
Veritas
A Harvard Professor, a Con Man, and the Gospel of Jesus's Wife
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Narrated by:
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Robert Petkoff
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By:
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Ariel Sabar
From the National Book Critics Circle Award-winning author Ariel Sabar comes 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.
©2020 Ariel Sabar (P)2020 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...




















Critic reviews
"A good story well told cuts across every category of audiobook listening. This remarkable tale of a high-profile fraud combines elements of scripture studies, academic politics, investigative journalism, and true-crime reporting. Narrator Robert Petkoff is pitch-perfect in delivering author Ariel Sabar's examination of "The Gospel of Jesus's Wife," a forged parchment of dubious origin that duped a Harvard professor, made headlines, and here unfolds into a provocative study of the uneasy relationship between fact, belief, and the dedicated pursuit of truth. Petkoff maintains a firm, steady pace.... It's Sabar's painstaking attention to detail that exposes layer after layer of fraud and self-deception, and in the end provides a compelling and memorable listening experience." (AudioFile Magazine)
“Sabar has written a true story of mystery and intrigue…blending religious history with a tale of deception…Well-researched, engrossing.” (Library Journal)
“A work of exemplary narrative nonfiction...fitting neatly into the truth-is-stranger-than-fiction category.... Provocative and probing." (Booklist)
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When you see pitiful work by CNN journalist for example, just to gain ratings, Mr. Sabar’s commendable work is just exhilarating !!
Ben Kermani, MD
Journalism at its best!
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At 5 or 6 chapters in, I was getting so indignant. Why is the author throwing so much shade on King and her associates? it seemed so heavy-handed!
I kept reading, though, and the author provided a mountain of data - fascinating, nauseating, and disturbing - and it became clear.
Amazing book.
I'll be thinking about this one -
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A tour de force. Brilliant.
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Superb
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Deep Investigation
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I wish I always were as pleased with my audio book choices. What a breathtaking roller coaster!
An eulogy to truth and intellectual honesty
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who knew that she would want to believe what was written on a scrap of papyrus in Coptic that he wanted to sell to Harvard.
No one wants to admit responsibility for their failure to trace back where the scrap came from
and why they proclaimed to the World that a passage from a Gnostic Gospel had been found that "revealed"
that Jesus had a wife named Mary - all without their doing due intellectual diligence.
So many scholars, so many of them intellectually bankrupt.
A Tad Meandering
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Wow
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- Extremely well written.
- Engaging narrative.
- Excellent investigative work.
- Excellent narration.
The author does not seem to have left a single stone unturned in his quest to figure out exactly what happened.
Amazing book!
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Very good!
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