"Jesus said to them, 'My wife,'" begins a passage written on a tattered piece of papyrus that scientists say is probably not a recent forgery, but in fact a centuries-old document. The fragment caused a theological uproar when the Harvard Divinity School unveiled it in 2012. Harvard, Columbia, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology professors have since examined the document and concluded it is not the work of some modern prankster, according to research published Thursday in the Harvard Theological Review.
That said, the tests did not show that the document dates back to the first century BCE, but rather that it was most likely written somewhere around the eighth century. And though it was probably based on an earlier text, that document probably wasn't written until at least "the second half of the second century" — or well after Jesus' death — according to the Harvard Divinity School.
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