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Did Jesus have a wife? Scholars skeptical
Gregorio Borgia / The Associated Press Karen King says the papyrus will be tested to determine its authenticity. (CP)
ROME -- Is a scrap of papyrus suggesting Jesus had a wife authentic?
Scholars on Wednesday questioned the much-publicized discovery by a Harvard scholar that a fourth-century fragment of papyrus provided the first evidence some early Christians believed Jesus was married.
Experts in the illicit antiquities trade wondered about the motive of the fragment's anonymous owner, noting the document's value has likely increased amid the publicity of the still-unproven find.
Karen King, a professor of early Christianity at Harvard Divinity School, announced the finding Tuesday at an international congress on Coptic studies in Rome.
The text, written in Coptic and probably translated from a second-century Greek text, contains a dialogue in which Jesus refers to "my wife," whom he identifies as Mary.
Christian tradition has long held Jesus was unmarried. Any evidence pointing to whether Jesus was married or had a female disciple could have ripple effects in current debates over the role of women in the church.
Stephen Emmel, a professor of Coptology at the University of Muenster, said the text accurately quotes Jesus as saying "my wife." But he questioned whether the document is authentic.
"There's something about this fragment in its appearance and also in the grammar of the Coptic that strikes me as being not completely convincing somehow," he said in an interview.
Another participant at the congress, Alin Suciu, a papyrologist at the University of Hamburg, was more blunt.
"I would say it's a forgery. The script doesn't look authentic" when compared to samples of Coptic papyrus script dated to the fourth century, he said.
King acknowledged questions remain about the fragment, and she welcomed the feedback from colleagues. She said she planned to subject the document to ink tests to determine if chemical components match those used in antiquity.
"We still have some work to do, testing the ink and so on and so forth, but what is exciting about this fragment is that it's the first case we have of Christians claiming that Jesus had a wife," she said.
Hany Sadak, director general of the Coptic Museum in Cairo, said the fragment's existence was unknown to Egypt's antiquities authorities until this week.
-- The Associated Press
Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition September 20, 2012 A12
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