Baker Academic

Monday, October 1, 2012

Is the Jesus' Wife Gospel a Forgery? - Le Donne

Harvard Professor Karen King pictured here with the "Jesus' Wife" Gospel
Saw this over at the NT Blog posted by Mark Goodacre:

Christian Askeland on the Gospel of Jesus' Wife: Forgery?
Here Christian Askeland provides a video lecture on the oddities in the Coptic letters present in this fragment.

I also learned from Brian LePort that the Smithsonian has delayed the production of a documentary on this fragment.

-anthony

1 comment:

  1. Forget about the “Gospel According To Jesus’ Wife.” What about the “Gospel According To Jesus’ Dog?” This was recently handed to me by a private donor who wishes to remain anonymous. It’s written on papyrus card, which can be easily manufactured throughout the Middle East, and hasn’t been scientifically tested to validate its dating - but a number of my buddies think it’s real! (That whole scientifically valid thing is always slowing down progress – I mean this conversation would either be killed or continued based on that one crucial component and that takes all the fun out it!)

    In the Coptic language on the, um, can I just use the word ‘manuscript,’ the following was written: “and Jesus said, My dog.’” Linguistic experts have been able to determine that indeed the word is “dog” and not dawg, as was previously postulated. It was thought that Jesus was referring to his following – his peeps, his posse, his dawgs. However, a number of experts in Old Coptic versus New Coptic, have clarified that it was indeed the canine that Christ was referring to.

    This challenges everything we’ve come to believe about Christianity and carnivores. Cause if Jesus had a dog, than he was probably a vegetarian. I know, at this point the critics would be shouting “Nonsequitur! How does Christ owning a dog have anything to do with abstaining from meat?” I understand the argument that making a connection between Christ’s pet potential and promotion of a vegetarian way of life is like correlating his marital status to questioning all things sexual – but Paul had a lot to say about food and sex (Corinthians Ch 6) so I feel I should be given the same liberties here.
    Speaking of the cannon, I know there is no mention of Jesus’ dog in the 4 traditional “gospels” and that the conservative majority would take issue with my sacred text, whose authenticity you just have to take my word on… I suppose if I held those 4 traditional texts (along with the others in the cannon) to the same criteria for legitimacy as this business card, I might actually have to accept them and have to wrestle with the challenges that come from them. But that would create quite a dilemma for me… Nah, that’s just a correlation to grand to be taken seriously.

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