A religious studies thriller about Karen King’s “Gospel of Jesus’ Wife”

Typically one would not need to offer a spoiler alert for the review of a nonfiction book about an academic dispute, but this is an exception. Ariel Sabar’s book—with its portentous title and tabloid-style subtitle—reads like a thriller. The plot features more twists and turns than a car chase, although, for the most part, this one unfolds in slow motion. There is an element of international intrigue and even a dash of lurid sex. The colorful characters are portrayed so vividly that I started mentally casting some of my favorite character actors to play various roles in a movie version.

The story begins with a scholar and a text. On April 10, 2014, Harvard Divinity School announced that one of their star faculty members, Karen King, had obtained a papyrus fragment. She called it “The Gospel of Jesus’s Wife” because it included the phrase “Jesus said to them, ‘My wife . . .’” Written in Coptic, the fragment was not much larger than a business card, and the tantalizing reference to Jesus’ wife was cut off mid-sentence. The announcement heralded the papyrus as the first ancient manuscript to indicate that Jesus was married—or, at least, that some early Christians thought he was.

Karen King is the Hollis Professor of Divinity at Harvard—the oldest endowed chair in the country—and a widely respected scholar. Coinciding with the announcement, King published an article on the papyrus in the Harvard Theological Review, lending it added credibility. Besides, the papyrus had been examined by other scholars, and its age had been determined using scientific methods. What could go wrong?