purchase of purloined items by the owners of the Hobby Lobby chain) and academic competition and co-operation, including the vetting which the fragment should have received. Sabar goes deeper still, however, tracking down the man whom he believes forged the papyrus in the first place. As a result, Veritas (the subtitle, “A Harvard Professor, A ConMan andThe Gospel of Jesus’s Wife,” lets readers know exactly what they are in for) takes on something of the tone of a thriller, a mystery rooted in a world of antiquities and ancient secrets, with potentially world-changing implications. It’s not quite as fast-paced as The da Vinci Code, but it’s a surprisingly compelling, thought-provoking read. Book Review by Robert Wiersema Veritas: A Harvard Professor, A Con Man and The Gospel of Jesus’s Wife by Ariel Sabar Sometimes, the most scintillating stories are drawn from subjects which seem, on the surface, fairly uninteresting. After all, Dan Brown’s The da Vinci Code is drawn from the thrill-a-minute world of art history. Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park is rooted in the science of cloning. AndVeritas, the new book fromAriel Sabar, is based in the fast-paced world of academic Coptic studies. Yes, you read that right. Coptic studies. (No, I didn’t know what it was either.) Better still? Veritas is non-fiction. By now, you’re probably asking yourself, is he REALLY recommending a 400-page, non-fiction book about Coptic studies? Yes. Yes, I am. Strongly recommending it, in fact. The gatherings of the International Congress of Coptic Studies don’t usually make headlines. After all, there’s not usually a lot of breaking news when it comes to the study of the last phase of Egyptian language, culture and religion in the first century AD. In September 2012, however, a discovery was announced with the potential to not only change the entire field of scholarship, but one that could have significant repercussions for – literally – billions of Christians around the world. Karen King, a senior professor at Harvard University, who holds one of the most prestigious positions in the study of Christianity, used the quadrennial meeting (held that year across the street from the Vatican) to announce the discovery of a small, ancient piece of papyrus in which Jesus refers toMary Magdalene as “my wife.” The implications of the discovery were staggering. If the papyrus was genuine – if Christ had been married, and if this was common knowledge in his time – not only would the validity of the male-only, celibate priesthood be questioned, such sacred teachings as the role of marriage and of women’s leadership in the church would be cast into doubt. This was precisely what King, a recognized authority on women’s roles in the early church as reflected in the Gnostic Gospels, seemed to want. The international press, tipped off by King, covered the story of “The Gospel of Jesus’s Wife,” as King referred to the fragment, with the sort of attention usually reserved for celebrities. It was an epochal piece of news — the sort of discovery that can vault an academic’s reputation into the stratosphere. There was just one problem: The Gospel of Jesus’sWife didn’t stand up to scrutiny. It was, in fact, a forgery. So, what happened? Where had the forgery come from? And what was King’s involvement? Had she truly been fooled, or was she just hoping that no one else would notice the indications of fraud? Was she an active participant in the deception? Veritas, the powerful new book from award-winning journalist Ariel Sabar, holds The Gospel of Jesus’s Wife to the light, examining the story from a variety of angles. Sabar, who has written for the Atlantic, Harper’s and theNew York Times, pushes the story far beyond an account of academic malfeasance, however. Sabar was covering the story even before the 2012 announcement (he wrote a Smithsonian magazine article about the papyrus and was present at the unveiling in Rome). He not only details King’s life and career, he also explores the worlds of high-value Christian artifacts (including the CSANews | WINTER 2020 | 51
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