[Houghton M.]

It may well be an authentic Gnosic (s)crap of papyrus. (The stupid professor herself links it to other Gnostic writings.)

If so, it’s not surprising—the Gnostics made claims like this. If that’s the provenance it’s not new and the professor is trying to ride the supposed novelty to star-status in Academia.

But because she won’t or can’t say anything about provenance, she has nothing, zero, nada, in terms of scholarly value. She tries to make it scholarly valuable by treating the Gnostic gospels as equal to the canonical Gospels and by claiming that it offers something new.

I sure hope that she gets torn to shreds at the Coptic conference, but chances are good they’ll refuse to tear into her like she deserves to be torn into.

Or, perhaps, to them she’ll reveal the provenance and settle for an infinitesimal discovery-credit (since it probably comes from Gnostic circles) after the journolist impact-concrete has had time to set and the sound-byte lies have embedded themselves in the popular mind.

[Verginius Rufus]

I think she is a liberal but not stupid--she is one of the leading authorities on Gnosticism. I think she has also written books (or at least one book) on Islam that try to put it in a favorable light. You can get to be a tenured professor at Harvard Law School by pretending to be an Indian, but you don't get to have an endowed chair at Harvard Divinity School if you are stupid.

It does appear to be a genuine fourth-century piece of papyrus.