A Question of Content: How I Saw the
Internet Furor Over the Jesus' Wife Fragment

Timeline, Commentary, and Links to Key Sources (Links only)

(a page of The Gospel of Thomas Resource Center, by Michael W. Grondin)

GJW = Gospel of Jesus' Wife, designated GosJesWife
CGT = Coptic Gospel of Thomas, NHC II,2, designated Gos.Thom.
HTR = Harvard Theological Review, HDS = Harvard Divinity School
Introduction

Part 1: The Fragment is Publicly Announced

The Lead-Up (see King's draft)
In December, 2011, a collector (who asked and received anonymity) brings a small
papyrus fragment to Karen L. King, Harvard Professor of Divinity. King enlists the aid of
AnneMarie Luijendijk of Princeton. In March, 2012, they bring the fragment to renowned
papyrologist Roger Bagnall. It is eventually decided among them that the fragment is
probably authentic. In August, 2012, King submits a proposed paper to HTR. Two of
three outside referees question the authenticity of the fragment, but when Coptologist
Ariel Shisha-Halevy joins Bagnall and Luijendijk in judging the fragment probably authentic,
HTR provisionally (subject to ink-test) accepts the article for publication in January 2013.

Tue, Sept 18:
King introduces the GJW fragment at the 10th International Congress of Coptic Studies
in Rome. Attendee-Coptologists are generally sceptical. Alin Suciu, Hugo Lundhaug, and
Christian Askeland will later play roles in the online debate.

Harvard Divinity School presents the fragment on the internet, along with the
Draft of Karen King's Proposed HTR paper. Boston.com posts an inside story.

Wed, Sept 19:
Newspapers pick up the story and internet discussions begin on the GThomas elist and
elsewhere. Mark Goodacre and James McGrath post the first of many entries on their blogs.

(Below the surface, Egyptologist Leo Depuydt of Brown University sends an email to
HTR saying "The danger of making a fool of oneself is real." HTR invites Depuydt
to write up his findings, then schedules his paper to also run in the Jan 2013 issue.
Depuydt, a former student of Shisha-Halevy, is later in contact with Francis Watson.
See College Hill Independent article dated Oct 5th, but apparently written earlier)

Part 2: The Patchwork Theory is Built & Meets Its Greatest Challenge


(see CGT 47.3 v. 114.1 in keyword=mare-)

Fri, Sept 21:
Mark Goodacre posts the first version of Francis Watson's three-part paper
"The Gospel of Jesus' Wife: How a fake Gospel-Fragment was composed". Watson
is able to find connections between CGT and GJW lines 1-5 and 8, but not for lines 6-7.
His non-CGT linkages to lines 6-7 will be exploited in the later criticisms of Peppard
and Paananen (see below), but even as those criticisms appear, Watson will have
revised his paper (see below). The comments on Goodacre's blog entry include those
of Richard Bauckham, who writes "If we could pin down a Coptic source for line 6, that
would clinch it.", then later "I think we need a bit more linguistic study of line 6 from the
Coptic experts. [Simon] Gathercole has now suggested tentatively [but not online] that
line 6 reflects GosThomas 45.3." Oli Homron illustrates that linkage with an influential
image (using a portion of my interlinear without authorization or attribution), but accepts
the HDS interpretation of the first word of line 6. That interpretation (which undercuts
the suggested CGT linkage to the 3rd word, hence the need for "a bit more linguistic
study") won't be questioned for a week.

Mon, Sept 24:
Andrew Bernhard posts his findings, linking all the contents of the GJW fragment
(except the phrase 'my wife') to a small set of sayings and closely-contiguous lines
within CGT. He correctly links the first word of GJW 6 to 'no man' in CGT line 41.17,
rather than to 'let Mary' in line 51.19, but no one as yet realizes the implication of that
linkage. Indeed, Bernhard remarks in an essay dated 26 Sept, "Scholars advocating
that GJW could be simply a 'patchwork' of excerpts from GTh created by a modern
author still need to explain the construction of GJW 6 for their case to be airtight."

Independently, Mark Goodacre posts his finding that GJW 7 is also from CGT.

Tue, Sept 25:
Michael Peppard posts his essay Is the "Jesus' wife" papyrus a forgery? on
dotCommonweal, arguing against the case in the first version of Watson's paper.
James McGrath, expressing his own misgivings, links to Peppard's essay.

Wed, Sept 26:
On the So-Called Gospel of Jesus's Wife. Some Preliminary Thoughts
by Hugo Lundhaug and Alin Suciu is posted. The Coptologist-authors comment that the
only remaining line of GJW to be unmatched to CGT had been line 6, but that Bernhard
(as well as two others independently) had matched it, given that the key word on line 6
wasn't a rare one (as in the HDS parsing), but rather a verb-phrase from CGT erroneously
inscribed. Still, the authors are concerned that the line is seriously ungrammatical.

(I play a modest role here by adding a comment to the above blog-entry, suggesting that
a different interpretation of the first word of line 6 attested in several CGT sayings would
make the line both more grammatical in Coptic and more closely linked to CGT wording.)

Thu, Sept 27:
Mark Goodacre posts Watson's revised paper incorporating recent findings on lines 6-7.
Intro & Summary (main paper) Addendum
(Note: Watson's paper is now (9 Jan 13) outdated; he has not revised it since.)

James McGrath posts Timo Paananen's Another "Fake" Or Just a Problem of Method?
What Francis Watson's Analysis Does to Papyrus Koln 255, based on the first
version of Watson's paper. McGrath's blog-entry features in its comments section
a spirited debate between Paananen and Ulrich Schmid about Paananen's methods.
Goodacre calls Paananen's paper a parody.

Suciu/Lundhaug post A Peculiar Dialectical Feature in the Gospel of Jesus's Wife,
Line 6 in response to my suggestion. They agree that this is the likeliest reading of
line 6, finding in addition that the construct in question is a peculiar variation common
to CGT. The entirety of the fragment (except for 'my wife') has now been linked to CGT.
It only remains to explain the non-CGT spelling of two items, on lines 1 and 3.

Fri, Sept 28:
Mark Goodacre posts Christian Askeland's video to his blog.

The Smithsonian Channel announces the postponement until further notice of a pre-
filmed program about the fragment, originally scheduled for airing Sept 30th.

Part 3: The Patchwork Theory Meets Its Last Two Challenges

Sept 24: In his first online paper, Andrew Bernhard suggests that a modern forger could
have used an internet tool like my interlinear. In particular, he mentions the pdf version.
Still, there's no evidence, and anyway, attention is focused on line 6 of the fragment.

Sept 28: Mark Goodacre posts a note to the GThomas list in which he suggests
"two possible ... signs of dependence" on my interlinear, viz., lines 1 and 3 of the
fragment. Goodacre points out that the spelling 'Mariam' on line 3 is the English
spelling found in my interlinear under the Coptic name (which has an extra letter).
Did a forger mistakenly use my English transliteration instead of the Coptic spelling?
With respect to line 1, Mark speculates that a forger might have thought that the 'M'
was dispensable, given that my translation of that morpheme was in parentheses.
Mark and I (reading his note) are looking at the online interlinear, not the pdf version.
Andrew checks the pdf version, sees that an 'M' is missing, but doesn't make it public.

Oct 9: Richard Budelberger posts a late comment on Suciu's blog entry of Sept 27.
In it, he draws attention to the 'M' missing from my pdf-interlinear at line 50.10.
Incredibly, Mark and I both miss the note. Andrew sees it, but doesn't make anything
of it, since he is already aware of the missing letter.

Oct 10: I post a note to the GThomas list, mentioning the missing letter. Mark replies
enthusiastically and posts to Facebook that he's come across some new evidence
and will be writing a blog entry about it. Alarmed, Andrew (whose new paper contains
that evidence and is nearing completion), responds on Fb to ask that Mark hold up until
the next day, to co-ordinate with the posting of his paper. Mark agrees, and the two
exchange email behind the scenes. Andrew works late into the night to finish his paper.

Oct 11: Mark Goodacre posts a block-buster announcing Andrew Bernhard's new paper,
in which the non-CGT spellings on lines 1 and 3 can be explained by someone using the
pdf version of my interlinear, dated 22 Nov 2002 and left unchanged on my webite since
then. If that was the source of plagiarism, the plagiarism cannot have been done earlier.
(This casts in doubt both the collector's claim to have bought the fragment in its current
state in 1997, and the unsigned, undated Munro/Fecht/Laukamp [all deceased] note.)

Oct 16: HTR announces delay in publication, to allow time for more extensive tests
(to be financed by collector). A spokes-person says that it could take "weeks or months".

Afterward
Nov 9: Goodacre announces, summarizes, and links to Bernhard's new online paper
"Notes on The Gospel of Jesus's Wife Forgery", which represents the culmination
and most complete statement thus far of the patchwork theory of JGW composition.

(Results of ink test originally scheduled for mid-Oct have not been released to date.)

Postscript 1: An Unnecessary Weakness in Watson's Case
Postscript 2: Did A Forger Use My Interlinear?
Postscript 3: Two Improbable Features of the Fragment


Andrew Bernhard's GJW Page
Mark Goodacre, NT Blog (best one-stop site for all JGW news)
James McGrath, Exploring our Matrix (JGW blog postings)

Dramatis Personae (in alphabetical order)
Christian Askeland, PhD New Testament, University of Cambridge
Roger Bagnall, Director, Inst. for the Study of the Ancient World, New York
Richard Bauckham, Biblical Scholar and Theologian, Ridley Hall, Cambridge, England
Andrew Bernhard, M.S., Oxford University, author of Other Early Christian Gospels
Richard Budelberger, ...
Leo Depuydt, Prof., Dept. of Egyptology, Brown University
Simon Gathercole, Cambridge, author of The Composition of the Gospel of Thomas
Mark Goodacre, Assoc. Prof. of Religion, Duke Univ., author of Thomas and the Gospels
Oli Homron (affiliation/background not yet determined)
Karen L. King, Hollis Prof. of Divinity at HDS, author of The Gospel of Mary of Magdala
AnneMarie Luijendijk, papyrologist, Assoc. Prof. of Religion, Princeton
Hugo Lundhaug, Faculty of Theology, University of Oslo
James McGrath, Prof. in NT Language and Literature, Butler Univ., Indianapolis, Indiana
Timo Paananen, Ph.D. student, Univ. of Helsinki
Michael Peppard, Asst. Prof. of Theology at Fordham University
Ulrich Schmid, Inst. for New Testament Textual Research, Münster, Germany
Ariel Shisha-Halevy, Prof. of Linguistics at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem
Alin Suciu, Universite Laval, Quebec
Francis Watson, Prof., Dept. of Theology and Religion, Durham University, U.K.
(myself - Michael W. Grondin, M.A. Philosophy, Logician, unaffiliated CGT specialist)

This page initially made publicly available 10 Oct 2012. Rev 09 Jan 2013.
Suggestions for improvement will be much appreciated.