Jesus's Wife

[FWS]

No Forgery Evidence Seen in "Gospel of Jesus's Wife" Papyrus

Scientists find no evidence of fakery in an ancient papyrus scrap saying that Jesus had a wife.



The papyrus fragment is owned by an unnamed private collector, with bills of sale going back only to 1999.

Dan Vergano
National Geographic
April 10, 2014

Did Jesus have a wife? A controversial papyrus scrap making that suggestion dates to the eighth century A.D., assert a series of just-released scientific reports, which may point to earlier Christian beliefs.

Announced at a 2012 conference in Rome by the Harvard Divinity School's Karen King, the "Gospel of Jesus's Wife"—a scrap of papyrus with Coptic writing—contained some intriguing lines. (Related: "Jesus May Have Had a Wife, Ancient Text Suggests.")

The words "Jesus said to them, My wife . . . she is able to be my disciple . . ." are written on the center of the fragment. Initially dated by King to the fourth century, the message from the past resonated with ongoing debates about the role of women in Christianity, as well as echoing themes from Dan Brown's popular thriller, The Da Vinci Code.

The claim also attracted skepticism from religious scholars, who saw the fragment as a likely forgery. But in the series of reports released by the Harvard Theological Review, various experts report analyses of the chemistry and ancient handwriting of the fragment. They conclude that the fragment's ink is consistent with ancient inks and that its papyrus fibers date from the seventh to eighth centuries. King suggests it is a copy of an earlier text.

"All of the evidence points to it being ancient," King said in a telephone briefing. "As historians, the question then becomes, what does it mean?"

Clever Forgery?

The new results say nothing about whether the historical Jesus indeed had a wife, King notes. But similarities to other papyrus gospel texts from the centuries after Christ point to the long-running debate on the role of women in churches.

And the results do not conclusively prove the papyrus isn't a very clever forgery, caution the scientists. Instead, they remove previously raised objections to the text, finding no evidence of it being a fake.

Yet there is still skepticism. One report in the journal, by epigrapher Leo Depuydt of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, claims grammatical errors dog the text and concludes, "The author of this analysis has not the slightest doubt that the document is a forgery, and not a very good one at that."

Overall, he suggests that the papyrus was forged from a copy of the ancient Gospel of Thomas text, discovered less than a century ago in Egypt.

King refutes those criticisms in a response in the journal, arguing that the grammar errors are misinterpretations by Depuydt. She also argues that writings similar to the Gospel of Thomas were then prevalent in the eastern Mediterranean, so words from that gospel would not necessarily be a sign of forgery.

Ancient Papyrus

Troves of ancient papyrus documents have long emerged from sites in Egypt, seen as the likely source of the fragment, which is only 3.2 inches wide by 1.6 inches tall (8 by 4 centimeters). But its origin and author are a mystery, as it is owned by an unnamed private collector, with bills of sale going back only to 1999, according to King.

King says the owner may donate the fragment to Harvard, possibly for later display.

In the journal reports, a chemistry team led by MIT's Joseph Azzarelli concluded that the age of the papyrus scrap matches that of a verified Gospel of John papyrus from antiquity. The team relied on microspectroscopy of the papyrus, which found the fragment only slightly less oxidized—aged by exposure to air—than the verified gospel.

Likewise, Columbia University's James Yardley and Alexis Hagadorn looked at the pigments in the ink on the fragment. They found it similar to "lamp black" ink used on other ancient texts.

Crucially, the scientists find no evidence of the ink being applied to the papyrus in recent times, which would have led to it pooling in damaged sections of the fragment. They also did not find any signs that the word for "wife" in the text was changed from "woman" by a later writer, as some skeptics suggested (King points this out in an online commentary).

Carbon dating puts the age of the fragment at between 659 and 869.

The debate over the grammar of the Coptic text partly reflects the writing style of the author of the papyrus, who perhaps was not a professional scribe but an untutored member of the lower classes, suggests Malcolm Choat, an ancient writing expert at Australia's Macquarie University.

Choat compares the writing to brush-drawn "magical" texts of the era, ones that often featured invocations asking for blessings or curses.

"I have not found a 'smoking gun' that indicates beyond doubt that the text was not written in antiquity, but nor can such an examination prove that it is genuine," Choat writes. But he says it's certainly not a simple forgery, as critics have suggested.

Women in Church

Women were among the strongest early supporters of Christianity when it was gaining converts in an often hostile Roman Empire. Christian writers were initially silent on the marital status of Jesus, King says, with claims that he was unmarried starting only in the late second century.

If the papyrus fragment reflects religious writing copied from earlier texts, perhaps ones in the fourth century, it would speak to early Christian concerns about the role of the family in the early Church, which famously called upon its adherents to put aside family and civic loyalties, she suggests.

"This is not evidence that Jesus was married. We don't know," King emphasized. "But early Christians were extremely interested in questions about whether they should be married or be celibate."

[trappincoyotes39]

Yes I agree looks to new to be that old.

[FWS]

Yes I agree looks to new to be that old.

Actually they're saying it likely is that old and they find no evidence of forgery.

[trappincoyotes39]

I look at it and say what ever they wrote with back in those days wow, you just don't see the letter adding one would think would happen amazing stuff they used to keep that dark of color for all these years in our environment. Looks fake to me, until proven otherwise. Today's technology in forgery are very good.

Also all those years without moisture damage? WOW. Wonder where it was hiding prior to 1999?

[FWS]

Looks fake to me, until proven otherwise.

As if you'd actually know..................

Also all those years without moisture damage? WOW.

Wouldn't be much of a surprise for something kept in a protected place in an arid environment, there were texts a few thousand years older than that which have survived.

[trappincoyotes39]

We are not talking 10-15 years are we? I lived in a semi arid environment where during 10 years of drought our humidity levels where very low but still inside my cement walled basement in the summer I would run the humidifier and pull out 3-5 gallons of water daily. This with very low humidity now we are talking 600 years and no moisture damage or almost none? That would be very amazing to say the least.

yet seeings how no one knows where this has come from or where it was really stored we are all guessing about it correct?

[FWS]

I lived in a semi arid environment

Wouldn't count here, a climate like that or Arizona or SE California would be closer to that of the Middle East.

And, too many texts have survived much longer in wet and humid climates like the British Isles and Northern Europe.

yet seeings how no one knows where this has come from

We actually do not know that no one knows since it belongs to a private collector.

Besides which why would it be so shocking that a Jewish rabbi 2000 years ago had a wife ? It would be strange if he didn't.

[trappincoyotes39]

Not saying he did or did not have a wife, not the point here the point is the authenticity of the document. A private collector who stays in the shadows and just allows some researchers to look at his document? he offers know more information than here look at this? Seems odd doesn't it?

[FWS]

the point is the authenticity of the document.

And again, they find no evidence that it is a forgery and that it likely was written in antiquity.

Have you questioned the validity of any other documents upon which your faith is based ?

[trappincoyotes39]

They don't much about it except it showed up in a box one day on their desk The shadow sent it I heard

Sure I have my doubts on many other things claimed to be original, I watched 60 minutes a few weeks ago about the guy that was the worlds best painting forger and how no one could tell these paintings where not originals painted 100's of years ago but done by him in the last 10-15 years and even the very best authentications couldn't tell they where fakes............

[trappnman]

I've become interested in the lost gospels- and have come to believe, based on those and other gospels, that woman had a large role in the teachings and later church, and that its pretty likely that Mary Magdalene WAS the wife of Jesus.

[trappincoyotes39]

Reports today of the authenticity of a fragment of the so-called "Gospel of Jesus's Wife," which was originally unveiled in 2012 by the Harvard Divinity School professor Karen L. King, are sure to cause a rash of news stories and opinion pieces on whether Jesus was married. So here's my answer: No.

Before I talk about the reasons why almost every New Testament scholar believes that Jesus was unmarried, let me say that my faith does not rise or fall on whether Jesus was married. The Christian faith is not based on Jesus's celibacy, but on the Incarnation and the Resurrection. In short, a married man healing the sick, stilling storms and raising the dead is just as impressive as an unmarried man doing so. More to the point, if a married man himself rises from the dead after being in a tomb for three days, I would be following him. Married or unmarried, Jesus is still the Son of God.

Also, before I talk about the reasons scholars believe that he was almost certainly single, I should point out that the manuscript in question was written long after the canonical Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) were written. The fragment is most likely from the fourth to the eighth century. By contrast, the earliest Gospel, Mark, was written in AD 75, only 40 years after Jesus's time on earth. The fragment in question, at its earliest, was written three hundred years after the canonical Gospels. In general, it's better to rely on sources closer to the actual events, particularly, as in the case of Mark, when there were people still alive who had known Jesus, and could presumably have corrected any inaccuracies in Mark's text. Three hundred years later, people take many more liberties with he story.

Overall, it's more likely that Jesus was unmarried. How do we know this? Here's what I say in my new book, Jesus: A Pilgrimage

Now, it is almost certain that Jesus was celibate. How do we know this? For one thing, the Gospels talk about Jesus's mother and "brothers and sisters" several times, so if he had a wife it would be odd not to mention her. In his magisterial book A Marginal Jew, John Meier, a professor of New Testament at Notre Dame, and scholar of the "historical Jesus," suggests that being unmarried was seen as undesirable for most rabbis of the time, and even though Jesus is not technically a rabbi, it would have been strange for the Gospel writers to concoct a story that he was celibate if he was in fact married. The Gospels' silence about a wife and children likely means that Jesus had neither.

What are some possible reasons for Jesus's remaining unmarried? He may have intuited that once he started his ministry it would be short or even meet a disastrous end. As a Jew, knew the fate of other prophets. Jesus may have foreseen the difficulty of caring for a family while being an itinerant preacher. Or perhaps his celibacy was another manifestation of his single-hearted commitment to God. After sifting through the facts, Meier lands on the last reason: "The position that Jesus remained celibate on religious grounds [is] the more probable hypothesis."

Other theories, where Mary Magdalene is proposed as Jesus's wife, are also rather far-fetched. Most women and women disciples in the New Testament are referred to, by the convention of their time, as "the wife of" or "the mother of." In a patriarchal world, they were most often identified through their associations with either a husband or a son (or sons). So we read of women like "Mary, the wife of Clopas" and "Joanna, the wife of Chusa." Consequently, it is more likely that if Mary Magdalene were married to Jesus she would be called not "Mary of Magdala," but "Mary, the wife of Jesus."

Also, in terms of the Passion narratives, which Christians will read during Holy Week, the Gospels place several important women at the scene of Jesus's death, at foot of the Cross. The Gospel of John, written in roughly AD 100, reports the following women as present at the Crucifixion: "his [Jesus's] mother, and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas and Mary Magdalene." An even earlier Gospel, Matthew, written around AD 85, says that there were "many women," and then lists those the Gospel writer considers important: "Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of the sons of Zebedee." Were Jesus married, not mentioning "the wife of Jesus" in either the stories of the Crucifixion or the Resurrection would be odd indeed.

Nearly every scholar believes that Jesus was unmarried. So do I. As I said, my faith does not rest on his being unmarried--but my reason tells me that he was.

[PamIsMe]

Since the Bible was all written many many years after the fact, in a male concentric society, it wouldn't surprise me at all if Jesus was married and they just preferred to ignore it.


"There is a 500-year period when no writings were contributed to the Bible. This is the period between the testaments, when Alexander the Great conquered much of the world and when the Greek language was introduced to the Hebrews."

Cheers,
Pam

[trappincoyotes39]

Pam did you read what the pastor said at all? he said in FACT it would be the opposite of what you said that durring those times woman where introduced as wife of or daughter of, to change the story for being married to non married at those times would not make much sense.

Either way doesn't matter to me either if married or not as not the point of the Christian faith, it is the death and resurrection of Christ that is the foundation of religon not if Jesus was married or not.

My point on the papyrus is it real,or a fake? The issue being the owner is cloak and dagger and it sends like we don't know much else from him than he owned it since 1999 making me further think more fishy Han real fact to this document. When he bought it I would imagine one would want more info on it than what he/she has eluded too..............

[FWS]

Pam did you read what the pastor said at all?

The author is a Jesuit priest and Jesuits are an exclusively male congregation of the Catholic church, so no surprise that he takes the positions he does.

After all, with the mandate that women were supposed to be subservient and males dominant.

Not all uppity and bossy like Pam.

[mostinterestingmanintheworld]

I can't read anything on there that would lead me to believe that Jesus had a wife.

[musher]

Doesn't the Bible say that Jesus was a man in every way? So he had a wife.

If he did or he did not, what does it change? If he and Mary Magdelene were more than just friends, what does it change?

[trappincoyotes39]

FWS so that precludes him from having information to state against the idea of Jesus having a wife? He also stated as I feel who really cares if he did or did not. he some points to think about though as to why some think he did not. each to his own until proven otherwise.

What some think it changes Musher is the fact that catholic priest cannot be married or sisters of the church either, they will use what they think to be true to try and portray the catholic faith as living in my glass house if in fact hugely could prove Jesus was married.

Again I could careless if he was or was not , doesn't change the entire belief system of Jesus Christ or the reason for the Lenten season and the foundation of the church either way.

[trappincoyotes39]

Good one Joel

[PamIsMe]

If it doesn't make any difference if Jesus was married or not, then why is it such a big deal to so many who insist that he was not?

Put your glasses on Joel lol

Pam