Analyses of Jesus' Wife Fragment Finally Published

[robrecht]

I'd be surprised if no one makes that claim.

Sounds a little like The Bible's Buried Secrets documentary with Francesca Stavrakopoulou, but that was on the BBC. There was a doc with the exact same name on NOVA a few years earlier, with very similar subject matter that I liked better. Interviewed people like Dever, Finkelstein, Coogan, Mazar and the like.

Certainly some will, obviously Karen King was certainly interviewed extensively. If her view is now beginning to change that is only very recent, within the last few days. No, I haven't seen that one; I don't watch too many except sometimes for amusement. When I get home I can check on the title of the one I'm thinking of.

[robrecht]

As we all expected, they were not able to cover any of the more recent controversy about the gospel of John fragment. I actually thought the tone of the Smithsonian documentary was pretty good until the last few minutes, when the recently published scientific tests were taken to be fairly decisive: "In short, there is much new evidence for its authenticity and none that it's a modern forgery ..." Roger Bagnall had been allowed to make the more important point that the recent barrage of scientific test results would not be conclusive. Still, originally considering it to be an authentic 4th century document and subsequently the papyrus being dated to the 6th to 9th century might shake one's confidence in one's own paleographic conclusions a little bit, perhaps? An early quote from Karen King: "This is where one's expertise in the history of Christian literature becomes so vitally important." Strangely, they showed a picture of Francis Watson's paper from September 2012 declaring it to be a fake, but they did not interview him or even mention him by name. Instead, they interviewed Giovanni Maria Vian, Editor-in-Chief of L'Osservatore Romano (official Vatican newspaper) speaking in Italian and calling it ridicolo. The leading Coptic scholar, Alberto Camplani, who had previously been commissioned by L'Osservatore Romano, was interviewed as saying he was now more inclined to believe it is not a modern forgery. His excuse for previously believing it a fraud? He had only seen a poor picture of the fragment in the newspaper! Ridicolo.

[OingoBoingo]

Thanks for the breakdown robrecht. I find it a bit annoying the implication here (and in a number of previous articles) that the Catholic Church (via the Vatican newspaper and its own experts) was denying the legitimacy of the fragment out of some sort of knee-jerk religious presup, and not because the fragment had legitimate issues recognized early on by a number of reputable scholars from around the world. Sensationalism sells though, and I guess there's nothing more sensational than a RCC cover-up, no matter how misplaced.

Prof. Hurtado posted on this subject again this morning. He doesn't get the Smithsonian Channel in the UK, so wasn't able to watch the doc, but expressed his concern about the nature of media involvement, personal agendas, and pressures to get the fragment out in the public eye at an early stage.

http://larryhurtado.wordpress.com/20...sues/#comments

[OingoBoingo]

Prof. Peppard did a quick, light-hearted CNN follow up to the youtube videos I posted yesterday here:

http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/vi...us.cnn-ap.html

Nothing new to report, just a synopsis of what we know now, and what we need to look into next.

[Bill the Cat]

Rob has graciously allowed Oingo Boingo to participate in this thread

[OingoBoingo]

Things have gone a bit quiet since the airing of the documentary, so I guess now's as good a time as any to share some of the stranger and wackier articles written up about the forgery debate.

First up is an opinion piece by Eva Mroczek, Assistant Professor of Jewish Studies and Religious Studies at Indiana University.
http://www.religiondispatches.org/ar...urrounding_it/

She thinks Christian Askeland was being misogynistic for titling his initial blog post on the John's Gospel fragment, “Jesus had an ugly sister-in-law”. She feels that "ugly sister-in-law" is a Cinderella type trope that's demeaning to women. She also told Askeland as much on his blog, and was "astonished" when he responded by telling her that, though he takes her accusation seriously, she's reading way too much into his title, he's not familiar with any "sister-in-law" trope, and that if anyone was playing on gender issues, it was the forger, who likely delivered the "Jesus' Wife" forgery to King knowing full well that she specializes in feminism in church history. Mroczek also believes that an earlier Smithsonian article that briefly mentioned King's physical appearance (grey streaks in her hair, fit of her clothing) was representative of typical misogynistic scrutiny of female scholars in the media.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

No debate about ancient artifacts would be complete without the non-expert, journalistic opinion of TV's Naked Archaeologist, Simcha Jacobovici (no, he's not really an archaeologist in case anyone wondered).
http://www.simchajtv.com/jesus-wife-...-attack-again/

As usual, he's on his conspiracy kick that New Testament academia is controlled by a secret "Pauline" Christian cabal. One that he's personally familiar with since this same cabal stomped on his discovery (rediscovery?) of "Jesus'" tomb (). He says that those who've made the claim that the Jesus' Wife and Gospel of John fragments are modern forgeries are "pseudo academic(s)" using "pseudo-science" to come to their conclusions ("Oho!" said the pot to the kettle). Jacobovici analyzed Askeland's forgery claim and has come to his unqualified/non-expert conclusion that the claim is wrong. He says "All this 'forgery' hysteria is clearly nonsense", and believes that eventually Prof. King and her colleagues will prevail with "more real science". Yeeks.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I should mention that both of these articles were brought to my attention while reading Prof. James Tabor's blog this morning.
http://jamestabor.com/2014/05/07/sim...y-controversy/

Tabor (who worked with Jacobovici and film director James Cameron on the "Jesus" tomb discovery) agrees with Jacobovici's general sentiments about the forgery claims (he doesn't think they're convincing), but believes "his characterization of the 'naysayers’ as 'sleeper agents of Christianity' is far off the mark" (well that's something). He also believes the piece by Eva Mroczek is "perceptive", and "maybe the most important thing I have seen in print on the subject this week".
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Getting back to saner voices, Christian Askeland believes that the "Pseudo-Gospel of Jesus' Wife" makes for a great case study for what to look for in forgeries, and how (not) to present manuscripts in the future. Seth L. Sanders, associate professor of religion at Trinity College, points out in the comments section that a similar case study "was addressed by the eminent epigrapher Christopher Rollston almost a decade ago on the SBL blog". There's also debate in the comments section about whether or not crowd sourcing should be utilized in the future for the peer review process.

http://evangelicaltextualcriticism.b...e-as-case.html

[OingoBoingo]

Prof. Goodacre did another roundup on the latest Jesus Wife Fragment news
http://ntweblog.blogspot.com/2014/05...-round-up.html

Not a lot that we haven't already mentioned here. Mostly just his thoughts on the documentary.

Seems like now that the documentary has been released things have gone quiet again, which I suspect was the hope in some camps all along. I really hope Harvard Divinity will release photos of all of the manuscripts they received with the Jesus Wife fragment so that others can investigate for further signs of forgery, but I suspect that they'll remain quiet in hopes the whole thing will blow over and be forgotten.

[robrecht]

More evidence that the related Johannine fragment is anomalous:

http://alinsuciu.com/2014/06/22/gues...d-coptic-go-2/

[apostoli]

It doesn't, per se, but since barrenness was a bad thing in that culture, choosing to remain childless would have been exceptional, if not unheard of. So if there was a wifey it would open the question of were there any kiddlings.

Jesus was/is a hybrid. True hybrids don't have offspring...so logically (scientifically), if he pursued copulation (was married) he remained childless...

An after thought:

The church and its adherents are never described as the children of Christ, but as the children of God (the Father) by adoption. Conversely, the church and its adherents are deemed in the NT to be the bride of Christ. Those who are betrothed to Christ, through marriage become the children of God (the Father) by adoption (as is the case with any bride in family relationships).

[OingoBoingo]

Jesus was/is a hybrid. True hybrids don't have offspring...so logically (scientifically), if he pursued copulation (was married) he remained childless...

You're joking right? Sometimes its hard to tell on the internet.

[robrecht]

The latest on the Gospel of Jesus' Wife forgery: http://ntweblog.blogspot.com/2015/07...ke-latest.html

[robrecht]

Just in case anyone is still not convinced: http://ntweblog.blogspot.com/2015/08...patchwork.html

[shunyadragon]

Just in case anyone is still not convinced: http://ntweblog.blogspot.com/2015/08...patchwork.html

The find of the piece of the gospel is indeed likely a forgery. My belief that Jesus likely had brothers and sisters, and possibly married is based on the scripture, and the nature of the Jewish culture.

[robrecht]

The find of the piece of the gospel is indeed likely a forgery. My belief that Jesus likely had brothers and sisters, and possibly married is based on the scripture, and the nature of the Jewish culture.

I think he surely had brothers and sisters, and would have no problem believing he was married if there were any evidence of that. Appeal to Jewish culture is too general to have much applicability to this question. For example, we know of celibate Essenes through Josephus, Philo and Pliny the Elder and probably at least some of the Qumran community, eg, perhaps some of those who lived in and followed the Community Rule, but not those who lived according to the Damascus Document throughout Judea (Crawford). There are some aspects of the Qumran literature that do seem to enlighten our understanding of the earliest Christian communities. With reference to the practice of early Christian celibacy, one has to deal with significance of the passage where Paul practices and recommends celibacy (1 Cor 7) and the tradition behind Mt 19,3-12, which does seem to indicate a good possibility some early disciples practiced some kind of celibacy, all of which is plausibly explained if Jesus himself advocated celibacy.

[shunyadragon]

I think he surely had brothers and sisters, and would have no problem believing he was married if there were any evidence of that. Appeal to Jewish culture is too general to have much applicability to this question. For example, we know of celibate Essenes through Josephus, Philo and Pliny the Elder and probably at least some of the Qumran community, eg, perhaps some of those who lived in and followed the Community Rule, but not those who lived according to the Damascus Document throughout Judea (Crawford). There are some aspects of the Qumran literature that do seem to enlighten our understanding of the earliest Christian communities. With reference to the practice of early Christian celibacy, one has to deal with significance of the passage where Paul practices and recommends celibacy (1 Cor 7) and the tradition behind Mt 19,3-12, which does seem to indicate a good possibility some early disciples practiced some kind of celibacy, all of which is plausibly explained if Jesus himself advocated celibacy.

I realize the evidence is inconclusive, but it is inconclusive either way whether Jesus was married or not. I agree to an extent, but up until Christ received his Revelation, he was an unremarkable Palestinian Jew, with no indication in his history he was deliberately celibate. Yes, it is possible he was celibate.