Ten years ago this month, Harvard Theological Review published a set of articles on the “Gospel of Jesus’s Wife” papyrus with fraudulent evidence, compromised peer review, and major undisclosed conflicts of interest. 1/4 The author of the lead article—which presented the "Jesus's Wife" papyrus as likely authentic—soon reversed course and declared it a probable fake. 2/4

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