(Living Church) AKM Adam–A Fragment Is a Fragment

Since then, a number of features of the papyrus have occasioned skeptical questions. Most prominently, the fragment is of unknown provenance, a very significant warning sign when evaluating sensational archaeological finds. Second, the lettering of the fragment seems unusually thick; King attributes this to the use of a dull pen, but some scholars find that suggestion unconvincing. Stephen Carlson, a specialist on literary forgery, notes that so far the fragment seems to have been studied only for physical signs of antiquity, not for the characteristics that might betray a forger’s activity, and Francis Watson of Durham University has produced an ingenious comparison of the lines of Coptic in the Jesus’ Wife Fragment with other known Coptic and Greek sources, reaching the conclusion that the fragment is most likely a pastiche of other previously known texts. Moreover, if the fragmentary lines were fully written out, they would not fit on the typical size of columns of Coptic text. Of course, these challenges do not themselves decide the case, any more than King’s positive analysis demonstrates the genuineness of the fragment. In all likelihood, there is a long way to go before the preponderance of scholarly judgment weighs on one side or the other.

Another question, though, concerns the implications of the papyrus if it be found to be the true record of a fourth-century scribe. On that score, exciting as the discovery undeniably would be, the answer is relatively less dramatic. We already know that some Christians from the late second century onward may have thought Jesus had a wife. Although this would be a solid confirmation of what we already have reason to believe, it would not change the status of that point. As King herself emphasizes, it tells us nothing whatever of Jesus’ marital status; on that count, the situation remains that we know of no reason to think that anyone before the late second century thought Jesus was married.

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