Monday, November 12, 2012

Karen King article in the Boston Globe

I meant to blog this last night but didn't get a chance because I was at the new Bond film, Skyfall (which is very good, by the way).  Lisa Wangsness, who has been publishing on the Jesus' Wife Fragment story from the beginning., has a new piece in the Boston Globe.  She was one of the three journalists who broke the story on 18 September (Harvard Professor identifies scrap of papyrus suggesting some early Christians believed Jesus was married) but unlike others, she has continued to follow the story and to report on the developments (Debate, doubts about a married Jesus, 26 September; Scholars begin to weigh in on 'Gospel of Jesus' Wife', 27 September) and now she has a profile piece on Karen King:

Jesus finding put scholar in spotlight
Lisa Wangsness

I have spoken to Lisa on several occasions, including one time last week while I was sitting in the carpool at school, and I get a short quotation in the piece:
“I started seeing that the lines that were being drawn between orthodox or correct Christianity and heretical Christianity couldn’t be drawn that way,” she said. “I had to step back and start sort of fresh and say, ‘What are the similarities and differences among [ancient] Christians, and how might we account for them, in terms of them belonging to this place?’”
King argued that these texts should be seen as part of the story of Christianity, not as distortions of a complete belief system articulated by the Gospels and handed down by the fathers of the early church. She contends that the early history of Christianity needs to be rewritten to include these previously marginalized voices, taking into account how “a limited set of perspectives has shaped what people believe.”
“She’s made her mark on the field by doing that,” said Mark Goodacre, a New Testament scholar at Duke University. “It’s a massive contribution to scholarship.”
The article does mention the forthcoming tests on the Jesus' Wife Fragment but there is no more information about timetable:
King is now awaiting the results of ink composition tests, which cannot establish for sure that it is authentic — but they could reveal that it is a forgery.
“I’m on the edge of my seat as much as anybody,” she said. “And we’ll see.”
The article is also mentioned by Jim Davila in Paleojudaica.

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5 comments:

  1. Anonymous12 November 2012 at 19:31

    This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  2. Brett Provance13 December 2012 at 08:48

    This approach is not new to Claremont, and Robinson and Koester published their "Trajectories" over 40 years ago. I recall Robinson regretting that Nock, Festugiere and Bultmann had not been able to work with the recent discoveries.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Brett Provance13 December 2012 at 08:49

    This approach is not new to Claremont, and Robinson and Koester published their "Trajectories" over 40 years ago. I recall Robinson regretting that Nock, Festugiere and Bultmann had not been able to work with the recent discoveries.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Brett Provance13 December 2012 at 08:49

    This approach is not new to Claremont, and Robinson and Koester published their "Trajectories" over 40 years ago.
    I recall Robinson regretting that Nock, Festugiere and Bultmann had not been able to work with the recent discoveries.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Brett Provance13 December 2012 at 08:50

    This approach is not new to Claremont, and Robinson and Koester published their "Trajectories" over 40 years ago.
    I recall Robinson regretting that Nock, Festugiere and Bultmann had not been able to work with the recent discoveries.

    ReplyDelete