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Gospel of Jesus’ Wife: Forgery Confirmed? [Contains Online Typo]
First Things ^ | Thursday, October 11, 2012 | Anna Williams

Posted on 10/14/2012 5:56:59 AM PDT by GonzoII

Gospel of Jesus’ Wife: Forgery Confirmed?
Thursday, October 11, 2012

In the weeks since Harvard historian Karen King unveiled the papyrus fragment dubbed “The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife,” evidence rapidly mounted that the scrap could be a forgery. The latest discovery: The fragment, which contains snippets from the Coptic text of the Gospel of Thomas, replicates a small error found in an online version of that text.

Andrew Bernhard was, from what I understand, the first to suggest that the fragment was based on that version; he explains his findings in some detail on his website (PDF). Here’s the quick overview from Duke professor Mark Goodacre:

One of the difficulties with the Gospel of Jesus’ Wife fragment is that it appears to be dependent, on every line, on words and phrases from our one extant Coptic text of the Gospel of Thomas (See Francis Watson’s articles; see too Leo Depuydt’s forthcoming report; see also Andrew Bernhard).  The difficulties that this poses for the authenticity of the fragment are serious (see my reflections).

Now, one of the questions that this has raised is how a forger might have gone about his or her business. A week or so ago, Andrew Bernhard raised the intriguing possibility that the forger might have been dependent not on a printed edition of Coptic Thomas, as many of us had thought, but on Michael Grondin’s Interlinear Coptic-English Translation of the Gospel of Thomas.

For a while, this was no more than an interesting piece of speculation. But in the interest of exploring it further, I raised questions on the Gospel of Thomas e-list about places where the fragment might show knowledge of Grondin’s Interlinear, including [a dropped character] on the first line of the fragment. This is an oddity that was difficult to fathom. Why was the fragment’s author missing out this direct-object marker, especially if he was dependent on Coptic Thomas which includes it?

Go here for the rest of Goodacre’s post and here for Bernhard’s full argument.



TOPICS: Catholic; Charismatic Christian; Current Events; Evangelical Christian; History; Mainline Protestant; Orthodox Christian; Other Christian; Skeptics/Seekers
KEYWORDS: epigraphyandlanguage; godsgravesglyphs; gospelofjesuswife; jamescameron; letshavejerusalem; simchajacobovici; talpiot
End of story?
1 posted on 10/14/2012 5:57:09 AM PDT by GonzoII
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To: GonzoII

Also drawing suspicion was the fact that it was in a Times New Roman font that matches perfectly with documents prepared on MS Word.

Fake but accurate.


2 posted on 10/14/2012 6:00:48 AM PDT by Bubba_Leroy (The Obamanation Continues)
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To: GonzoII

Fake, but the people who pretend to believe it will keep on pretending to believe it because like the man made global warming crowd, their agenda is not truth but destruction of the truth.


3 posted on 10/14/2012 6:20:07 AM PDT by ravenwolf
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To: GonzoII
Better link
4 posted on 10/14/2012 7:01:09 AM PDT by Constitutionalist Conservative (I'm a constitutionalist, not a libertarian. Huge difference.)
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To: Constitutionalist Conservative

Thanks.


5 posted on 10/14/2012 7:08:45 AM PDT by GonzoII (Quia tu es, Deus, fortitudo mea...Quare tristis es anima mea?)
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To: GonzoII
Here's the woman who destroyed her reputation in order to foist this fraud on the public - Professor Karen L. King, Harvard Divinity School.
6 posted on 10/14/2012 7:43:35 AM PDT by DManA
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To: GonzoII

“Be sure your sins will find you out!”


7 posted on 10/14/2012 8:24:45 AM PDT by BwanaNdege (Man has often lost his way, but modern man has lost his address - Gilbert K. Chesterton)
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To: DManA

If the text turns out to be a recent forgery, it would be a big embarrassment for Prof. King, but I don’t think it will destroy her reputation unless it comes out that she knew it was a modern forgery. At this point it looks like she might be gullible, but that’s not nearly as bad as mendacious. If she knew it was a forgery, it would be awfully foolish of her to think the forgery wouldn’t be exposed sooner or later.


8 posted on 10/14/2012 11:25:23 AM PDT by Verginius Rufus
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To: Verginius Rufus

Professor King is a feminist trying to rewrite the history of Christianity to the feminist agenda.

So if I wanted to sell a piece of fake papyrus, she’d be an obvious “mark”.

I suspect the paper was real and someone rewrote on it...but until they check the ink we won’t know. Using old paper for forgeries is a common way to “fake” semi experts, as the Mormon letter scandal showed.


9 posted on 10/14/2012 8:13:25 PM PDT by LadyDoc
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To: Verginius Rufus

She could claim that although it may be a forgery, the information it contains is accurate, ala Dan Rather.

it seemed to work for him to some degree.


10 posted on 10/14/2012 8:16:55 PM PDT by Tea Party Terrorist (Your tattoo looks stupid.)
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To: DManA
UnaBomber went to Harvard, right?

The Nazi who invented the phrase "Sieg Heil!" went to Harvard.

Amy Bishop went to Harvard.

Barack Hussein Obama (mmmm, mmmmm, mmmm!) went to Harvard.

Now this dingbat.

And Larry Summers (youngest person ever to receive a PhD from Harvard, once President of Harvard) gets thrown out on his ear for suggesting men and women may differ innately in scientific/mathematical skills.

'Nuff said.

Cheers!

11 posted on 10/14/2012 9:00:59 PM PDT by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change without notice.)
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12 posted on 12/21/2014 9:42:46 PM PST by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/ _____________________ Celebrate the Polls, Ignore the Trolls)
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