Gospel of Jesus' Wife

The so-called Gospel of the woman Jesus (English Gospel of Jesus ' Wife) is a papyrus fragment which was presented to the public on 18 September 2012 by the church historian Karen L. King. His title as well as the great deal of attention in the media got it by the fact that Jesus is referring to " my wife ". Several well-known researchers doubt, however, that it is an ancient document. Maybe it is a modern forgery.

Publication and description of the findings

After specifying King is the papyrus in private ownership, the owners did not want to be named. King indicates that the papyrus was in 1982 by Peter Munro, then Egyptology professor at the Free University of Berlin, and held to be authentic. For more circumstances of the Funds are not known.

Lines 4-5 ( recto ) have particularly attracted the attention of the public's. You are King read as follows (in German translation ):

" ... Jesus said to them: My wife ...... she will be able to be disciples for me ( sic) and ... "

Since the edges are broken, it is unclear in what context, these words. The fragment has a size of 8 x 4 cm, terminated on both sides and containing parts of the nine lines. The text is written in the Sahidic dialect of Coptic. Compared to other Coptic manuscripts, such as the Nag Hammadi codices, conveys the font under the impression that the writer was little practiced. Because of this palaeographical features of the papyrus of King is dated to the second half of the 4th century. King assumes that the text was originally written in Greek in the second century. It justifies this with the substantive relationship with the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Mary and the Gospel of the Egyptians.

Controversy over the authenticity

Several renowned scientists and researchers have expressed doubts as to the authenticity of the papyrus. Hugo Lundhaug and Alin Suciu argue that the shape of the letter was indicative of the papyrus was written with a brush. In ancient papyrus, however, was described as having a Kalamos ( write pipe ), which suggests that it is a modern forgery.

Francis Watson has examined in detail the quotations from and allusions to the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Matthew. He comes to the conclusion that the close proximity of the text speaks to the papyrus to the documents mentioned earlier for a modern forgery.

As announced by Craig A. Evans on September 25, 2012 the editors of the Harvard Theological Review because of doubts as to the authenticity of the papyrus initially refrained as planned to publish the article by Karen King in their journal.