This article offers a critical edition of a papyrus fragment in Coptic that contains a dialogue between Jesus and his disciples in which Jesus speaks of “my wife.”Footnote 1 The fragment does not provide evidence that the historical Jesus was married but concerns an early Christian debate over whether women who are wives and mothers can be disciples of Jesus. Solely for purposes of reference, the fragment is given the title The Gospel of Jesus's Wife (GJW).Footnote 2
The existence of the GJW papyrus was announced at the International Coptic Congress in Rome, September 18, 2012, and a draft of the critical edition with digital photographs was posted on the Harvard Divinity School website. The critical edition published here is very much a collaborative project, although any remaining defects are mine alone. Roger Bagnall, AnneMarie Luijendijk, and Ariel Shisha-Halevy offered significant contributions, and I offer them my deepest gratitude. Their continued help and the aid of many other scholars and scientists are reflected in the critical edition published here. Also helpful were many of the critical and constructive comments, questions, and analyses in three peer reviews, in online media, and through private communications. I have attempted throughout to give serious consideration to all the relevant points of which I am aware, although the overt discussion of forgery is taken up only in the section on dating.
In addition to those already named, let me acknowledge and thank the following for their enormous generosity of time and expertise: Rose Lincoln and B. D. Colen produced high-resolution digital photographs. Malcolm Choat examined the fragment during a visit to Harvard (November 14–15, 2012). Microscopic imaging was conducted by Douglas Fishkind and Casey Kraft with Henry Lie at the Harvard Center for Biological Imaging (December 17, 2012). Raman testing of the ink was done by James Yardley with Alexis Hagadorn at Columbia University (March 11–12, 2013). Radiocarbon analysis was performed by Greg Hodgins at the University of Arizona Accelerator Mass Spectrometry Laboratory (June–July, 2013). Funding for the carbon-14 (14C) testing was generously provided by a gift from Tricia Nichols. Multispectral imaging was performed by Michael Toth and select images were processed by William Christians-Barry (August 26, 2013). Timothy Swager, Joseph Azzarelli, and John Goods performed Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) testing at MIT (November 5, 2013). Harvard librarians, especially Douglas Gragg, were gracious and patient supporters. Harvard's communications professionals took the lead in public dissemination. Noreen Tuross gave invaluable advice and conducted a crucial range of testing including a second radiocarbon determination. Hal Taussig offered collegial counsel. David Hempton, Dean of the Harvard Divinity School was a source of consistent support and much-needed advice throughout the entire process. And finally, to the many other supporters not named here, I offer my sincere appreciation.
The critical edition begins with a transcription of the Coptic text and English translation, followed by a discussion of the material artifact (papyrology, paleography, form and uses), language, interpretation, and the history of the manuscript. Summary reports of analysis performed on the ink and papyrus completed to date follow. Full reports, imaging, and other supplementary materials may be found at http://www.gospelofjesusswife.hds.harvard.edu/ (GJW webpage).
The Material ArtifactFootnote 4
Papyrological Description
The fragment has a largely regular rectangular shape measuring ca. 4 cm in height by ca. 8 cm in width. The lines of text are incomplete, suggesting it belonged to a larger piece of papyrus. It is not possible to determine its original size because none of the margins are preserved, and no known direct parallels exist upon which to reconstruct the text.Footnote 5 The fragment may have been inscribed on a single new leaf or a reused piece of papyrus, perhaps taken from a wide margin or an uninscribed portion of a leaf.Footnote 6 (The terms “recto” [→] and “verso” [↓] are used solely to indicate the dominant fiber patterns on each side.Footnote 7)
The extant papyrus has suffered significant damage. On the right third of the verso (↓) (measuring ca. 3.4 cm in width), some letters are visible, although there is a notable loss of ink.Footnote 8 On the left two-thirds (measuring ca. 4.6 cm in width), many of the vertical fibers and pith are missing. Choat concludes that “the lack of ink on the left two-thirds of the ‘back’ is clearly caused by the loss of most of the upper layer of fibers at this point.”Footnote 9 Numerous holes are evident in this section of the fragment, for example a hole in the final 
in 
(→3). Indeed, back-lit digital photographs show light streaming through the left two-thirds but not the right third. On one section on the verso (↓) measuring ca. 0.6 cm wide by 4 cm high (located ca. 2.2 cm from left margin), the vertical fibers are almost entirely absent and the horizontal fibers of the recto (→3) are clearly visible. Moreover, the division between the two sections is marked by a vertical break that appeared on initial observation of the verso to be a collesis. The recto, however, shows no corresponding indication. On viewing additional imaging, Bagnall suggested that what we are seeing is a strip of reed from the “verso” layer lifting away from the “recto” layer.Footnote 10
Many fibers on the left edge of the recto (→) are damaged or misaligned. The bottom and right (→) edges appear somewhat jagged. In contrast, the top edge is clean and appears to have been cut.Footnote 11 On the recto, one can observe many places where the pith is gone or fibers are broken or misplaced; note, for example, line →4, where the papyrus is folded over in a tiny flap on the upper stroke of the 
and another on the 
, just above the hole in the papyrus that mars these letters. Moreover, in →3, dislocated fibers have obscured the first letter of the line due to damage after the page was inscribed. In →4, several letters have discontinuous strokes with missing ink because of damage to the material. For instance, the diagonal stroke before the 
lacks its center where there is a small hole in the papyrus. And in that same line (→4), the horizontal bar of the of 
is split.
Examination with microscopic imaging using top, side, and back lighting does not show ink on the lower fibers of the recto.Footnote 12
Visible, however, is some materialFootnote 13 of a brown-orange color on the top of the ink, observable with the naked eye on the upper right of the in 
(line →3) and on the lower stroke of the first 
in 
(line →7). Tinier bits of this material “splattered” toward the right side of the recto can be observed in the microscopic imaging.
Raman analysis done by James Yardley and Alexis Hagadorn has determined that the fragment is inscribed in ink based on carbon “lamp black” pigments.Footnote 14Analysis indicates the possibility of similar but not identical inks on each side, perhaps indicating different batches of ink. The differences, however, fall within the range of experimental error so this possibility is not certain. In addition, Columbia researchers are studying details in Raman spectra that may indicate aging of carbon black pigments. Their research to date shows that details of the Raman spectra of carbon-based pigments in GJW match closely those of several manuscripts from the Columbia collection of papyri dated between 1 b.c.e. and 800 c.e., while they deviate significantly from modern commercial lamp black pigments. The implication is that the GJW fragment belongs within the ancient group.
Radiocarbon analysis conducted by Greg Hodgins at the NSR-Arizona ANS Laboratory (June–July 2013) produced a date of 404 to 209 b.c.e. The reliability of this date is problematic, however, given that the small size of the sample led to the interruption of the cleaning protocol in order to reduce loss. In addition, the low δ13C (stable isotope) value of 14.3% is odd, although not impossible among plants that employ the C4 biosynthetic pathway.Footnote 15 Initially it was speculated that this oddity might indicate the presence of an unknown contaminant that would result in an older-than-expected dating. Subsequent FT-IR microspectroscopic analysis by the Swager team at MIT did not, however, identify a specific contaminant (beyond the “orange” spots).Footnote 16 A second radiocarbon analysis of the papyrus was done by Noreen Tuross (Harvard University) in conjunction with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (January–February 2014). She reports a δ13C value of −12‰ and a mean date of 741 c.e. for GJW.Footnote 17
The FT-IR testing did, however, produce additional information.Footnote 18 The team concluded the papyrus's chemical composition and patterns of oxidation are consistent with old papyrus by comparing the GJW fragment with a fragment of the Gospel of John (dated by Hodgins's and Tuross's radiocarbon testing to the seventh–eighth centuries c.e.) and with modern papyrus. Neither the recto and verso nor the inked and “bare” areas of the GJW papyrus displayed major spectral differences. The nature of the oxidative aging of both GJW and the John fragments, however, differs notably from modern papyrus.Footnote 19
Current testing thus supports the conclusion that the papyrus and ink of GJW are ancient.
Paleography
The recto (→) has eight incomplete lines of unimodular Coptic script, and the verso (↓) has six. With small letters and relatively little space between the lines, the recto has a cramped look, due perhaps to the need to fit the desired text onto a limited area.Footnote 20 The letters on the verso, however, are somewhat larger and the spacing is broader.
The letters are slightly irregular in optical density (e.g., appearing sometimes lighter or darker) and in size (measuring ca. 3 to 5 mm in height and ca. 2 to 5 mm in width). Their irregularity can be appreciated by noting, for example, that epsilons measure from ca. 3 to 4.5 mm in height and from ca. 2 to 4 mm in width.
AnneMarie Luijendijk observed the following from visual examination of the papyrus:Footnote 21 Letters are unadorned and without ligatures. The vertical strokes are generally upright; mu is formed with four strokes; epsilon, theta, omicron, and sigma are wide and round; upsilon is tall and narrow with a high v-shaped top. The scribe may have aimed at bilinear (short) letters, but the lines are not entirely straight, and the spacing varies such that this is not always successful. The scribe placed fairly narrow superlinear strokes above single letters. The name Jesus is written as a nomen sacrum (→ 2, 4), a scribal feature common in Christian manuscripts.Footnote 22
Notable, too, is a blank area followed by an oblique stroke in →4, possibly functioning like a paragraphos to mark a textual division.Footnote 23 The odd appearance of the sigma in 
(→3) may be due to a phonological confusion of zeta with sigma, corrected by overwriting a sigma. Additionally, the 
in 
(→5) appears to have been corrected, but the 
in 
shows no sign of correction.Footnote 24
The uneven optical density and occasional smudging of the letters may be due not only to abrasion, but to dipping too much ink or re-inking the pen. Bagnall suggests that the pen itself may have been blunt and not holding the ink well.Footnote 25 Magnification also shows a number of places where the ends of letters form tails or forks; these could indicate the use of a brush rather than a pen, or alternatively may be due to a poor pen and inadequate scribal skill.Footnote 26
Finally, due to the poor preservation of the verso, it is not possible to determine conclusively whether both sides of the papyrus are from the same scribal hand, although they appear similar. Differences in spacing and the possibility that different batches of ink were used on the two sides are also not unequivocal indicators.
In summary, the general impression of the recto is a crude and unpracticed, functional script, such as one might expect from a scribe who has not progressed beyond an elementary “school hand.”Footnote 27 As several experts have helpfully pointed out, the script shows the characteristics of neither a formal literary (“professional”) hand nor documentary script.Footnote 28 Magical, school, or private texts do offer cases of idiosyncrasy and crudeness.Footnote 29
Form and Use(s)
The cramped size and crudeness of the script almost certainly rule out the form of a formal literary codex or production for public reading, for example in a liturgical church or school setting.Footnote 30 Once we leave the world of the formal codex (or scroll), however, we enter into an astonishing diversity of literary productions and their functions in a wide variety of settings. The extant papyri include single leaves, scraps, and even miniature “codices,” which are often characterized by crude and idiosyncratic handwriting, as well as orthographic, grammatical, and other scribal infelicities. Often their functions are obscure, and many are without secure provenance.Footnote 31 The fact that, as Frankfurter observes, “the concept of supernatural power in Egypt was strongly tied to the notion of writing” indicates that some of these papyri may have had utility for protection (from demons).Footnote 32 Moreover, multiple functions or reuse confuse tidy categorization (e.g., in distinguishing scripture from magic).Footnote 33 The poor scribal and literary quality of such texts probably tells us more about the social and economic status of whoever produced and used them than it does about their relative importance to their owners.
The GJW fragment shares the features of many of these artifacts.Footnote 34 Some have suggested that it may be an amulet due to its compact size and regular shape.Footnote 35 Although no folds remain, the regular edges may indicate where a larger leaf has broken along the fold lines, leaving a middle section of the page without margins.Footnote 36 The very mention of Jesus (and his mother Mary) may have given GJW an aura of sacrality, and the seemingly odd appearance of the “curse” in line →6 may indicate that the papyrus was considered to have protective value. (Re)use as an amulet would not, however, eliminate the possibility that it may be an excerpt from a longer work used for private study or devotional use or that it may have originated as an aide-mémoire or even a practice text.Footnote 37
Language
The language of the fragment is standard Sahidic. While the orthography of the first person singular suffix pronoun as object of the preposition 
is normally 
, the spelling of 
(→1 and →5) is comprehensible within the range of Sahidic orthographyFootnote 38 and is not sufficient to indicate dialectal influence, e.g., from Lycopolitan, in which 
also appears. Given that Sahidic can be well characterized as “an aggregation of linguistic habits only imperfectly and variously standardized,”Footnote 39 such orthographic variation is not consequential.Footnote 40
Inscription in Sahidic provides only a rough indication of the papyrus's geographical provenance and region of circulation since it may also point toward the increasing tendency of Christians to use Sahidic, notably as “the first Coptic dialect into which the Scriptures were translated” in the third to fourth centuries.Footnote 41
A substantial portion of early Coptic literature was translated from Greek, including the closest parallels to GJW,Footnote 42 suggesting that it, too, may originally have been composed in Greek although it is extant only in Coptic. While plausible, this supposition cannot be definitively established on the basis of this tiny fragment.
The grammar and syntax of GJW can be described as follows:
→1 
is the extraposited subjectFootnote 43 (feminine singular possessive article 
plus noun 
). 
is the past tense conjugation base with feminine singular personal intermediate. 
consists of the double-object infinitive 
that “takes two objects always immediately suffixed in a string, one after another, expressing personal recipient + thing given.”Footnote 44 While rare, the absence of the mediating direct object marker 
before 
has precedents.Footnote 45
→2 
: This sentence contains the suffixally conjugated verboid 
that “signals direct discourse”; it is almost always completed by 
“to introduce reported discourse,”Footnote 46 but note the variant and discussion of line →4 below.
→3 
: The verb 
(Graeco-Coptic related to the Greek ἀρνέομαι) can be intransitiveFootnote 47 or transitive (with the direct object marker 
before the entity term). Here the previous sentence must end with 
because if 
were the object of , it would need to be marked by the direct object marker 
. A durative sentence (
) follows, with a definite subject (
) and durative infinitive (here the transitive verb 
with object marked by 
meaning “to be worthy of”).Footnote 48 There is no clear antecedent for the feminine singular personal suffix 
. The sentence could be restored to end with the negator 
, but this is not required grammatically. Or the 
could, inter alia, begin a new sentence or be restored with the connector 
.
→4 
: Although not standard, the absence of 
following 
to introduce direct discourse is attested in Gos. Thom. and the Manichaean Kephalaia, which also vary their usage of 
with and without .Footnote 49 In line →2 above, the standard form of with 
appears, indicating the usage is variable here as well.
The antecedent of the third person plural personal suffix (
) of the preposition 
is most probably “the disciples” (see →2), establishing that the fragment contains a dialogue between Jesus and the disciples.
Regarding 
(my wife), 
(singular) always means “wife” not “woman.”Footnote 50 Given that Jesus is the speaker, the possessive article indicates that he is speaking of his wife.
→5 
is a durative sentence composed of a third person feminine singular personal prefix of the durative sentence (
) with future (
), verbal auxiliary 
(be able to), prenominal infinitive (
) with zero article phrase (
), and preposition () with first person singular suffix pronoun object (
). Layton notes that 
in combination with 
expresses the present tense “without distinguishing present and future” and that the durative sentence 
plus zero article phrase means “have/perform the function of, have the characteristic of.” Moreover, it can have “ingressive meaning, expressing entry into a state; in other words, the distinction between being and becoming is cancelled.”Footnote 51 The sentence should therefore be understood to mean that “she” is able to perform the functions of or have the characteristics of being a disciple. Assuming Jesus is speaking here, the prepositional phrase 
indicates she is able to be a disciple “to me,” i.e., to Jesus. The reference for 
(she) is not certain, but the immediate extant antecedent is “my wife.”
→6 
is a non-durative sentence with the jussive conjugation base 
.Footnote 52 The jussive expresses a command and is used only in dialogue.Footnote 53 This sentence offers two interesting features. The first, 
, apparently contradicts the well-established pattern in which the attributive clause after a definite (specific) antecedent takes the relative form, while after a non-definite (non-specific) antecedent it takes the circumstantial form;Footnote 54 that is, one would expect either 
(relative) or 
(circumstantial). 
may, however, be regarded as a case of the phenomenon studied by Shisha-Halevy of “zero-determined generic noun as antecedent of a relative (not circumstantial!).”Footnote 55 He regards it as a rare attestation of an as yet only partially understood phenomenon in which “non-specific, as a rule generic nuclei combine with the Relative conversion.”Footnote 56 In this case, 
, albeit not definite, combines with a relative clause.
The other issue in →6 is the lexical identification of the infinitive. Luijendijk, Shisha-Halevy,Footnote 57 and the third reviewer suggested 
(swell). The term is often used to describe unpleasant bodily tumors, illness, and swellingsFootnote 58 and would fit the proverbial character of a call for the wicked to suffer.
→7 
is a durative sentence with an extraposited topic (
, the personal independent), first person singular personal prefix of the durative sentence (
), qualitative infinitive (
), and preposition (
) with third person feminine suffix pronoun as object (
). The preposition 
+ infinitive forms an infinitive phrase (“in order to, to”). 
+ main clause (“because”) is not possible because the ink traces at the end of the line preclude the letter 
.
→8 This damaged line contains only one visible word, 
, the noun with the indefinite article (
).
Interpretation
Genre: Dialogue and Polemics
The extant text of GJW presents a dialogue between Jesus and his disciples. In line →2, the disciples are addressing their remarks to Jesus, and in line→4, the antecedent of the third person plural “them” most probably refers to “the disciples.” It is therefore highly probable that Jesus is directly addressing his disciples in the first person in the other extant lines. On the verso, another instance of “my mother” occurs, indicating more direct speech. It is not clear whether the dialogue was part of a more extensive work that contained narrative passages.
Dialogues are familiar constituents of early Christian gospel literature, both in canonical and extracanonical gospels,Footnote 59 and the broader generic category for GJW is gospel, insofar as this category is defined capaciously to include all early Christian literature whose narrative or dialogue encompasses some aspect of Jesus's career (including post-resurrection appearances) or that designates itself as “gospel” already in antiquity.Footnote 60 Although it is unknown whether the fragment belongs to a larger work titled a “gospel,” in content it most closely resembles works that are (e.g., Matt, Luke, Gos. Thom., Gos. Mary, and Gos. Phil.).Footnote 61
The dialogue concerns family and discipleship. Jesus speaks of “my mother” and “my wife” in lines →1 and 4, and line →5 refers to a female person who is able to be Jesus's “disciple.” Moreover, there appears to be some controversy or polemic, although it is unclear precisely what the concerns are. The term 
in line →3 indicates that something or someone is being denied or rejected, and the line goes on to address whether Mary is worthy of something. In addition, line →7 contains what appears to be, if not a curse, at least a strong wish that the wicked should swell up, indicating some kind of antipathy.
More tentatively, the first four extant letters of line →1 (
) may be the conclusion of a well-known Jesus saying found in Matt 10:37, Luke 14:26 (Q 14:26), and Gos. Thom. 55 and 101.Footnote 62 This suggestion is based on two factors. First, the topics of family, worthiness, and discipleship are similar, and secondly, the version in Gos. Thom. (NHC II,2 49.34, 36) also ends with these four Coptic letters.Footnote 63 In addition, line →5 offers a construction (
) similar to Gos. Thom. 55 and 101 (though the sentence in GJW is positive and the personal prefix is feminine not masculine). Furthermore, the version of the saying in Gos. Thom. 101 (NHC II,2 49.36–50.2) continues with a contrast between Jesus's (natal?) mother and his true mother who gave him life. While no such contrast is apparent in GJW, the similarity suggests that the restoration of “li[fe]” at the end of line →1 (
) is possible. Together these similarities make the restoration of some version of this saying highly likely in my opinion. However, given that none of the variants in this widespread tradition exactly match GJW, the precise form of the saying here cannot be definitively determined, nor is its direct literary dependence upon Gos. Thom. assured.
The verso of the fragment, which has only two clearly legible Coptic words, “my mother” and “forth,” offers little help to interpretation. Nor is it certain that the verso text belongs to the same literary composition as the recto, although that should be considered a possibility given the topic of “my mother” on both sides of the fragment.
Much remains tantalizingly open, given the tiny size of the fragment, the loss of text at the beginning and end of every extant line, and the serious damage, especially to line →8 and to the entire verso. What is being taught about family and discipleship? What is the issue (or issues) of the polemics? What is being stated about “my mother,” “Mary,” “my wife,” and “my disciple”? To whom do they refer? Might these figures be related? If so, how? Any answers to these questions will remain speculative to a greater or lesser degree, as is true for all historical reconstruction, but all the more so for fragmentary texts like GJW. Nonetheless, the themes of family and discipleship stand out, as well as the attention given to female figures. The topic of Jesus's marital status invites consideration as well.
Who is Worthy and Able to be Jesus's Disciple?
Family and discipleship were issues that deeply concerned early Christians. In a world where family membership assumed strong ties of duty, loyalty, and a social identity that carried religious or cultic obligations, those who followed Jesus would often have found themselves at odds with natal family members. Sayings in the early gospel tradition emphasize that mission and loyalty to Jesus should override familial relations and could put followers at risk of losing their lives.Footnote 64
Yet at the same time, Jesus's followers were constituting themselves using the language of family, with God as Father, Jesus as his Son, and members of the churches as brothers and sisters—or alternatively Christ as bridegroom and the Church as his virginal bride. For example, in Mark 3:31–35 when Jesus's mother and brothers come asking for him, Jesus tells the crowd, “Whosoever does the will of God is my brother, and sister, and mother.”Footnote 65 The Gospel of Thomas differentiates natal and spiritual families in the sharpest terms. For example, in Gos. Thom. 101, Jesus distinguishes between parents one should hate and those one should love, differentiating his (birth?) mother from his “true” mother who gave him life.Footnote 66 And in saying 105 Jesus says, “Whoever knows father and motherFootnote 67 will be called the child of a harlot” (Gos. Thom. 50:16–18), equating birth through human lust with sexual illegitimacy and implying that one's true identity is as a child of the divine Father (and Mother?).Footnote 68 By using this strong language of hating family, slurring natal relations as illegitimacy and harlotry, and by contrasting natal family with the family of God in Christ, gospel writers were attempting to dis-embed believers from their natal families, at least in terms of primary loyalty, and to re-embed them as concrete members in a new (fictive) family, the church. In later centuries, these sayings took on new significance as Christians faced ruptures with natal families and broader communities during times of persecutionFootnote 69 or as believers were urged to give up marriage and reproduction in favor of lives of sexual renunciation.Footnote 70
Might the similarities of these dominical sayings to the dialogue between Jesus and his disciples in GJW indicate similar concerns with the cost of discipleship or the identification of one's true (spiritual) family? Jesus speaks in GJW about worthiness and who is able to be his disciple, and, as we have seen, the mention of family members (mother and wife) in such a context is not surprising. Indeed the clear focus on female figures—“Mary,” “my mother,” “my wife,” “my (female) disciple”—suggests a special interest in the worthiness of women to be disciples. That someone or something is being denied or rejected (→3), that someone speaks about the (un)worthiness of Mary (→3), and that Jesus defends some particular woman's ability to be his disciple (→5) all seem to indicate that the topic under discussion concerns questions or challenges about women and discipleship, in particular sexually active and reproductive women (wives and mothers). We know these were topics under debate in the early period of Christian formation. For example, in Gos. Thom. 114 Peter declares, “Let Mary leave us, for women are not worthy of life” (a position Jesus corrects), and 1 Timothy condemns those who forbid marriage, insisting that women will be saved through childbearing (4:1–5; 2:15). Might GJW, too, be weighing in on such controversies? Let us take a closer look.
Women and Discipleship: Mary, My Mother, My Wife, My Disciple
While certainly Jesus's reference to “my wife” is the most startling aspect of the fragment for modern readers, it is also notable that he refers as well to “my mother,” “Mary,” and “my (female) disciple.” All these figures, except a wife, are characters in narratives of Jesus's life found in early Christian writings both within and outside of the New Testament canon. It is not entirely clear, however, how many women are being referred to in GJW,Footnote 71 who they are, precisely what is being said about them, or what larger issues are under discussion.
To whom, for example, does “Mary” refer—Jesus's mother, his wife, a female disciple, yet another figure, or even all of these? Early Christianity's well-known profusion and confusion of Marys should make us cautious in identifying Mary here. “Mary” was a popular name among Jewish women, and six of the sixteen named women in the New Testament are called “Mary.”Footnote 72 Two Marys, however, are particularly prominent: Jesus's mother and Mary Magdalene. It seems likely that “Mary” refers to one of these, but which? Orthography is not decisive since early Christian literature uses the spelling of “Mary” (
) found in GJW →3 variably for both Mary the mother of Jesus and Mary Magdalene.Footnote 73 Further difficulty arises in that later tradition not infrequently assigns to the mother Mary roles otherwise belonging to Mary Magdalene,Footnote 74 and the reverse occurs as well, albeit more rarely.Footnote 75 Both are traditionally regarded as disciples of Jesus. In one case multiple Mary figures are directly identified. Gospel of Philip 59.6–11 first refers to three Marys but then conflates them into a single figureFootnote 76: 
(There are three who always walked with the Lord: Mary his mother and her sister and Magdalene, who is called his partner [koinônos]. For Mary is his sister and his mother and his spouse [hôtre]).Footnote 77
Moreover, it is possible that the references to mother, Mary, and wife do not refer to characters in the career of the historical Jesus but are being deployed metaphorically as figures of the Church (fem.) or heavenly Wisdom (Sophia; fem.) or symbolically/typologically as brides of Christ or even mothers. Examples abound. In the later church, Jesus's mother is presented as the model for virgins who are understood as brides of Christ. Athanasius, for example, writes: “But Mary, the bearer of God, remains a virgin [so that she might be a pattern for] everyone coming after her. If a woman desires to remain a virgin and bride of Christ, she can look to her [Mary’s] life and imitate it.”Footnote 78 Thus Mary the mother is, in that sense, “the image” for both his mother and his bride. As for Mary Magdalene, she too was allegorically interpreted as the bride of Christ, for example in a fourth-century intertextual interpretation of Song 3 with John 20.Footnote 79 Moreover, in Gos. Phil., it may be that Mary Magdalene is identified as “the mother of angels” and the type of the heavenly Wisdom.Footnote 80 However, Gos. Phil. also teaches that Mary the mother conceived not by the Holy Spirit but from the Father of the All, and from their union Jesus's body came into being (Gos. Phil. 71:4–9; see also 55:23–36). Thus Gos. Phil. ascribes roles in the heavenly drama of salvation to the “historical” figures of both Mary Magdalene and Jesus's mother.
Much more could be said here, but this brief discussion already illustrates that early Christian literature offers numerous examples where a Mary appears as Jesus's mother, bride, sister, heavenly Wisdom, Church, or archetype for virginal brides of Christ. Moreover, the practices of “confusing” or identifying various Marys with each other or assigning them metaphorical or typological roles in Christian dramas of salvation demonstrate the “flexibility” of early tradition in appealing to these important female figures for various ends.
Where might the references to “mother,” “Mary,” “my wife,” and “my disciple” in GJW be situated in this field? The polemics of the fragment may help in answering this question. What are the issues under debate?
While non-Christian outsiders did ridicule the notion of Mary's virginal motherhood,Footnote 81 among Christians Jesus's mother became increasingly valorized, even venerated, for her exemplary piety and virginity.Footnote 82 Her motherhood, however, was also a crucial, if contentious, site to explore and debate theological questions about the nature of the incarnation. Certainly some Christians were questioning the fleshly status of Jesus's birth, suggesting for example that his birth mother was only a pipe through which he flowed, contributing nothing.Footnote 83 Other Christians emphasized the very physical character of the birth.Footnote 84 For GJW, the insistence that his mother gave him life might well be an affirmation that his birth mother did indeed give him life—perhaps in opposition to views such as that of Gos. Thom. 101, which distinguishes Jesus's birth mother from his true mother. While such debates may have their focus on the incarnation or the spiritual nature of believers, representations of Jesus's mother also impacted Christian attitudes toward women generally, especially in regard to controversies over female virginity and reproduction. If GJW →3 concerns Jesus's mother, it would seem to support mothers against those who deny their worthiness.
What about Jesus's reference to “my wife” (GJW →4)? Might it belong to intra-Christian polemics over the value of marriage? Let us consider this question in the broader context of what early Christians said about Jesus's marital status.Footnote 85
The New Testament gospels never explicitly claim that Jesus was not married, but other literature does portray Christ as married metaphorically to the Church or to Jerusalem.Footnote 86 The first Christians to claim that Jesus was not married used the claim to denounce all marriage, according to Clement of Alexandria. In his Stromateis, he reports on some second-century Christians “who say outright that marriage is fornication and teach that it was introduced by the devil. They proudly say that they are imitating the Lord who neither married nor had any possession in this world, boasting that they understand the gospel better than anyone else.”Footnote 87 Tertullian, too, stated that Christ was “totally unwed” (innuptus in totum) and he urged believers to a higher perfection by imitating Christ's status as spado in carne (“an impotent person” or “eunuch in flesh”—perhaps referring to Matt 19:8–9, 12), although Tertullian invoked Jesus's celibacy not to forbid marriage altogether but to charge believers against a second marriage.Footnote 88 As a high valuation of celibacy and virginity flourished, the position that Jesus was a virgin who never married came to be dominant, even though the extreme denunciation of marriage was rejected.Footnote 89 On the other hand, the ascetic movement tended to produce many “brides of Christ,” virgins who pledged themselves to him in “spiritual marriage.”Footnote 90 Without referring to a married Jesus, however, other Christians already in the second century pushed back against the devaluation or rejection of marriage and childbearing. 1 Timothy, for example, requires bishops to be married (3:2), argues that woman are saved by bearing children (2:15), and rebukes those who reject marriage as liars possessed by demons (4:15).
Arguably, however, Gos. Phil. does portray Mary Magdalene as the spousal partner of the fleshly (incarnate) Jesus, as part of its complex theological articulation of Jesus's incarnation and Christian salvation.Footnote 91 It interprets Eph 5:22–33 in conjunction with a developing incarnational theology in which everything about Jesus is considered to have spiritual meaning, not only his teaching and deeds, but his birth, death, and resurrection—and his marriage. The Gospel of Philip interprets that marriage as a symbolic paradigm enacted by Christians in an initiation ritual (involving the normal water baptism, anointing with oil, the communal greeting of a kiss, and the Eucharist meal) that effectively made initiates into members of the body of Christ, the Church, and thus restored human unity with the divine. Just as Jesus's incarnation was the result of the union of the Father of the All with the virgin, so, too, the spiritual truth that Jesus taught in his marriage with Mary Magdalene was the union and restoration to unity with God. Baptism also purified Christians from demon possession and its pollutions, so that marriage between Christians was pure, free from demonic presence, and a matter of will not the lust of sexual desire. In short, Gos. Phil. offers an incarnational theology that embraces the pure marriage of Christians as a paradigm established by Christ in his own incarnate life.Footnote 92
While it is impossible to read such a fully developed incarnational theology into the GJW fragment, if “Mary” (GJW →3) is the antecedent for “my wife” (GJW →4), it may be that this Mary is understood to be Mary Magdalene. Moreover, if the antecedent for “disciple” (GJW →5) is “my wife” (GJW →4), what might the polemics in GJW imply?
While later tradition in the West erroneously identified Mary Magdalene as a repentant prostitute,Footnote 93 earlier Christian literature portrays her as an exemplary woman disciple and even a leader in the Jesus movement.Footnote 94 Some early Christian writings, however, challenge her status,Footnote 95 notably through the figure of Peter.Footnote 96 In Gos. Mary, for example, Peter states that Jesus loved her more than other women (10:1–3), but later he and Andrew challenge her role as a leading disciple (17:10–22). Levi, however, defends her, stating: 
(For if the Savior made her worthy, who are you then for your part to reject her? Assuredly the Savior's knowledge of her is completely reliable. That is why he loved her more than us; 18:10–15).Footnote 97 Jesus's love of Mary affirms her status as favored disciple and does not explicitly refer to her as a wife.Footnote 98 There are, however, some intriguing semantic similarities to GJW. Although the precise terms used in Gos. Mary are different from GJW →3, the Greek ἄξιος can render the Coptic 
,Footnote 99 and the semantic ranges of 
(cast out, discard) and 
(deny, reject) are perhaps not so far apart. Moreover, grammatically, the antecedent of 
in GJW →3 could be 
(discipleship), a point that would fit Jesus's statement in GJW →5 that “she is able to be my disciple.” Such similarities are not sufficient to establish a direct literary relationship between the two works. The relatively widespread polemic against Mary Magdalene as beloved of Jesus and as a follower whose discipleship is challenged, however, provides a compelling context in which to read the GJW fragment.
Finally, let us consider the remarkable opinion of Simon Peter in Gos. Thom. 114: 
(Let Mary leave us, for women are not worthy of life).Footnote 100 Given the “confusion” of Marys, it is again not entirely clear who is being referred to here. But whether Mary is Jesus's mother, the prominent disciple Mary Magdalene, or even some third Mary, the statement that all women are not worthy of life is remarkable. And even though Jesus steps in to defend Mary (and women), stating that he will make her a “living spirit resembling you males,”Footnote 101 this response is not a particularly robust defense of femaleness. In contrast, Jesus's statement in GJW that his mother brought him life and is worthy (GJW → 1, 3) and his claim that his wife is able to be his disciple (GJW →4–5) offer a more robust affirmation that women who are wives and mothers are worthy and able to be disciples of Jesus.
In the end, many possibilities remain open. The Mary in line →3 could refer the Jesus's mother, his wife, or even a different figure. Jesus's marriage in GJW might be carnal, celibate,Footnote 102 metaphorical, and/or symbolic-paradigmatic. I consider it highly likely, however, that the polemical issue of the dialogue concerns the discipleship of women. There is no direct evidence that the issue of women's discipleship under discussion here centered around leadership roles within Christian communities. Rather it may be that GJW is interested in countering views that valued virginal celibacy over marriage and childbirth or positions that made rejecting sexual life a requirement for discipleship. The dialogue may be representing Jesus's mother and his wife as paradigms for married, child-bearing Christian women and affirming that they are worthy and able to be his disciples. Other interpretations are of course possible, but this one makes good sense within the early history of Christianity, when questions of marriage and reproduction, the status of Mary the mother and Mary Magdalene, and the meaning of Jesus's incarnation were all widespread topics of theological and ethical concern.
The History of the Manuscript
Ancient Provenance
Papyrus texts written in the Coptic (Sahidic) language were produced almost exclusively in Egypt between approximately the third century (when Coptic came into circulation) and the tenth century (when papyrus largely was no longer used). Most ancient finds come from tombs and burials, within caches of private documents in ancient towns, or in rubbish dumps. Some papyri have been reused in mummification or book cartonnage. The provenance of most Coptic papyri, however, remains uncertain.Footnote 103 Where the GJW fragment was found is unknown, but its poor condition suggests that it may have come from a rubbish dump or a burial site, although other contexts cannot be ruled out.Footnote 104 Its content and the use of nomina sacra indicate production and use by Christians.
Modern Period
The current owner of the papyrus states that he acquired the papyrus in 1999. Upon request for information about provenance, the owner provided me with a photocopy of a contract for the sale of “6 Coptic papyrus fragments, one believed to be a Gospel” from Hans-Ulrich Laukamp, dated November 12, 1999, and signed by both parties.Footnote 105 A handwritten comment on the contract states: “Seller surrenders photocopies of correspondence in German. Papyri were acquired in 1963 by the seller in Potsdam (East Germany).” The current owner said that he received the six papyri in an envelope and himself conserved them between plates of plexiglass/lucite.
The owner also sent me scanned copies of two photocopies. One is of an unsigned and undated handwritten note in German, stating the following:
Professor Fecht believes that the small fragment, approximately 8 cm in size, is the sole example of a text in which Jesus uses direct speech with reference to having a wife. Fecht is of the opinion that this could be evidence for a possible marriage.Footnote 106
If these two documents pertain to the GJW fragment currently on loan to Harvard University, they would indicate that it was in Germany in the early 1960s.Footnote 107
In July 2010, the owner contacted me, requesting I look at a Coptic papyrus in his collection, and subsequently sent photographs. In December 2011, he delivered the GJW papyrus by hand to Harvard Divinity School for study and publication. In March 2012, the GJW fragment was examined at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World in New York, by the Institute's director Roger Bagnall and by AnneMarie Luijendijk (Princeton University). Announcement of the discovery was made at the International Association for Coptic Studies meeting in Rome, September 18, 2012, and a draft edition with photographs was posted online. The open and lively discussion that followed gave helpful direction and focus to subsequent research, including further study of the papyrus and ink, detailed above.
Dating the Manuscript and the Question of Forgery
From the moment the fragment's existence was announced, discussion of dating focused on the question of whether it was produced in antiquity or was fabricated in modernity with the intent to deceive (“forgery”Footnote 108). This question deserves serious consideration and requires taking account of all the pertinent factors as a whole. These include: characteristics of the materials (papyrus and ink); application of the ink on the page; handwriting; language; compositional practice; the provenance of discovery; and historical contextualization.Footnote 109 Let us consider each in turn.
The scientific testing completed thus far consistently provides positive evidence of the antiquity of the papyrus and ink, including radiocarbon, spectroscopic, and oxidation characteristics, with no evidence of modern fabrication. Hypothetically, a clever forger could acquire a piece of ancient papyrus and fabricate ink from ancient papyrus fragments or other vegetable matter—both of which would pass these kinds of inspection. Yardley comments, however, that while correct, “in practice this may not be so simple. The soot created in this way would not be at all the same as the soot normally used for inks unless the person who burned the papyrus was exceedingly careful to follow a procedure similar to or related to the processes used by the ancients.”Footnote 110 Moreover, the very early (unreliable?) 14C dating is problematic since it requires hypothesizing either that a scribe already in antiquity acquired a centuries-old papyrus to inscribe or that a forger acquired and inscribed it in modernity; both of these hypotheses have difficulties. Further testing that indicates a date for the GJW papyrus within the seventh to eighth centuries resolves these difficulties.
Shadows on the relatively low-resolution photographs that were initially published seemed to indicate ink on the lower layers of the recto fibers and led to speculation that a forger inscribed the ancient papyrus after it was damaged. Microscopic examination disconfirms this suggestion.
Papyrologists agree that the clumsiness of the script indicates an unprofessional, inexperienced hand but differ in their evaluation of whether it is due to the elementary educational level of an ancient writer or a forger's inexperience writing on papyrus. They also note the small “tails” on some letters that may indicate an anachronistic use of a brush rather than a pen, but Choat finds this point inconclusive. Bagnall suggests a poor pen may be a factor.
The initial estimation of a fourth-century c.e. date for the extant manuscript of GJW was based on paleography, but this method has significant limitations given the current state of the field.Footnote 111 A later date is indicated by the age of the papyrus.
The tiny fragment contains two rare grammatical features, which can be accounted for as 1) unusual but not unknown syntactic features, 2) scribal errors, 3) indications of a forger with a poor knowledge of Coptic, or 4) copying from the November 2002 online, interlinear version of Gos. Thom. 50.1 by Grondin, which erroneously omits the 
before 
.Footnote 112 The fact that, even if these rarities are regarded as grammatical mistakes, they are attested in ancient Coptic manuscripts (i.e., they are the kind of errors that native speakers make) tends to persuade me against option 3.Footnote 113 This point also makes option 4 less likely, and indeed this option has an additional difficulty in requiring proof that the statements and documentation provided by the owner are also false or forged.
Moreover, in my opinion, option 4 lacks any plausibility unless the hypothesis is proved correct that the content of GJW was composed by “cobbling together” extracts from modern editions of Gos. Thom. Footnote 114 This hypothesis is, however, highly problematic.Footnote 115 The method used by forgery proponents to establish this compositional practice assumes forgery and then produces similarities between the two works (as they suggest a forger would) by locating parallels dispersed throughout Gos. Thom. Sometimes the parallel is only a single detached word or a grammatical form. The method also requires positing hypothetical editorial changes or grammatical errors by the forger or by emending the text of GJW to account for differences from Gos. Thom.Footnote 116 It should be noted that while the proposed parallels are largely made up of very common vocabulary, the fragment's two most distinctive or unusual terms (
and 
) have no parallels in Gos. Thom. As Peppard and Paananen have pointed out, such a method cannot distinguish between “authentic and fake” passages nor even show direct literary dependence.Footnote 117 The results, therefore, are not evidence for forgery but at best might be one way of accounting for the text if forgery were to be established by other methods. More to the point, the GJW fragment can easily be accounted for by the ancient compositional practices used by all early Christian literature (including ancient forgeries). These ancient practices are characterized by a lack of fixity as well as continuity; they include memory and oral composition, performance, and transmission, as well as excerpting and “editing.”Footnote 118 The relation among the Synoptic Gospels is a well-known example combining literary dependence with redactional change to produce theologically distinctive dialogues and narratives, such as forgery proponents suggest for GJW's relation to Gos. Thom. One does not, however, have to posit modern forgery to account for GJW's literary dependence upon Gos. Thom. (or other comparands), since that would have been possible in antiquity as well. Moreover, apart from the question of literary dependence, GJW fits well generically among gospel literature composed and circulated in the early centuries of Christianity.
The interpretive contextualizations offered by forgery proponents have variously pointed toward contemporary debates over whether Jesus was married or over ecclesiastical leadership, as well as the portrait of Mary Magdalene in popular media and fiction, and (alleged) modern hoaxes.Footnote 119 If the fragment concerns the discipleship of wives and mothers, however, these are mostly irrelevant as well as unsubstantiated. Rather, scholarship on ancient Christianity has established significant and widespread attention by Christians in the first to sixth centuries c.e. to issues of marriage and reproduction, virginity and celibacy, sexual desire and sin, family and discipleship, and Jesus's marital status. These form a demonstrable ancient historical context for the GJW fragment, even though the claim that Jesus had a human wife is rare, if not unique.
The lack of information regarding the provenance of the discovery is unfortunate since, when known, such information is extremely pertinent. Given that the provenance of small Coptic papyrus fragments is frequently unknown, however, the lack is neither unusual nor decisive for the question of dating. While we can wish for strong evidence, such as an inscribed date or provenance established by professional archaeological excavation, arguments from silence based on these deficiencies are not determinative of the question one way or the other.
On the basis of the criteria considered above and the research done to date, where does the weight of the evidence fall in considering the date of the GJW fragment? On the side of a date in antiquity, all the evidence can be marshaled: the placement of the ink, its chemical composition, the age of the papyrus, and patterns of aging and damage support ancient manufacture and inscription. The inexperienced handwriting and linguistic features fit a poorly trained scribe (with a poor pen?) who is a native speaker. The genre and literary comparands (including Gos. Thom.) are a fit for ancient Christianity, as are the topics of discussion. On the side of a date in modernity, the gravest difficulty for me lies in explaining how a forger incompetent in Coptic language with poor scribal skills (perhaps even anachronistically using a brush) was yet so highly skilled as to secure ancient papyrus, make ink with an ancient technique, leave no ink traces out of place at the microscopic level, achieve patterns of differential aging, fabricate a paper trail of modern supporting documents, and provide a good fit for an ancient historical context—one that no serious scholar considers to be evidence of the historical Jesus's marital status. In my judgment such a combination of bumbling and sophistication seems extremely unlikely. Further research or the development of new methods may offer determinative evidence, but for now, I would judge the weight of evidence to fall on the side of dating the GJW papyrus as a material artifact to antiquity, probably the seventh to eighth centuries c.e.
History in Antiquity
There is insufficient evidence to speculate with any confidence about who may have composed, copied, read, or circulated GJW in antiquity except to conclude they were Christians. Many ancient Christian gospels were pseudonymous, but without a title or other identification, the ancient attribution of this text (if it explicitly had one) remains unknown. Sahidic Coptic language and material composition place the fragment's provenance in Egypt in antiquity. Given that the generic form and content fit within the historical context of the second to fifth centuries of Christianity, the fragment's content might have been composed in this period. More speculatively, given that the closest materials parallel to our fragment in content and genre are found in literature originally composed in Greek in the second century, subsequently translated into Coptic, and circulated in the fourth and fifth centuries (namely, Gos. Thom., Gos. Mary, and probably Gos. Phil.), it is possible that the dialogue of the GJW fragment may also have been composed as early as the second half of the second century in Greek, later translated into Coptic, and circulated in later centuries.
Concluding Reflections
The most historically reliable early Christian literature is silent about Jesus's marital status, and the GJW fragment does not change that situation. It is not evidence that Jesus was married, but it does appear to support the favorable position on marriage and reproduction taken by the canonical 1 Timothy, and it stands on the side of Jesus as he refutes the statement of Peter in Gos. Thom. 114 that “women are not worthy of life.” Although we cannot know whether this damaged fragment supported the ancient patriarchal household order or argued that females should become male as these writings do, it does seem to enter debates over whether Jesus's incarnate life pointed toward marriage or celibacy as the ideal mode of Christian life. Ultimately such questions raise theological issues of whether sexuality belongs to being fully human or necessarily compromises holiness. In my reading, however, the main point of the GJW fragment is simply to affirm that women who are wives and mothers can be Jesus's disciples.
Fifty-nine years passed from the rediscovery of the fifth-century Berlin Codex in 1896 until its first publication in 1955. Its final editor, Walter Till, expressed a sentiment with which I have come to have a deep sympathy after only two years. “At some point,” he wrote, “a man must find the courage to let the manuscript leave one's hand even if one is convinced that there is much that is still imperfect. That is unavoidable with all human endeavors.”Footnote 120 So, too, this article is not the last word on the subject of the GJW fragment, but I hope it will be a useful contribution to ongoing discussion and research.
Afterword
In January 2014, I concluded this article by stating it would not be the last word on the subject. And now in early March, I received news of the results of the second radiocarbon testing of the material artifact of GJW that gives it a mean date of 741 c.e. This date suggests a new line of inquiry into the context of the fragment's circulation in Egypt of the Islamic period, given the Qur’an's designation of Jesus as “Son of Mary” and its view that prophets (among whom Jesus is numbered) were usually married, although the Qur’an does not state specifically that Jesus was married.
