She seemed to believe that the fragment belonged to a document in the genre that scholars refer to as “gnostic gospels.” This genre emerged in the 2d - 4th centuries, and claimed to root itself in the legitimate tradition established by Jesus, rather than the illegitimate one created by those alleged poseurs, the apostles. It includes documents such as Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Barnabas, Gospel of Peter, etc. Given the names of the other gnostic writings, attributing the fragment to a hypothetical “Gospel of Jesus’ Wife” does not seem outlandish to me.
Of course, the legitimacy of the attribution assumes you have done your provenance homework, which King did not do. Moreover, it runs the risk of appearing–to the casual observer who is not familiar with the scholarship–to support the original gnostic claims that the canonical gospels are illegitimate.
Just to ensure I am not misunderstood, let me reaffirm my commitment to the four canonical gospels as the legitimate expression of Jesus’ life and teaching, worthy of my devotional reading and obedience as well as my scholarship. The gnostic gospels are interesting to study insofar as they provide insight into the shape of the marketplace of ideas in that historical period; however, they are not inspired and not worthy of devotional reading and obedience.