2012.

https://whois.icann.org/en/lookup?name= ... uswife.com

Registered 2012-08-26.

[Secret Alias]

Even Karen King now says it's probably fake - http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc ... fe/487484/

[Kunigunde Kreuzerin]

What a glorious story