Thursday, April 17, 2014

GJW: Depuydt replies to King

MARK GOODACRE: Jesus' Wife Fragment Latest: Leo Depuydt responds to Karen King . Mark posts the response as a pdf file. I'm not a Coptologist, so I won't try to address the substantive issue. But I do have two observations. First, King's response addresses many of Depuydt's objections, whereas his reply only addresses one of her points. What about the others? Second, the tone of the two responses is very different. King writes objectively and respectfully. She accuses Depuydt of making a grammatical error. If she is wrong, she made a mistake, but she isn't rude about it. Depuydt's reply is very sarcastic and it tries too hard to sound hip and edgy, complete with emoticons. Now regular readers know that I am by no means above a little sarcasm if I think it's justified, but it isn't justified here. King is trying to advance the discussion. If she accused Depuydt incorrectly of making a mistake, this could be pointed out politely and respectfully.

I am still quite skeptical that the Gospel of Jesus' Wife is an ancient artifact, but King has made a real effort to keep the tone high and the skeptics should do the same.

Background here and links.