It does appear to be a genuine fourth-century piece of papyrus.
You understand that I was using the word “stupid” off the cuff?
It is stoooooppppppidd for a scholar of her rank to announce this discovery while being unable or unwilling to give the provenance.
Unless she did it because she knew journolists would be too stoooooooppppppiiiiiidddddd to realize that without provenance, the piece of papyrus is useless for making any sort of claim about “what happened back then.”
Without provenance, there’s no way to know whether it comes from Gnostic circles or orthodox circles. If from Gnostic circles, then it’s ho-hum, nothing new.
Of course, she simply assumes that it is Gnostic (but didn’t bother to mention the implication of that to the journolists). Since she and her ilk have for 40 years now simply lumped Gnostic and orthodox texts together in a giant heap as equally authoritative historical sources, to her the (s)crap is momentous.
But only because she’s made that prior move (which has no historical basis, rather arises from the now discredited Bauer thesis).
“you don’t get to have an endowed chair at Harvard Divinity School if you are stupid.”
Actually, you do. Liberal professors are often incredibly stupid in very simple matters of how we know things, historical evidence etc. They read only the NYTimes. They have a more narrow worldview and more narrow exposure to diverse opinions and ideas than does your average auto mechanic.
I know. I’ve spent 40 years in Academia. I’ve seen more stupid than you’ll ever want to imagine.