The (so-called) Gospel of Jesus' Wife is even more of a scrappy scrap than expected
So, the big news this week in textual criticism studies, is that the guy who actually owns the papyrus fragment which was marketed (and I am using that term very specifically, "MARKETED") as "The Gospel of Jesus' Wife", has been found by an investigative reporter. ( Here's a Cadre article about the fragment from back in Easter season 2014. A number of interesting things have happened since then, but if you want a refresher about the details you can try there and then come back.) Not by just any reporter, but by the reporter originally assigned by the Smithsonian to be present waaaaaay back when Dr. Karen King, the scholar who promoted the piece, first presented her (original) paper on it to fellow scholars in Rome. In fact, Ariel Sabar was the only reporter present -- implicitly the only reporter allowed -- to be in the room ("a few steps away from the Vatican" as Sabar puts it much later, acknowledging tacitly that this was done for marketin...