Blogs Abuzz for Jesus' Wife

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
TedM
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Re: Blogs Abuzz for Jesus' Wife

Post by TedM »

Perhaps I've overlooked something here, but it looks to me like that article argues strongly for forgery on the same kinds of grounds..What have I missed?

What really is there left to analyze? I'm assuming the probability of these kinds of matching mistakes in Coptic are exceedingly low, making forgery nearly 100% likely. If I'm wrong, then absolutely it makes sense for scholars to take the time to check it out.
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Peter Kirby
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Re: Blogs Abuzz for Jesus' Wife

Post by Peter Kirby »

The dramatic nail in the coffin would be for someone to reproduce the forgery, this time not for fame or fortune but just for the sake of promoting sound science.
"... almost every critical biblical position was earlier advanced by skeptics." - Raymond Brown
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neilgodfrey
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Re: Blogs Abuzz for Jesus' Wife

Post by neilgodfrey »

JoeWallack wrote:JW:
In general, this is another hit on the credibility of CBS (Christian Bible Scholarship), starting with the conclusion that The Gospel of JW is a modern forgery before the hard evidence is presented (trying to proof-text based on supposed modern parallels). Obviously Believers don't like evidence such as Jesus being married because it is clearly contradicted by what they think the evidence shows/proves. One of my criteria for evidence of fiction is likelihood in general. In Jesus' supposed setting, most men were married, so evidence supporting this should not be surprising.

Specifically, I currently have Mark Goodacre ranked as the top Internet Christian Bible scholar since Daniel Wallace jumped off the deep theological end. Goodacre has taken a hit here since he was so supportive of Modern Forgery:

http://ntweblog.blogspot.com/2012/10/je ... ce-of.html

and even worse, is not now confessing his sin.
Larry Hurtado was not shy of innuendo either: http://larryhurtado.wordpress.com/2013/ ... happening/
Last edited by neilgodfrey on Fri Apr 11, 2014 1:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Peter Kirby
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Re: Blogs Abuzz for Jesus' Wife

Post by Peter Kirby »

Yes, the (overwhelmingly male) biblioblogosphere were a particularly savage bunch for a period. Hurtado kicked off that round of spite and speculation.
"... almost every critical biblical position was earlier advanced by skeptics." - Raymond Brown
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Blood
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Re: Blogs Abuzz for Jesus' Wife

Post by Blood »

PhilosopherJay wrote:Hi Blood,

I have found the evidence that the NT was compiled before the time of Constantine less than convincing and about equal to "wishful thinking". Please provide your best evidence. Please note that the Muratorian Fragment originally placed by 18th Century Catholic Scholars in the Second century, has more recently been placed by more objective scholars in the Fourth Century where all the other evidence for the New Testament compilation lies.
I believe the Internet culture of wide-spread instantaneous information has allowed the the masses to leap ahead of the Religious Biblical writers who fashion themselves as scholars and are still using pre-Baconian, 16th Century methodologies for their medieval inspired scholastic scholarship

Warmly,

Jay Raskin
Have you read David Trobisch's "The First Edition of the New Testament"?

Origen and Tertullian were referring to "The New Testament" as a discrete book.
“The only sensible response to fragmented, slowly but randomly accruing evidence is radical open-mindedness. A single, simple explanation for a historical event is generally a failure of imagination, not a triumph of induction.” William H.C. Propp
PhilosopherJay
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Re: Blogs Abuzz for Jesus' Wife

Post by PhilosopherJay »

Image

Hi TedM,

The very first word in the "wife" papyrus seems to be Jesus.
There are mulitiple fragments/manuscripts of the Gospel of Thomas. That one of them should also begin with the word Jesus is not that unusual. About 90 of the 114 sayings in the Gospel of Thomas starts with the words "Jesus said."
Of the four sayings that Watson points to, three of them begin with the phrase Jesus said:
(30) Jesus said, "Where there are three gods, they are gods. Where there are two or one, I am with him."
(45) (45) Jesus said, "Grapes are not harvested from thorns, nor are figs gathered from thistles, for they do not produce fruit. A good man brings forth good from his storehouse; an evil man brings forth evil things from his evil storehouse, which is in his heart, and says evil things. For out of the abundance of the heart he brings forth evil things."
(101) <Jesus said,> "Whoever does not hate his father and his mother as I do cannot become a disciple to me. And whoever does not love his father and his mother as I do cannot become a disciple to me. For my mother [...], but my true mother gave me life."
(114) Simon Peter said to him, "Let Mary leave us, for women are not worthy of life."
Jesus said, "I myself shall lead her in order to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every woman who will make herself male will enter the kingdom of heaven."

The fact that the "wife" manuscript has the word "my" at the end of the first line, and the Gospel of Thomas saying #101 has it at the end of the second line is meaningless. The word "my" appears about 30 times in the Gospel of Thomas. Since there are less than 10 words per line, and the word "my" appears 30 times, the odds are that it will appear in 3 lines in the text at the end of a line. Since most of the sayings are "Jesus said" sayings, and are only about three lines long, the odds are pretty good that you would find the word "my" at the end of line 1, 2, or 3 of a saying beginning with "Jesus said." Watson was unlucky in that the word "my" does not appear on the same line with the word "Jesus." Instead, he has to wreck his parallel and suggest that the second line of saying 101 ends in "my," while the first line in the "wife" papyrus ends in "my".

Using the logic of Watson we can say that all four gospels must have been copied from the Gospel of Thomas because they all contain the phrase "Jesus" at the beginning of a line and all contain the word "my" somewhere in the next three lines afterwards.

I am not sure if I have interpreted Watson's points correctly, but if I haven not, it is only because they are presented in such an absurdly vague manner as to make them incomprehensible and worthless. This kind of incoherent argument may mean something to apologists, but it doesn't mean anything outside that world.

Instead of doubling down on his wrong bet, now that the scientific evidence is in, Watson should apologize to the scholars whose reputations he has impugned.
Warmly,

Jay Raskin

TedM wrote:From the article in question, we have the following:
..the text has been constructed out of small pieces–words or phrases–culled from the Coptic Gospel of Thomas (GTh), especially Sayings 30, 45, 101 and 114, and set in new ontexts...The author has used a kind of “collage” technique to assemble the items selected from Thomas into a new composition. While this is a very unlikely way for an ancient author to compose a text, it’s what might be expected of a modern forger with limited facility in the Coptic language.4I do not see anything in Dr King’s response to cause me to retract that last sentence.Furthermore, I pointed out that the very first line of the fragment begins in the middle of a word, at exactly the same place as in the equivalent passagei n the one surviving Gospel of Thomas manuscript. And line 1 ends with the same ending as the following line in Thomas.This is quite a coincidence, and it suggests that the author f[the Jesus’ wife fragment]may have drawn his Thomas material from a modern printed edition
If the part in italics is correct, IMO this text is almost certainly a forgery, and there is no need for experts to weigh in. All that is needed is some common sense.
steve43
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Re: Blogs Abuzz for Jesus' Wife

Post by steve43 »

Irving Wallace wrote a book about this that wasn't half-bad, as I recall.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Word-Irving-W ... 0765351129
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DCHindley
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Re: Blogs Abuzz for Jesus' Wife

Post by DCHindley »

steve43 wrote:Irving Wallace wrote a book about this that wasn't half-bad, as I recall.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Word-Irving-W ... 0765351129
Hmmm,

I didn't think the premise rang true.

1st) The gospel was "discovered" entire, with not a shred of evidence for it anywhere else, and it was namby pamby pablum clearly aimed at liberal leaning Christians.

2nd) Super religious Christians do not go about publishing anything besides the books of the Bible. Period. Ever!

3rd) Jessica Hahn notwithstanding, their private secretaries do not have affairs with investigators.

I'll admit that he researched the "how to forge" aspect well, although forensic science for detection of such a thing was a good deal less sophisticated in those days.

DCH
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pakeha
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Re: Blogs Abuzz for Jesus' Wife

Post by pakeha »

Peter Kirby wrote:In case you haven't heard the news... "it's authentic."

http://peterkirby.com/50-blogs-abuzz-fo ... -wife.html

Whole buncha links just from today.
I especially liked your comment
"John P. Meier once said, in the introduction to one of his Jesus books, that a particular form of purgatory would involve reading all the books ever printed on the historical Jesus. I suppose a similar maxim applies here. - See more at: http://peterkirby.com/50-blogs-abuzz-fo ... 1JoIe.dpuf"

It made me feel better about my decision to skip all the blogs you listed and simply follow this thread.
andrewcriddle
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Re: Blogs Abuzz for Jesus' Wife

Post by andrewcriddle »

PhilosopherJay wrote:Hi Andrew Criddle,

Professor Watson appears to have no qualifications whatsoever for determining the authenticity of ancient documents. Despite lacking these qualifications, he has written articles not only denouncing the authenticity of the document in question before any scientific tests had been run, but also denouncing the authenticity of the "Secret Gospel of Mark." Having written articles labeling two documents as modern conspiracies without any any scientific evidence to back up his conclusions, may we now label him a conspiracy theorist?
andrewcriddle wrote:Others disagree
e.g. Watson

Andrew Criddle
I don't think that the claim that these two documents are modern forgeries implies that either involved a conspiracy.

In both cases, if the works are modern, then creation by a single individual would be the most likely explanation.

Andrew Criddle
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