Karen Leigh King

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Karen Leigh King (born February 16, 1954, raised in Sheridan, Montana) [1] is a historian of religion working in the field of Early Christianity, who is currently the Hollis Professor of Divinity at Harvard University, in the oldest endowed chair in the United States (since 1721) She was the first woman to be appointed to the position. [2]

Contents

Career

Karen L. King attended Voss Gymnasium in Voss, Norway, through the International Christian Youth Exchange Program (1971–72). She graduated with a B.A. summa cum laude from the University of Montana in 1976, and completed her Ph.D. at Brown University in 1984. [3] In 1982-83 she studied in Berlin with a fellowship from the Deutsche Akademische Austauschdienst, working officially at the Free University in West Berlin while meeting regularly with Hans-Martin Schenke, Professor at the Humboldt University in East Berlin. From 1984 until 1997, she taught in the Department of Religious Studies at Occidental College, Los Angeles. In 1997, she was appointed Professor of New Testament and History of Ancient Christianity at the Harvard Divinity School. [4]

Work

King's research focuses on previously unknown Christian texts discovered in Egypt in the modern period, especially those of the "Nag Hammadi library" found in Nag Hammadi in 1945. This research has uncovered historically marginalized or lost perspectives in Christian thought that reveal some of the extant diversity and dynamics of early belief and practice from the first centuries of Christianity. [5] She has in particular explored the roles of women, images of the feminine divine principle, Jesus's sexuality and gender, diversity of attitudes toward persecution and violence and notions of what it means to be human, among other topics.

Jesus' wife

King found herself at the center of an international controversy after a papyrus which she had introduced at a scholarly conference in Rome in 2012, and thereafter became known as the "Gospel of Jesus' Wife" – because it appeared to make reference to Jesus as having a wife – was found to have a false provenance. [6] In 2016, despite acknowledging likely forgery, King stated that there was no reason to retract her earlier published research on the forged document. [7] In 2020, journalist Ariel Sabar published "Veritas: A Harvard Professor, a Con Man and the Gospel of Jesus's Wife". [8] A Wall Street Journal review of Veritas reported that King had "embarked on a phased retirement". [9]

Published works

In addition to numerous articles, King's books include:

King also co-authored Reading Judas: The Gospel of Judas and the Shaping of Christianity with Elaine Pagels (2007). She is the editor of Images of the Feminine in Gnosticism (1988) and Women and Goddess Traditions in Antiquity and Today (2000), and co-editor of For the Children, Perfect Instruction: Studies in Honor of Hans-Martin Schenke on the Occasion of the Berliner Arbeitskreis für Koptisch-gnostische Schriften’s Thirtieth Year.

Related Research Articles

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gospel of Thomas</span> Extra-canonical sayings gospel

The Gospel of Thomas is an extra-canonical sayings gospel. It was discovered near Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in December 1945 among a group of books known as the Nag Hammadi library. Scholars speculate that the works were buried in response to a letter from Bishop Athanasius declaring a strict canon of Christian scripture. Scholars have proposed dates of composition as early as 60 AD and as late as 250 AD. Since its discovery, many scholars have seen it as evidence in support of the existence of a "Q source" which might have been very similar in its form as a collection of sayings of Jesus without any accounts of his deeds or his life and death, referred to as a sayings gospel.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nag Hammadi library</span> Collection of Gnostic and Christian texts

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elaine Pagels</span> American religious historian

Elaine Pagels, née Hiesey, is an American historian of religion. She is the Harrington Spear Paine Professor of Religion at Princeton University. Pagels has conducted extensive research into early Christianity and Gnosticism.

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<i>Apocryphon of John</i> Second century gnostic text

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The Gospel of Judas is a non-canonical Gnostic gospel. The content consists of conversations between Jesus and Judas Iscariot. Given that it includes late 2nd-century theology, it is widely thought to have been composed in the 2nd century by Gnostic Christians. The only copy of it known to exist is a Coptic language text that has been carbon dated to 280 AD, plus or minus 60 years. It has been suggested that the text derives from an earlier manuscript in the Greek language. An English translation was first published in early 2006 by the National Geographic Society.

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Norea is a figure in Gnostic cosmology. She plays a prominent role in two surviving texts from the Nag Hammadi library. In Hypostasis of the Archons, she is the daughter of Adam and Eve and sister of Seth. She sets fire to Noah's Ark and receives a divine revelation from the Luminary Eleleth. In Thought of Norea, she "extends into prehistory" as "she assumes the features here of the fallen Sophia." In Mandean literature, she is instead identified as the wife of either Noah or Shem. She is also sometimes said to be the syzygy of Adam.

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<i>Acts of Peter and the Twelve</i> c. 4th century Christian text

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Harold William Attridge is an American New Testament scholar and historian of Christianity known for his work in New Testament exegesis, especially the Epistle to the Hebrews, the study of Hellenistic Judaism, and the history of early Christianity. He is a Sterling Professor of Divinity at Yale University, where he served as Dean of the Divinity School from 2002 to 2012, the first Roman Catholic to head that historically Protestant school.

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April D. DeConick is the Isla Carroll and Percy E. Turner Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at Rice University in Houston, Texas. She came to Rice University as a full professor in 2006, after receiving tenure at Illinois Wesleyan University in 2004. DeConick is the author of several books in the field of Early Christian Studies and is best known for her work on the Gospel of Thomas and ancient Gnosticism.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gospel of Jesus' Wife</span> Papyrus fragment of questionable authenticity

The Gospel of Jesus' Wife is a likely-forged papyrus fragment with Coptic text that includes the words, "Jesus said to them, 'my wife...'". The text received widespread attention when first publicized in 2012 for the implication that some early Christians believed that Jesus was married.

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Hans-Martin Schenke was a German Protestant theologian, New Testament scholar, and Coptologist known for his pioneering studies on Gnosticism and Coptic manuscripts.

References

  1. ↑ "King, Karen L. 1954- (Karen King, Karen Leigh King) | Encyclopedia.com". www.encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 2024-04-25.
  2. ↑ "Karen L. King". hds.harvard.edu. Retrieved 2024-04-25.
  3. ↑ King, Karen Leigh. "Curriculum Vitae" (PDF). Harvard Divinity School. Retrieved 25 April 2024.
  4. ↑ "Divine Scholarship". Montanan Magazine. Retrieved 2024-04-25.
  5. ↑ Gibson, Lydialyle (2018-10-16). "Karen King, historian of the early Christian church | Harvard Magazine". www.harvardmagazine.com. Retrieved 2024-04-25.
  6. ↑ Sabar, Ariel (July/August 2016) "The Unbelievable Tale of Jesus’s Wife" The Atlantic Monthly
  7. ↑ Wangsness, Lisa (June 17, 2016). "'Jesus's wife' papyrus likely fake, scholar says". The Boston Globe .
  8. ↑ Sabar, Ariel (2020). Veritas: A Harvard Professor, a Con Man and the Gospel of Jesus's Wife. New York: Doubleday. ISBN   9780385542586.
  9. ↑ Beam, Alex (August 3, 2020). "'Veritas' Review: Crimson Faces". The Wall Street Journal .
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