How the 'Jesus' Wife' Hoax Fell Apart

By Jerry Pattengale, Wall Street Journal, May 1, 2014

Christian Askeland

In Sept. 2012, Harvard Divinity School Prof. 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, 2014 Christian Askeland—a Coptic specialist at Indiana Wesleyan University—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 2 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.

“Jesus' Wife Fragment Genuine”--Harvard Theological Review

But Ms. King had defenders. The Harvard Theological Review recently published a group of articles that attest to the papyrus's authenticity. Although the scholars involved signed nondisclosure agreements…the New York Times [NYT] was given access to the studies ahead of publication. The NYT newspaper summarized the findings last month, saying "the ink and papyrus are very likely ancient, and not a modern forgery." The article prompted a tide of similar pieces…asserting that the Gospel of Jesus' Wife was genuine.

‘Sister’ John’s Gospel Fragment—definitely a Forgery

Then last week the story began to crumble faster than an ancient papyrus exposed in the windy Sudan. Dr. Askeland found, among the online links that Harvard used as part of its publicity push, images of another fragment, of the Gospel of John, [from the same ‘batch’ as the ‘Jesus’ Wife Fragment’] that turned out to share many similarities—including the handwriting, ink and writing instrument used—with the "wife" fragment. The Gospel of John text, he discovered, had been directly copied from a 1924 publication—it’s clearly a forgery.

"Two factors immediately indicated that this was a forgery," Dr. Askeland tells me. "First, the fragment shared the same line breaks as the 1924 publication. [Every second line from the 1924 publication was copied—line 2, line 4, line 6, etc. appear as lines 1, 2, 3 in the forgery. Plus it’s copied as complete lines—the whole of line 2, the whole of line 4, etc. appear as line 1, line 2 (respectively) of the forged John fragment, etc].  Second, the fragment contained a peculiar dialect of Coptic called Lycopolitan, which fell out of use during or before the 6th century." Ms. King had done two radiometric tests, he noted, and "concluded that the papyrus plants used for this [John] fragment had been harvested in the 7th to 9th centuries." In other words, the [John] fragment that came from the same material as the "Jesus' wife" fragment was written in a dialect that didn't exist when the papyrus it appears on was made.

John Fragment is a Fake, so its Companion ‘Jesus’ Wife Fragment’ is also Fake

Mark Goodacre, a New Testament professor and Coptic expert at Duke University, wrote on his NT Blog on April 25, 2014 about the Gospel of John discovery: "It is beyond reasonable doubt that this [John Fragment] is a fake, and this conclusion means that the Jesus' Wife Fragment is a fake too." Alin Suciu, a research associate at the University of Hamburg and a Coptic manuscript specialist, wrote online on April 26, 2014: "Given that the evidence of the forgery is now overwhelming, I consider the polemic surrounding the Gospel of Jesus' Wife papyrus over."

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[For the rest of this article go to: Jerry Pattengale, Wall Street Journal, May 1, 2014]