Research | Writing | Digital Humanities | Biblical Studies

Gospel of Jesus' Wife to be Published in Next HTR

Gospel of Jesus' Wife to be Published in Next HTR

This news has just arrived in my rss reader via Brice Jones’ blog, though the actually post link doesn’t appear to be working. Jones states:

I learned through an e-mail from Prof. Louis Painchaud of Laval that the Coptic “Gospel of Jesus’ Wife” will be published in the next issue of the Harvard Theological Review. See Prof. Painchaud’s e-mail below, which was circulated earlier this morning to a handful of scholars. This would suggest to me that tests carried out on the papyrus came back positive. It will be interesting to see how this story continues to unfold as the edition moves forward to publication. Whatever the final verdict is, Profs. King, Bagnall, and Luijendijk are to be commended for their patience, high level of textual scholarship, and willingness to discuss the piece in the public sphere.

He also includes the email:

Bonjour,
J’apprends d’une source bien informée que le dossier complet  relatif au fragment de papyrus présenté dans les médias sous le titre d’ « Évangile de la femme de Jésus » sera publié dans la prochaine livraison du Harvard Theological Review.

Update: I should have added a bit of context for those not following this story. This is a small papyrus fragment that has been called the “Gospel of Jesus’ Wife”–admittedly a poor name–because of a line in Coptic where “Jesus” makes reference to “my wife.” After its announcement in 2012, a number of scholars observed features of the fragment that suggest it is a modern forgery. Strangely, Karen King and Harvard became very quiet about it, apparently awaiting further testing to be done on the fragment. Some suspected the silence indicated reluctance to move forward in the light of this early scholarly reaction. In any case, it is good if in fact it will be published so that the fragment can be subjected to further scrutiny.

4 Responses to Gospel of Jesus' Wife to be Published in Next HTR

  1. I caught wind of this a couple of weeks ago when a member of my Yahoo GTh Group mentioned the it. Apparently, the ink is not modern. Mike Grondin nor many of the group members have yet to respond. Exciting news.

Leave a reply