Harvard Divinity School—Go In a Christian, Come Out an Unbeliever!

Every once in a while I write a blog that is not related to the JW’s. This is one of those blogs. Others can be found in the “Definitely Different Blogs” section on the right side of our Home Page.

I recently read (August, 2020) a Thread on FB discussing President Trump, Evangelicals and what does the Bible teach. One person, definitely a Never-Trumper, stated, "read this," and posted an article penned by a Harvard Divinity School Graduate. The readers were to be duly impressed with the writer’s credentials and anti-Trump arguments and treat them as  "Gospel."

When you read that someone teaches at the Harvard Divinity School or graduated from that school, you are to be in awe of their accomplishments and consider that person to be an authority in all things Biblical. NOT SO FAST. Take the case of Karen L. King. In 1997, she was appointed Professor of New Testament and History of Ancient Christianity at the Harvard Divinity School. In 2009, she became the first woman appointed as the Hollis Professor of Divinity, the oldest endowed chair in the United States.

For four years (2012-2016), King defended the so-called “Gospel of Jesus's Wife” (a papyrus, the size of a business card that pointed to Jesus having a wife) against scholars who argued it was a forgery. But, for the first time (2016), King said the papyrus—which she introduced to the world in 2012—is a probable fake.

How did all this happen? Jump back to 2012 when a Harvard “religious studies” academic named Karen King announced the discovery of a papyrus fragment containing a Coptic text which referred to Jesus having a wife (below is a translation of the entire fragment.) The owner of the fragment (Walter Fritz) had vetted King and discovered that she is a US leftist academic with a background in “Women's Studies” and a member of the Jesus Seminary (what they believe is listed below.) She believes that Jesus was just a man, not God's son, and here Fritz had the "proof" she needed. He knew she would jump at this chance to prove what she so fervently believed and dismiss any criticism of the fragment. Her premature announcement made the front page around the world as Atheists, Agnostics and Purveyors of False Religion thought they finally had the proof that the Bible was fallible and that Jesus was just a man NOT the son of God.    

What King ignored, in her rush to publish "incontrovertible" proof that Jesus was married, thus he is not God and the Bible is just a book written by fallible men, was a not so small problem that the text reproduced a typographical error from an online edition. In addition, some of King's fellow scholars, who doubted its authenticity, pointed to grammatical errors that native Coptic speakers would never have committed and believed it to have been copied from another ancient text, the Gospel of Thomas. At that point pretty much everyone – aside from Dr King – felt the story was over. It was never clear just where the papyrus had come from and Dr. K. professed that she was sworn to secrecy.

King also did not bother to vet the owner of the papyrus, Walter Fritz, who spent years at the Free University’s Egyptology Institute. What is a "Free University?" "It is an unaccredited autonomous free institution established within a university by students to present and discuss subjects not usually dealt with in the academic curriculum."

King did not look into Fritz's formal study of Coptic or lack thereof (the papyrus is written in Coptic) or his work as a PORNOGRAPHER whose star actress was his own wife--a woman who'd written a book of "universal truths" and claimed to channel the voices of angels. He had presented himself to King as a "family man" who enjoyed trips to Disney World and was independently wealthy.

King’s problem is that she was so intent on proving that Jesus was just a man, not God, that she was willing to accept any evidence no matter how “thin”. This should not surprise you about King when you know she is a member of the Jesus Seminary.

The Jesus Seminary believes the following:

• Jesus was born in Nazareth, not in Bethlehem.

• Jesus practiced faith healing without the use of ancient medicine or magic, relieving afflictions we now consider psychosomatic.

• He did not walk on water, feed the multitude with loaves and fishes, change water into wine or raise Lazarus from the dead.

• He was executed as a public nuisance, not for claiming to be the Son of God.

• The empty tomb is a fiction – Jesus was not raised bodily from the dead.

The Harvard Divinity School is no friend of conservative Bible Theology. In 1805, the Unitarian, Henry Ward was selected to fill the Hollis Chair which signaled the changing of the tide from the dominance of traditional, Calvinist ideas at Harvard to the dominance of liberal, Arminian ideas (defined by traditionalists as Unitarian ideas). The appointment of Ware, with the election of the liberal Samuel Webber to the presidency of Harvard two years later, led Jedidiah Morse and other conservatives to found the Andover Theological Seminary as an orthodox alternative to the Harvard Divinity School. 

Next time you think a Harvard Divinity School Graduate or Professor is some expert on the Bible—remember this blog! 

For more information on this topic read the definitive book on the subject (I did) VERITAS. Two short articles on the subject can be found here and here.

One side of the Papyrus Fragment text reads, word-for-word:

...not [to] me. My mother gave me life...
...The disciples said to Jesus,...
...deny. Mary is (not?) worthy of it. ...
...Jesus said to them, "My wife...
...she is able to be my disciple...
...Let wicked people swell up...
...As for me, I am with her in order to...
...an image ...

The opposite side of the text reads, word-for-word:

...my moth[er]...
...three...
...forth ...

The next two lines of this side feature illegible ink traces.

How can one forge an ancient document? 

1. A determined forger could obtain a blank scrap of centuries-old papyrus (perhaps even on eBay, where old papyri are routinely auctioned).

2. Mix ink from ancient recipes.

3. Fashion passable Coptic script, particularly if he or she had some scholarly training.