Ancient papyrus mentions Jesus’s wife

Harvard University, divinity professor Karen L. King, announced (Sept. 18, 2012) at the Tenth International Congress of Coptic Studies in Rome, the discovery of a previously unknown papyrus fragment mentioning Jesus's wife.

The small fragment preserves part of a dialogue between Jesus and his disciples. It is written in Coptic and measures about 1.5 by 3 inches (4 by 8 centimeters). The fragment contains eight lines of text on the front and six lines on the back. Based on the writing, scholars date the fragment to the fourth-century.

"Jesus said to them, 'My wife…'” A New Coptc Gospel Papyrus (PDF file) is the preliminary paper on the discovery. The discovery will be formally published in the Jan. 2013 issue (106:1) of the Harvard Theological Review.

International Association for Coptic Studies

Additional details, commentary and images about the discovery can be found in the numerous on-line articles.

As a layperson in this field, I was tickled by the translated phrase: "Jesus said to them, 'My wife ...'".

Open to so much interpretation given the lack of context, but black-and-white with respect to linking a wife to Jesus.

I've recently read Ki Longfellow's The Secret Magdalene so the announcement was something of an elbow in the ribs for me.

Haven't read the preliminary paper on it yet, thanks for the link.

Hello, I'm here at Tenth International Congress of Coptic Studies Rome, 17-22 September 2012
(have a look to the programm:
http://www.copticcongress2012.uniroma1.it/).

I'm not an expert (I'm just a librarian), but I'll try to catch rumors about it (I mean, not official comment)

As I read on the Web site of King, she never claimed that Jesus was married; this was then the interpretation of journalists. In the meantime it has become very likely that the papyrus is forgery (by whom?).
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2205673/Jesus-Wife-papyrus-Proof-Jesus-m...

My intial thought when seeing images of the fragment was it did not look quite "right." The writing seems to "fit" the fragment which can be a red flag, indicating it might be a falsification (writing not original to the fragment, though the papyrus is probably old). I am familiar with papyri, but not an expert. Hovever, Roger Bagnell is an scholar I respect and would accept his authentatication/judgement of a fagment.

Usually, the writing on falsifications is often gibberish or was sometimes copied from another text though, generally, not very well. The hand is a book hand (printed) rather than a documentary (cusive) one. This would add value to any fragment, even if you couldn't read the text. However, the fact that it is a readable text, somewhat supports authenticity and I would think a forger would have picked/created a better text. Also, they did a carefull and detailed examination of the fragment. The damage and how the ink is on the surface and other points they observed suggest it is ancient. Pending chemical analysis of the ink itself will also prove of value in determinng authenticity.

There's a longer thread on this on the Let's Talk Religion group here which may be of interest.