Andrew Brown wrote a piece for The Guardian in which he says, “It’s been fairly clear for weeks that the papyrus fragment known as the“gospel of Jesus’s wife” was a modern fake, assembled from phrases found in real gnostic gospels and in particular the Gospel of Thomas, a 4th-century copy of a 2nd-century manuscript.” He then goes on to discuss the evidence provided by Andrew Bernhard that the forger used an online version of the Gospel of Thomas, replicating a typo in that source.
Michael Grondin, who produced the online Gospel of Thomas text in question, has posted some material relevant to this discussion on his web site, including one asking whether a forger used his interlinear, and another out an “unnecessary weakness” in Watson’s case.
The New York Post also has the story about the typo, while CNN reports that the documentary about the “Gospel of Jesus’ Wife” has been delayed.
In a strange parallel universe in which none of the evidence for forgery is known, Simcha Jacobovici is adamantly defending the authenticity of the Coptic papyrus fragment, calling the questioning of authenticity “science fiction.” Larry Hurtado has responded to him, as has Joel Watts.
It is still not impossible that the text could be authentic – it just seems very unlikely at this stage, and the possibility that the text could be a forgery is one that Karen King herself acknowledges, and has from the outset.
UPDATE: See now also an article in Live Science, and the post on whether Jesus was married by Peter Berger.
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