And yet here we are, less than a year later, and the GJW is back. According to reports published in LiveScience and elsewhere, a high-tech lab at Columbia University has undertaken new testing on the ink of the papyrus, using the very latest methods—methods so new that the researchers are hoping to publish them on their own in a scientific journal. What is being hinted at in the latest news items is that the results of these ground-breaking tests may well suggest that the GJW ink is consistent with what we would expect from the ancient world. (The newest media coverage, to the despair of scholars, persists in the implication that if the papyrus is authentic then it might prove that Jesus was actually married. For the record—again—no. All it would prove is that in the ancient world, like the modern one, the relationship status of Israel’s most famously single rabbi was a matter of some speculation.)

Remarkably, on the very same day that LiveScience announced the new round of lab tests, Andrew Bernhard, a scholar of ancient Christian texts, posted an essay in which he brought new evidence to suggest that the GJW was a forgery. The most important argument in favor of forgery had always been that the text of the GJW seemed to have been stitched together out of words and phrases taken from the Gospel of Thomas—a different, quite famous, and publicly available ancient document—including, it seemed, a grammatical mistake that had been thoughtlessly copied from one text to the other. What Bernhard demonstrated was that the English translation of the GJW that had been provided by the anonymous owner of the papyrus (and that King had not made available for scholarly inspection until now) also seemed to have been cobbled together, from an English translation of the Gospel of Thomas published on the Internet only in 2002—again, including some idiosyncrasies that could be explained only as the result of copying. The academic blogosphere erupted with almost gleeful admiration for this new research.

Which brings us to how strange this debate is. Both sides are looking at the same credit-card-sized scrap of papyrus, with the same words in the same hand in the same ink. Both sides are represented by members of the same academic community—those who continue to push for the authenticity of the GJW are highly respected scholars, as are those who are calling it a forgery. Yet the two sides are approaching the papyrus from completely distinct angles, and getting completely different results. Those in favor of authenticity have, since the beginning, looked to scientific testing—carbon dating, ink analysis—to justify their claims. Those who believe it is forgery have leaned on the analysis of letter forms, of grammar, of syntax.

Each side acknowledges and addresses the arguments of the other. King has published formal responses in two different venues to the various textual problems that critics have observed. For those critics, even if King has an answer for every concern, the very fact that there are so many objections to refute is itself a point against authenticity.