How the 'Jesus' Wife' Hoax Fell Apart

[hrmjustin]

JERRY PATTENGALE

In September 2012, Harvard Divinity School professor Karen King announced the discovery of a Coptic (ancient Egyptian) gospel text on a papyrus fragment that contained the phrase "Jesus said to them, 'My wife . . .' " The world took notice. The possibility that Jesus was married would prompt a radical reconsideration of the New Testament and biblical scholarship.

Yet now it appears almost certain that the Jesus-was-married story line was divorced from reality. On April 24, Christian Askeland—a Coptic specialist at Indiana Wesleyan University and my colleague at the Green Scholars Initiative—revealed that the "Gospel of Jesus' Wife," as the fragment is known, was a match for a papyrus fragment that is clearly a forgery.

Almost from the moment Ms. King made her announcement two years ago, critics attacked the Gospel of Jesus' Wife as a forgery. One line of criticism said that the fragment had been sloppily reworked from a 2002 online PDF of the Coptic Gospel of Thomas and even repeated a typographical error.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304178104579535540828090438

[Bragi]

1. To be clear...

What is a hoax is the alleged fragment that carried the words "My wife".

Whether or not Jesus (if he existed) did, or did not, have a wife remains a matter of opinion and conjecture.

[hrmjustin]

2. Yes this was a hoax but there is no 100 percent proof on a marriage.

I personally don't think he was but others have different thoughts.

[goldent]

3. The obvious question would be why

did not any of the gospel writers not happen to mention that Jesus was married? There could have been a conspiracy to cover up his marriage, but again the question would be why?

It would be fabulous to learn something really new about Jesus in some discovered text. It seems like this one was too good to be be true.