"Jesus Wife" fragment gets more testing, delays article
Eric Marrapodi
The news is that there is no news:
"We're moving ahead with the testing, but it is not yet complete, and so the article will await until we have the results," King said in an email to CNN.
"The owner of the fragment has been making arrangements for further testing and analysis of the fragment, including testing by independent laboratories with the resources and specific expertise necessary to produce and interpret reliable results. This testing is still underway," Kathyrn Dodgson, director of communications for the Harvard Divinity School, said in a email to CNN.
"Harvard Theological Review is planning to publish Professor King’s paper after conclusion of all the testing so that the results may be incorporated," Dodgson said. "Until testing is complete, there is nothing more to say at this point."However, one useful point is here clarified, that the tests are being arranged not by Harvard but by the still anonymous "owner of the fragment".
For more on the fragment, including my own reflections on what I think is a forgery, see The Gospel of Jesus' Wife.
23 comments:
It sounds like the fragment was already tested once, but the results were inconclusive or would open the door for it to be called a fake - hence the need for more specific instruments to produce "reliable results".
Interesting point, Todd. You are referring to things like "further testing"?
Your interpretation of "further testing" reveals your prejudice.
Explain?
You agreed with the previous post that concluded the reason for further testing was because the first test proved the fragment to be a fake.
Another reason further testing may have been requested is because of all the media hype the initial announcement generated. Perhaps this time those involved wanted to cover every single base possible before they announced. It is interesting that I did not read about anyone claiming that the paper or ink was probably not first century.
On the contrary, Susan. I simply expressed interest.
My mistake.
Susan, isn't the claim of those who think the manuscript ancient that the papyrus is fourth century (or older) and that the ink is fourth century? Did you mean to write fourth century rather than first century?
Isn't it possible that an old scrap of papyrus had ink brushed onto it in recent years?
No, I meant 1st century but I should have said "as early as". It is possible that a forger went to all the trouble to procure ancient paper and replicate ancient ink. But then after all that trouble, why not find an adequate calligrapher? It seems to me that anyone trying to create a forgery of this magnitude would AT LEAST take that added step.
Yes, I think it is possible.
But not plausible.
Susan, how plausible would you say it is than an ancient writer would compose a text that largely matches, except for gender and "my wife," snippets from one manuscript of Gospel of Thomas in a modern edition?
That would depend on the origin and original transcription of the Gospel of Thomas text. I do know that ancient scribes counted each letter to be sure the exact number would match the number in the line copied. That would result in the same word appearing in almost the same location in subsequent copies.
Since I am a calligrapher I can't help but have insight into the technique used by the author of this snippet. I am positive he did not use a brush. There would be evidence of a brush on a majority of the strokes but there is none. Since the papyrus is so textured the expectation would be that an ending stroke would feathered. This calligrapher used a nib.
"That would depend on the origin and original transcription of the Gospel of Thomas text."
It is a modern edition, specifically an online edition, that had a typo that was copied by the forger.
(sorry, "unknown" is me, Ross Caldwell)
The "forger" has knowledge of Sahidic in that he was able to change nouns and pronouns into appropriate modifiers. This is no small feat. Since the typo did not appear online until 2002 and the fragment has a pre-1980 provenance, there must be another explanation. I wonder how the Grondin typo came to be?
Also, it is my understanding that a test can be done on the ink that would determine if it was created before 1945. I guess we will have to wait and see.
The fragment has no provenance earlier than December 2011, when the anonymous collector gave it to Karen King at Harvard.
The letters which are claimed to be from 1982 are equally suspicious, and likely part of the forgery.
Ross Caldwell
The only possible reason you have to label the letter and note as suspicious is because you have judged GJW a forgery which is circular reasoning.
No, the facts are still that the fragment has a provenance of only 2011.
See this good discussion of the case by David Meadows, -
http://rogueclassicism.com/2012/10/21/some-more-nails-for-the-ossuary-of-the-gospel-of-jesus-wife/
It was the same collector who gave King the fragment that gave her the letters - one by now deceased Prof. Peter Munro, dated July 15, 1982, which says that a piece of papyrus with perhaps a fragment on the Gospel of John is datable to between the 2nd and 4th centuries, and should be preserved between glass.
There is a second "note", undated, and the context is not clear where it is (whether a footnote or a separate letter, for instance), also given to her by the anonymous collector at the same time, which is also anonymous but says that Prof. Gerhard Fecht believes the fragment is the only known text where Jesus says he has a wife.
THAT is the part that is suspicious. Why would Prof. Munro say it was John, while Fecht is apparently cited referring to a different text altogether?
The context is not clear, and the letters are not published in photograph, that I know. An anonymous seller with an undated letter with a text that the scholarly community almost unanimously believes to be a forgery - what is there to defend?
Nothing in the circumstances inspire confidence, and the textual analysis itself is enough to prove it a forgery beyond a reasonable doubt.
I tried to read the Rogue Classicism post but kept gagging on all the prejudicial hyperbole. When taken as a whole,the evidence points to authenticity. If each piece of evidence is evaluated separately without any relationship to the entirety, then the fragment can be proclaimed a forgery. I am sure there will then be much fanfare from the Patriarchal Industrial Complex.
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