GOSPEL OF JESUS' WIFE INVESTIGATION

At Harvard University, Prof. Karen King has been studying a papyrus fragment written in Egyptian Coptic which is especially interesting since, although it appears to contain material similar to the Gospel of Thomas or other early Christian gospels, some of the text may possibly make reference to a wife of Jesus.  For this reason this papyrus has been called the “Gospel of Jesus’ Wife.”  Since this text is somewhat unprecedented in early Christian literature and questions have been raised about its authenticity, it therefore invites careful study and scrutiny.  Thus it makes excellent sense to attempt to apply the expertise developed within the Columbia research team to this manuscript toward a characterization and understanding of the ink or inks present within this papyrus fragment, to see if the ink is consistent with its having been written in antiquity.

Accordingly, on March 11 and 12 of 2013, Prof. King brought this manuscript and an additional papyrus fragment (“Gospel of John”) to the Columbia laboratories where the entire team examined and studied the fragment.  An internal report describes the experiments carried out, the results of the micro-Raman spectral studies, and presents the conclusions based on this initial analysis of the data.  In this initial investigation, we studied micro-Raman spectra associated with selected features from both sides of two manuscripts on papyrus:  “Gospel of John” (GospJohn) and “Gospel of Jesus Wife” (GJW).  Our conclusions from this initial study were as follows:

“Gospel of John”.

  • The ink used in this manuscript is primarily based on a carbon black pigment such as Lamp Black.  The observed Raman spectra are very similar to the carbon-based inks studied for a wide variety of manuscripts including several dated from the early centuries of the Christian era.
  • From the observed Raman spectra, we find no evidence for any constituents of ink or types of ink other than carbon black.
  • We have found no significant difference in the Raman spectra obtained from different regions of either side of this manuscript.
  • Since the Raman spectra for carbon-black based inks vary considerably based on the composition, preparation methods, and thermal history of the ink, the strong similarity of Raman spectra for Side 1 and for Side 2 of GospJohnsuggests that the two sides of the manuscript are written in identical or similar inks.


“Gospel of Jesus Wife”.

  • The ink or inks used in this manuscript are primarily based on carbon black pigments such as Lamp Black.  The observed Raman spectra are very similar to the carbon-based inks studied for a wide variety of manuscripts including many dated from the early centuries of the Christian era.
  • From the observed Raman spectra, we find no evidence for any constituents of ink or types of ink other than carbon black.
  • The ink or inks used in GSW are similar to, but distinct from, the ink used for the Gospel of John manuscript.
  • Within the available accuracy of our measurements, our data are consistent with a single ink composition for each individual side of the GJW manuscript.
  • The Raman spectra obtained from the recto side and from the verso side are very similar within experimental error, although the data admit the possibility that the recto and verso sides for this manuscript could be derived from different but similar batches of ink.

Download full report: “Harvard Fragment Report rev07" (pdf, 7mb - will automatically appear in your downloads)

Subsequent to this initial investigation we carried out a second and more detailed study in March of 2014.  The data obtained from this investigation are being carefully analyzed and will be reported in upcoming research journal articles.