TO THE EDITOR:
In response to Memet Walker’s rants about the recently discovered “Gospel of Jesus’ Wife.”
So yes, a 4th-century Coptic manuscript has recently come to the attention of Biblical scholars. So should we all change our opinions about Jesus and conclude that he had a wife?
The answer is a resounding no! At best, the manuscript found is just another fragment of a Gnostic text (By the way, it’s the size of your average smartphone).
The fragment sheds no light about the historical Jesus. Why? Because it does not pass historical criteria. No other existing manuscripts independently attest that Jesus had a wife!
So, while Walker’s anecdote about Jesus and Mary is amusing, in actuality, he has no basis for the story. Moreover, and probably the most striking thing about the manuscript, is most scholars believe it’s a forgery.
Stephen Emmel, a professor at Muenster (the hub of Biblical scholarship), and the founder of the Gospel of Judas, believes that the gospel is a forgery.
Even one of our own professors, Zlatko Plese, believes the manuscript is a forgery.
As for Walker’s conclusion about the Bible being as unreliable as Wikipedia, again, he has no basis for this assumption.
