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The Unbelievable Tale of Jesus's Wife

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"The Gospel of Jesus's Wife"

In 2012, Karen King, a respected scholar at Harvard Divinity School, presented a papyrus fragment bearing text that implied Jesus was married. King staked her reputation on the authenticity of what she called “The Gospel of Jesus’s Wife.” Test after test failed to prove the papyrus was a forgery, but the journalist Ariel Sabar still smelled something fishy. He put the fragment through a new test, one that examined its chain of ownership. Sabar joins us Tuesday to share the unbelievable tale he uncovered.

Ariel Sabar is a journalist and the author of My Father’s Paradise [Amazon|Indiebound], which won a 2008 National Book Critics Circle Award. His article “The Unbelievable Tale of Jesus’s Wife” appears in the August/July issue of The Atlantic magazine. Read it on The Atlantic's web site.

FROM THE ARCHIVE: In 2004, Professor Karen King was one of Doug's guests in a conversation about Mary Magdalene. Listen here

Doug Fabrizio has been reporting for KUER News since 1987, and became News Director in 1993. In 2001, he became host and executive producer of KUER's RadioWest, a one hour conversation/call-in show on KUER 90.1 in Salt Lake City. He has gained a reputation for his thoughtful style. He has interviewed everyone from Isabel Allende to the Dalai Lama, and from Madeleine Albright to Desmond Tutu. His interview skills landed him a spot as a guest host of the national NPR program, "Talk of the Nation." He has won numerous awards for his reporting and for his work with RadioWest and KUED's Utah NOW from such organizations as the Society of Professional Journalists, the Utah Broadcasters Association, the Public Radio News Directors Association and the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.