Research Shows 'Gospel of Jesus's Wife' Papyrus is Ancient

A papyrus document called the "Gospel of Jesus's Wife" is authentic, according to a new study by Harvard Divinity School researchers.

The scrap of papyrus containing the words, "Jesus said to them, my wife" was considered to be a fake. However, the new analysis showed that the document is indeed old; dating between the sixth to ninth centuries CE.

The fragment measures one-and-a-half inches by three inches and is believed to come from Egypt because the text is written in Coptic, an ancient language. The real author of the text remains unknown.

According to the researchers, the contents of the text might have been composed as early as the second to fourth centuries.

Karen L. King, the Hollis Professor of Divinity at Harvard Divinity School, said that the research doesn't prove that Jesus was married. The scrap belongs to early Christians debating whether members of the group must be celibates or marry and have children.

"The main topic of the fragment is to affirm that women who are mothers and wives can be disciples of Jesus-a topic that was hotly debated in early Christianity as celibate virginity increasingly became highly valued," King explained in a news release.

King had first shown the fragment September 18, 2012, at the International Coptic Congress in Rome and dubbed it "The Gospel of Jesus's Wife."

Since then, the scrap of papyrus has been subjected to several tests conducted at various Universities. For example, the FT-IR microspectroscopy at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) was used to determine the chemical composition and oxidation levels of the scrap.

Columbia University researchers used micro-Raman spectroscopy to check whether the ink used in "The Gospel of Jesus's Wife," matched with other inks used in papyri belonging to the first to eighth centuries CE.

In the papyrus fragment, Jesus speaks of his mother, his wife, and a female disciple. The disciples ask whether Mary is worthy and Jesus says that "she can be my disciple." Mary is one of the people mentioned in the scrap.

Not everybody is convinced about the authenticity of the fragment. Leo Depuydt, an Egyptologist at Brown University said that the Coptic text in the document is a cut- and-paste job of somebody with limited knowledge about the ancient language.

"Nothing is going to change my mind," he said in an interview this week, Boston Globe reported.. "As a forgery, it is bad to the point of being farcical or fobbish. . . . I don't buy the argument that this is sophisticated. I think it could be done in an afternoon by an undergraduate student."