Veritas: A Harvard Professor, a Con Man and the Gospel of Jesus's Wife

by Ariel Sabar

Book Overview

From National Book Critics Circle Award-winning author Ariel Sabar, the gripping true story of a sensational religious forgery and the scandal that shook Harvard.

In 2012, Dr. Karen King, a star religion professor at Harvard, announced a breathtaking discovery just steps from the Vatican: she'd found an ancient scrap of papyrus in which Jesus calls Mary Magdalene "my wife." The mysterious manuscript, which King provocatively titled "The Gospel of Jesus's Wife," had the power to topple the Roman Catholic Church. It threatened not just the all-male priesthood, but centuries of sacred teachings on marriage, sex, and women's leadership, much of it premised on the hallowed tradition of a celibate Jesus.

Award-winning journalist Ariel Sabar covered King's announcement in Rome but left with a question that no one seemed able to answer: Where in the world did this history-making papyrus come from? Sabar's dogged sleuthing led from the halls of Harvard Divinity School to the former headquarters of the East German Stasi before landing on the trail of a Florida man with an unbelievable past. Could a motorcycle-riding pornographer with a fake Egyptology degree and a prophetess wife have set in motion one of the greatest hoaxes of the century? A propulsive tale laced with twists and trapdoors, Veritas is an exhilarating, globe-straddling detective story about an Ivy League historian and a college dropout--and how they worked together to pass off an audacious forgery as a long-lost piece of the Bible.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0385542585
• ISBN13: 9780385542586
• Release Date: August 2020
• Publisher: Doubleday Books
• Length: 416 Pages
• Weight: 1.73 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.6" x 6.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Non-Fiction that Reads like Fiction

This book a story that shows what happens when theological aspirations collide with sloppy historical research. When historians start with their conclusions and select only the evidence to support them the result can be dangerous. A factual account that is more enthralling than most novels.