
Harvard scholars may have been duped by a forged ‘Gospel of Jesus’s Wife’ - ilamont
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/05/05/how-harvard-scholars-may-have-been-duped-by-a-forged-gospel-of-jesuss-wife/
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coldtea
There several "gnostic gospels" from all around Roman times, that mention
whatever the authors intended. It's not like those are unknown, it's that they
don't reflect the canonical body chosen by the Christian faith.

It's like discovering a fan-fiction of Star Wars were Obi Wan is a cross-
dresser. Might be amusing, but it's not the canonical version of the story.
It's not like yet another gospel can change that.

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nateabele
Heh, forget the technical considerations. A manuscript fragment of massive
historical implications being passed to them by an 'anonymous source'?

That's improbable enough by itself.

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abuari
With how archaeology evolved as a field and the current black market, it is
not surprising to have an anonymous source for an historical artifact.

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dang
I believe this is right. The trade in ancient manuscripts is surprisingly
cloak-and-dagger. (Edit: I base this on such vast experience as having read a
couple New Yorker articles about it.)

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awhitty
Just curious, but how do you get in the loop on the ancient manuscript trade?
It's not even an area of work I have ever thought about before.

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existencebox
Potentially unrelated, but I had some very brief conversations with a
paleontologist I worked for a while back (working for a very respectable
public institution) about black market fossil trade; it's VERY common (and
often fronted through "legitimate" fossil/mineral traders) and if you're at
all in the academic side of obtaining these sorts of items, you very readily
run into people obtaining them for many sources, and get a better view of the
"flow" of these items. I would imagine similar fields (in terms of dealing
with "historical" items of value) have similar black market systems.

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patrickg_zill
Given these stories, I sometimes wonder if 750 years from now, a copy of the
National Enquirer will be found in pristine condition, and, it will be taken
as representative of today's society... people will start using "Kardashian"
as an archaic honorific, for example...

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kefka
Yep. Those Kardashians are a real pain.

Especially Gul Kim.

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dkuntz2
I thought she was still only a glinn.

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WalterBright
Eh, with such a small fragment, couldn't the article have given a translation
of what it says?

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pfortuny
I gather it must just be a collection of parts of senteces, not what you would
call a "fragment" but just several of them (the papyrus does not seem to
contain whole lines, as I see it). But I may be wrong. Or not.

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jessaustin
I think one of the lines is:

Then Jesus said, "Take my wife... please!"

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pan69
Does anyone know how common the name "Jesus" was in those days? For all we
know it could the equivalent of John or Mark today..

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ijk
Super common in the 1st century, since it's a form of Joshua. Not that it
would have any bearing on this document, with its vastly later date.

[http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/20...](http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2008/12/happy_birthday_dear_yeshua_happy_birthday_to_you.html)

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jessaustin
_If the forger had used italics in addition, one might be in danger of losing
one’s composure._

Those theologians. So droll.

