Karen L. King

Response to Leo Depuydt, "The Alleged Gospel of Jesus's Wife: Assessment and Evaluation of Authenticity"

Although the production of GJW in modernity (“forgery”) is a hypothesis worthy of careful consideration, the arguments of Depuydt are not persuasive. I address only substantive issues here. That newly discovered texts have resonance with “modern theological issues” (175) is not proof of forgery but in fact is quite common; Gos. Thom. is itself an example. The reader is left to surmise why mention of Jesus’s marital status is proof of modern forgery rather than a product of well-documented early Christian debates over sexual ethics. Moreover, two of the issues he suggests as possible motives for forgery (“the tradition that all Jesus’s apostles or disciples were male” and “the virgin conception and birth of Jesus”) are not topics in GJW. These points are also inaccurate as presented: Women are referred to as disciples and apostles already in firstand second-century c.e. literature that eventually became canonical (e.g., Acts 9:36; 11:26; Rom 16:7). That “Jesus owes his life 100% to Mary” (176) is an understanding of human reproduction not found anywhere in antiquity (or modernity). That the female contributes matter to the child is, however, a position found widely in ancient medical and philosophical literature, and indeed this is the Catholic position regarding Jesus’s birth from Mary. Moreover, not only Catholic teaching, but many Christian groups—both ancient and modern—represent Jesus as a celibate virgin and also oppose the ordination of women, so specifically antiCatholic animus seems excluded in any case. Finally, the notion that the forger confused the Immaculate Conception (the doctrine that Mary’s conception was