Veritas: A Harvard Professor, a Con Man and the Gospel of Jesus's Wife

by Ariel Sabar

IN THE LATE 1980S and early 1990s, college was essentially free for Germans, who could study at taxpayer expense without ever having to graduate. Some students enrolled for the easy life. A few were so indifferent that they didn’t flip past the first pages of the student catalog before choosing a course of study. Because it began with the German letter Ä, Ägyptologie drew more than its share of goldbricks and dilettantes. What many didn’t realize was that Egyptology was a notoriously complex subject, requiring mastery of thousands of years of ancient history, as well as a command of art, architecture, archaeology and literature, along with multiple stages of the Egyptian language, from hieroglyphics to Coptic. Students hoping to sail through a few diverting lectures on pyramids and mummies were in for a shock. To top it off, job prospects in the field were close to zero. Within a few months a starting class of twenty Egyptology students could easily dwindle to just four or five. A magister’s degree took at least four to five years to complete and required grueling oral exams, a four-hour written test and a lengthy thesis. The Free University might graduate an Egyptology magister’s student just once every couple of years.