Noah Feldman, Columnist

Jesus May Have Had a Wife, on Paper at Least

How could a respected scholar be so confident that a Coptic fragment referring to Jesus's wife is indeed ancient? Almost everything we know about the nature of historical evidence points to a forgery.

April 11, 2014 at 4:18 PM UTC

By Noah Feldman

Noah Feldman is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A professor of law at Harvard University, he is author, most recently, of “To Be a Jew Today: A New Guide to God, Israel, and the Jewish People."

Can we believe that one papyrus would say so much about Jesus? Photographer: Godong/Robert Harding World Imagery via Getty Images — Can we believe that one papyrus would say so much about Jesus? Photographer: Godong/Robert Harding World Imagery via Getty Images

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Was Jesus married? Trust me when I say I have no dog in the fight. But yesterday, when I read an academic article by a Harvard Divinity School professor arguing for the authentic antiquity of a papyrus fragment that includes the phrase "Jesus said, my wife," I was filled with awe and wonder. How, exactly, could a respected scholar, Karen King, who holds my university's oldest endowed professorship, be so confident that the Coptic fragment, first publicized two years ago, is indeed ancient? Almost everything we know about the nature of historical evidence points to a forgery. So what in the name of Jesus's wife is going on here?

Professional students of artifacts like to start with provenance, the origin and trajectory of an item traced back as far as possible. That would be a great place to begin a discussion of the fragment in question. Except that there is none. Astonishingly, the academic articles on the index-card-size fragment provide no evidence -- you heard that right -- on where it came from or who owns it.