Thursday last week (10 April) the results of the testing of the
papyrus fragment containing the so-called Gospel of Jesus' Wife
(GJW) were finally published in the Harvard Theological
Review
(HTR 107/2), one and a half year
after Karen L. King first presented a paper on it at the 10th
International Congress of Coptic Studies in Rome (18 September 2012).
The current issue of HTR includes, e.g., King's revised paper "Jesus
said to them, 'My wife...': A New Coptic Papyrus Fragment", three essays
presenting the various test results (Yardley & Hagadorn;
Azzarelli, Goods & Swager; Hodgins), an essay on paleographical features
by Macolm Choat, Leo Depuydt 's discussion of authenticity, in
addition to King's response to Depuydt.
Both the test results and the formal publication of King's revised
article have been eagerly awaited. At the same time, although
not "properly published" until last week (the first version
of the article was made available at the Harvard Divinity School
website), GJW and King's interpretation of it were discussed with
high intensity in a number of widely read blogs and other online fora
from the very moment of its initial mention in Rome. During the
weeks and months that followed, online academic discussion among
specialists in the field contributed both important new information and
alternative perspectives that challenged and supported King's initial
points of view, the most intense discussion concerned the assumed
status of the fragment as a possible modern forgery.
This post will neither discuss aspects of the textual
contents of GJW nor the possible status of the fragment or its text
as a forgery - I am not a Coptologist. Rather, this post concerns
the function, use and status of online academic discussions: the
discussions that take place in blogs, in their commentary fields, and sometimes
even on Facebook, and which sometimes may turn out to make
a difference to wider academic debates. Just like numerous others, I
have followed the discussions on GJW online ever since a first post
appeared on my Facebook newsfeed while King was still on stage in Rome. And
since I am interested in media culture and the history of editing and
publishing, I have been curious about whether, how, and the extent to
which, these online platforms and the discussions taking place there
would in fact be used and referred to when the traditionally published article
on the issue would finally materialize.
I have read through King's essay, as well as other relevant
articles of the current issue of HTR (the online, html-version) with this in
mind, looking for allusions and references to, as well as explicit mention
of online contributions. Here is what I find:
On the one hand, the online discussion
is indeed referred to in King's essay. In the
introduction to her essay, King explicitly mentions contributions
in online media as one among
other reasons for her revision. In other words, these online
contributions figure alongside "three peer reviews" and "private
communications" as inputs King have taken seriously
and allowed to shape the revised version of her essay. In a history of
publishing perspective, this is interesting since it brings in online media
contributions as a legitimate part of the shaping of a published
academic essay.
On the other hand, the online discussion
and individual contributions still serve primarily as
intertexts, or as backdrops in King's essay. In other
words, the online discussion may well be affecting the choice of topics,
focus, and be decisive for the level of detail in discussions, but it
is not referred to explicitly as such. When reading, for
instance, the sections on "Language" and "Dating the
Manuscript and Question of Forgery", several passages ring a bell, for
instance the mention of the speculation about the ink on the lower layers of
the recto fibers, the clumsiness of the script, the use of a brush, etc. One
could, further, have expected references to the online debate
of or individual contributions to the discussion of the
variant spelling of "my wife". Even though all
these issues were discussed on various occasions by identifiable scholars
online, these individual contributions are not explicitly mentioned.
When looking at the sources referred to in the footnotes in
King's essay, the explicit references to online contributions to the debate in
question are not many. I find ten references (n. 52; 112;
114; 116; 117), most of them appearing in the final part of the essay where
King explicitly addresses the issue of forgery. In the rest of the essay,
references to online debates are scarce, in fact I see only one: the reference
to Hugo Lundhaug and Alin Suciu's negative aorist (n. 52). The effect is
that contributions made by individual scholars are hard to retrieve, and
the existence of the cultural phenomenon/social practice of online
academic debate is blurred.
This is interesting, since in other essays in HTR, the place of
the online discussion is much more prominent. In the essay "The
Gospel of Jesus's Wife: A Preliminary Paleographical Assessment," for
instance, Malcolm Choat shares the following spot-on
reflection, capturing much of the complexity involved:
"As the discussion concerning this fragment has taken place almost
exclusively online or via the media since it was made public, I respond here
inter alia to points that have been raised by various commentators in conversation
(which I have not attributed) and in fora such as blogs: [Choat mentions blog
posts by Head, Lundhaug & Suciu, Askeland, and Peppard]. I should emphasize
(with apologies to others who have contributed paleographical observations)
that this list is not exhaustive and that I do not respond here to every point
made in these blogs (n. 3)".
As Choat points out, between the initial presentation in Rome and the
publication of HTR 107, important parts of the discussion has taken place
online, and Choat considers his essay as, among other things, a response
to these debates.
For those of us who either participate in online academic debates from
time to time, who read and learn from others who are contributing to
these debates, or who publish academic books and essays and wonder how to deal
with and refer to online debates Choat's reflections matter. We
are doing scholarship at a time when the conditions of
scholarly discussion and circulation of information, as well as knowledge-sharing
and publication practices are changing. Online media change the pace of
discussion and offer venues for scholarly exchange outside the formally
accredited academic channels. This gives us new possibilities for sharing
and learning. At the same time, the status of online discussions
in social/new media are somewhat vague, and the platforms that
mediate them are sometime not regarded as "scholarly enough" to
even be cited. When the first suggestion of the parallel between
the HTR text and Gospel of Thomas line 7 was assumedly made in
a comment on Facebook, do you refer to it, or do you not?
How we refer to online discussions and individual
contributions on line is still not settled. It is still not entirely
clear who "owns" the utterances, and the extent to
which we feel that we should, or have to, refer
to them in traditional channels of publication. To me,
the history of discussion of GJW, which is still very much alive both
online and offline, is a perfect test case for studying how new
scholarly practice matters to the overall academic knowledge production and
practices of publication.
