what if a scholar were so steeped in its principles that he or she used them in situations for which they were never quite intended? The question of what a phrase like “Jesus said to them, ‘My wife…’ ” means could well have multiple, equally valid answers for different readers in different eras. But the question of whether the fragment is authentic has only one. Either it was written in antiquity, or it wasn’t; either it was part of some larger manuscript, or it wasn’t. The same was true of provenance. Either the fragment had a previous owner named Laukamp who showed it to Munro and Fecht, or
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