Ten years ago today, a senior Harvard historian of early Christianity walked to a lectern across from the Vatican and announced the discovery of what she believed was an ancient papyrus in which Jesus speaks of a wife. 1/8
The discovery of this "Gospel of Jesus's Wife"—as the scholar called it—made the front pages of The New York Times and Boston Globe. A Harvard professor, a married Jesus, a cryptic text on a piece of papyrus: It was The Da Vinci Code, come to life. 2/8
In 2016, responding to the work of scholars and to my provenance investigation in @TheAtlantic, the Harvard professor came to the same conclusion much of the rest of her field had years earlier: the papyrus was a modern fake. 3/8
The scholar's reversal was covered, above the fold, on the front page of the Boston Globe. 4/8 web.archive.org/web/2016062002…
My 2020 book, Veritas: A Harvard Professor, a Con Man and the Gospel of Jesus’s Wife, found that the scholar’s article on her discovery—published in the Harvard Theological Review—was a product of fraudulent evidence, failed peer review, and undisclosed conflicts of interest. 5/8
More than eight years after the article’s publication, the Review, edited by @HarvardDivinity School faculty and published by @CambUP_Religion, has yet to retract or correct it. 6/8
Experts in academic ethics have sharply criticized the Review's failure to correct the record, calling it a "cop out...of Biblical proportions" and a disservice to scholarly integrity and truth. 7/8 chronicle.com/article/a-scho…
For much more on this saga of fraud, fantasy, and faith--and the motorcycle-riding pornographer from Florida who set it all in motion--read Veritas. 8/8 penguinrandomhouse.com/books/554116/v…
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