Timo S. Paananen has written a brief piece which takes the methods that Francis Watson and others have used to argue for the inauthenticity of the papyrus fragment known as the “Gospel of Jesus’ Wife,” and applies them to a fragment of known provenance and authenticity. I hope it will be widely read and circulated, since it offers what I feel are really important insights about the methods that some have used or proposed using to detect alleged signs of... Read more
The Boston Globe has an article about the conversation among scholars about the fragment. Bart Ehrman is quoted as saying what many cautious scholars would say based on the currently-available evidence: “[T]he jury is out still, but it’s not looking good for authenticity.” Mark Goodacre shared updated copies of Francis Watson’s pdf articles. Andrew Bernhard posted another pdf article. In drawing my attention to it, he also wrote the following: Just to clarify in case there has been any confusion, my... Read more
Karen King’s article on the “Gospel of Jesus’ Wife” for Harvard Theological Review is providing a real-life illustration of the famous thought experiment about Schrödinger’s cat. It seems that King’s HTR article exists in two superimposed states. In one reality inhabited by some bloggers, the article has been rejected. In another reality inhabited by other bloggers, it has not. Just like the box containing the cat, the two superimposed quantum states of the article will only collapse when we open... Read more
The title of this post is not referring to yet another papyrus fragment, this one about Jesus’ wife who allegedly was or will be at SBL in Chicago. I’m rather interested in floating the idea that it might be worthwhile to have a gathering devoted to the “Gospel of Jesus’ Wife” at SBL in Chicago this November. Is this something that other scholars would be interested in organizing? We could try for a semi-formal session, or just make this the... Read more
More and more people, including scholars, seem to be increasingly confident that the Coptic papyrus fragment referred to as the “Gospel of Jesus’ Wife” is a modern forgery or fake. See for instance the blog post by Alin Suciu and Hugo Lundhaug. Craig Evans is among those saying that the Harvard Theological Review has decided not to publish Karen King’s article on the subject. Charles Halton also comments on that topic. UPDATE: Brian LePort has since linked to Daniel Burke of... Read more
If Jim Linville’s blog had been dead for a mere three days, we might say it was resurrected, or that it had only in fact been mostly dead. But his blog was dead. It was nailed to the biblioblogosphere. It was an ex-blog. But now it’s back, and that can only mean one thing… It’s the night of the living dead zombie blog! You’ll definitely want to check this out, but given what we know about zombies – and what... Read more
Discussion of the Gospel of Jesus’ Wife continues full speed ahead on scholarly blogs, and on list-servs such as that dedicated to the Gospel of Thomas. All of this is fantastic to see. There have been ongoing discussions about open access to scholarly publications. But I think it is also wonderful when not merely the fruits of scholarship, but the entire scholarly enterprise, takes place in public view so that people can (hopefully) gain a greater understanding how scholarship works. Mark... Read more
I wish those celebrating Yom Kippur an easy fast, as the traditional greeting says. And I invite anyone interested to discuss the notion of atonement on this Jewish “Day of Atonement” – it seems as good a time as any to chat about the topic! Christians, if you need some food for thought, then take a look at Paula Fredriksen’s piece in the Huffington Post entitled “Yom Kippur: WWJD?” (HT Brian LePort). Read more
Tim Bulkeley has written a book. The title is Not Only a Father: Talk of God as Mother in the Bible and Christian Tradition. You can buy it in traditional printed book format if you are so inclined. But he has also done some other interesting and perhaps radically innovative things with it. He’s made it available online – in a format that not only allows but encourages comments to be left and conversations to take place in the margins of the book.... Read more
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