[Peace-discuss] Truly a polymath

[E. Wayne Johnson]

Whether a fake or simply pseudepigraphal what's the diff?

The argument of a "nubby pen"  reminds me of Gill a little.


On 9/20/2012 8:27 PM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
> A star even in the coptological community... (Despite his inability to 
> answer questions about how he'd vote in Congress.)
>
> [From <http://paul-barford.blogspot.com/2012/09/christian-askeland.html>]
>
> A lot of convincing arguments are now coming out which seem to be 
> pointing quite firmly to the conclusion that the so-called "Gospel of 
> Jesus' wife" is indeed a fake as I suggested in my first post here 
> about it.* David Gill *has pointed me to some interesting discussion 
> on the Evangelical Textual Criticism blog, in particular the 
> post by Christian Askeland which was begun from the conference in 
> Rome where this item was (prematurely it now seems) announced.
>
> In an update Dr Askeland announced that initial reactions among 
> the coptological community at the International Association of Coptic 
> studies conference were split.
> My initial perception is that those who specialize in Nag Hammadi and 
> early manuscripts are split with about four-fifths being extremely 
> skeptical about the manuscript’s authenticity and one-fifth is fairly 
> convinced that the fragment is a fake.  I have not met anyone who 
> supports its authenticity, although I do not doubt that there must be 
> some.
>
> There is it seems now a growing list of prominent Coptologists who are 
> completely convinced that this is a fake. Dr Askeland himself says: "I 
> have no doubt that this fragment was not part of a literary document 
> of any kind (e.g. a codex).  If I had to guess, I would have to say 
> that this manuscript is a forgery".  He notes the appeal to authority 
> to support the authenticity in the absence of other information. He 
> points out that the script of the object in fact does not resemble 
> manuscripts of a known fourth century date, and he does not accept the 
> "nubby pen" argument. He also says "if an amateur with a basic 
> knowledge of Coptic were to forge a text, it would look like the text 
> under question" and asks "what other manuscripts (esp. literary) 
> actually look like this fragment?  It looks like a fake".
>
> In the comments, among other things, Simon Gathercole notes:
> "the script is at least fishy [...] Most of it is paralleled in the 
> Gospel of Thomas, images of which are easily accessible on the web".
> Forum member chill was concerned about the state of preservation of 
> the object:
> Does anyone else think the ink in relation to the papyrus fibers looks 
> odd? (1) except for maybe the first 2 lines, the letters at the ends 
> of lines seem fitted to the fragment (2) what appears to be effacement 
> of the papyrus in a vertical strip about a third of the way across the 
> fragment seems to have affected the surface of the papyrus but not the 
> writing (3) I agree with Christian that it looks like it was written 
> with a brush.
> As one forum member sums it up: "No provenance, no ink testing, 
> unparalleled writing, grammatical errors, suspicious dependence on 
> Thomas, ductus doesn't look right. By day 3 there are significant 
> objections for this little scrap to overcome".
>
> Moreover, in contrast to some comments that were being reported 
> yesterday it emerges that it is against the 2007 ASP resolution that a 
> papyrologist should not add "significantly to the commercial value of 
> [stolen] papyri", which includes papyri taken out of Egypt after 1972.
>
> So how many other scholars are going to get misled by fake antiquities 
> surfacing from "underground" on the no-questions-asked antiquities 
> market where the unnamed collector who now wants to sell this fragment 
> to Harvard bought his stuff?  In the light of this train-wreck, does 
> not the AIA resolution about its members getting involved in the 
> publication of such material make an awful lot of sense. This stuff is 
> double-dodgy.
>
> Hat tip to David Gill
> Posted by Paul Barford at 04:58
>
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