Dr Paul Allen

St Mary Coptic Orthodox Church (Photo credit: Christopher Chan ) When it comes to Jesus , the gullibility of the religious academy and its media know no bounds. This past Easter , the U.S. media buzzed with excitement over the announcement of an ancient Coptic (Egyptian) papyrus fragment with the phrase, “Jesus said to them, ‘My wife….’” One more footnote for the story of how a powerful ecclesiastical elite suppressed the diversity of Christian voices and made its own variation “orthodoxy.” Harvard Divinity School has long been a place where “alternative Christianities”—especially Gnosticism —are defended with “fundamentalist” zeal. Karen L. King , Hollis Professor of Divinity , has been a distinguished evangelist for this “other Christianity.” Properly skeptical journalists might have paused before rushing to the keyboards and cameras. Not with this story. I saw headlines with words like “Certain,” “Confident,” and “Proved.” No question about it: the fragment is authentic and de...

Sensationalism masquerading as scholarship The whole world changed on Tuesday. At least, that is what many would have us to believe. Smithsonian  magazine, published by the Smithsonian Institution , declares that the news released Tuesday was “apt to send jolts through the world of biblical scholarship — and beyond.” Really? What was this news? Professor Karen King of the Harvard Divinity School announced at a conference in Rome that she had identified an ancient papyrus fragment that includes the phrase, “ Jesus said to them, ‘My wife.’” Within hours, headlines around the world advertised the announcement with headlines like “Ancient Papyrus Could Be Evidence that Jesus Had a Wife” ( The Telegraph ). The   Smithsonian   article states that “the announcement at an academic conference in Rome is sure to send shock waves through the Christian world.” The magazine’s breathless enthusiasm for the news about the papyrus probably has more to do with advertising i...

Here we go again! A newly revealed piece of papyrus offers evidence that some early Christians believed Jesus was married, according to a Harvard Divinity School professor. A fourth-century codex in Coptic quotes Jesus referring to "my wife," Karen King , a scholar of early Christianity, said on Tuesday. It is the only extant text in which Jesus is explicitly portrayed as betrothed, according to King. King is calling the receipt-sized slip of papyrus " The Gospel of Jesus' Wife ." She believes it was originally written in Greek, and later translated into Coptic, an Egyptian language . The fragment says, "Jesus said to them, 'My wife...,'" according to King. The rest of the sentence is cut off. Another segment says, "As for me, I dwell with her in order to..." The speaker is not named. The fragment contains just 33 words spread across 14 incomplete lines—less a full-fledged gospel than an ancient crossword puzzle. ...