The Latest Real Jesus

There are a few lessons we can learn from this latest debacle:

First, scholars when working according to their professions standards:

thoroughly research their thesis

submit this thesis to a peer-reviewed journal

which is then reviewed by experts in the field before publication to avoid obvious problems

then it is published and submitted to general review by scholarship as a whole

From this it follows that something which is first announced in a press conference with a tv special on the Smithsonian channel being quickly organized you should prepare yourself for some blowback. Scholars don't like being ignored while the scandal-hungry press and money-grubbing media are feted.

The usual caveats are appropriate for Christmas and Easter-themed "Real Jesus" stories.

It's bad enough we have this shoddy stuff coming at us twice a year. Givest me a break!

The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife…:

…is now a confirmed forgery. Replicates blunders from an online version of the gospel of Thomas it was ripped off from.

Will the media learn from this Latest Real Jesus incident not to instantly fall for the next Latest Real Jesus? Have fish, since the invention of fishing, ever learned not to bite a hook with bait on it?

It’s what they *do*.

Read the whole thing.

(Via Catholic and Enjoying It!.)