About this item
From National Book Critics Circle Award-winning author Ariel Sabar, the gripping true story of a sensational Christian forgery and the scandal that engulfed Harvard.In 2012, Dr. Karen King, a star professor at Harvard Divinity School, announced a blockbuster discovery at a scholarly conference just steps from the Vatican: She had found an ancient fragment of papyrus in which Jesus calls Mary Magdalene "my wife." The tattered manuscript made international headlines. If early Christians believed Jesus was married, it would upend the 2,000-year history of the world's predominant faith, threatening not just the celibate, all-male priesthood but sacred teachings on marriage, sex and women's leadership. Biblical scholars were in an uproar, but King had impeccable credentials as a world-renowned authority on female figures in the lost Christian texts from Egypt known as the Gnostic gospels.
About the Author
ARIEL SABAR is an award-winning journalist whose work has appeared in the The Atlantic, The New York Times, Harper's Magazine, The Washington Post, Smithsonian Magazine, and This American Life. His debut book was My Father's Paradise: A Son's Search for his Jewish Past in Kurdish Iraq, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award. He is also the author of Heart of the City (a "beguiling romp"--New York Times) and The Outsider, a best-selling nonfiction short. A new book--Veritas: A Harvard Professor, a Con Man and the Gospel of Jesus's Wife--is due out in August 2020.Sabar grew up in Los Angeles and graduated magna cum laude from Brown University. He has lectured about his books and magazine stories at Johns Hopkins University, Georgetown University, the Royal Geographical Society of London, and Yale University, where he was a Poynter Fellow in Journalism. He has spoken about his work on NPR, PBS NewsHour, and the BBC World Service, and has been honored with national awards for feature writing, profile writing, and coverage of religion. For more information, visit www.arielsabar.com.
