Jesus Had a Wife

On September 18, Professor Karen L. King announced at a conference in Rome that she had come into the possession of a papyrus fragment that included the shocking words "Jesus said to them, 'My wife.'"  Dr. Karen King is Hollis Professor of Divinity at Harvard Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  She says she obtained the fragment from an anonymous source who in turn acquired it from a German artifact dealer.  The New York Times gives this description of the fragment:

"The faded papyrus fragment is smaller than a business card, with eight lines on one side, in black ink legible under a magnifying glass. Just below the line about Jesus having a wife, the papyrus includes a second provocative clause that purportedly says, “she will be able to be my disciple."*

This controversial discovery has been the source of a lot of talk recently.    The Telegraph reports, "Ancient papyrus could be evidence that Jesus had a wife"*  The Title of a Huffington Post article declares, "'The Gospel Of Jesus' Wife,' New Early Christian Text Indicates Jesus May Have Been Married."*  And apparently the Smithsonian magazine declares the discovery to be “apt to send jolts through the world of biblical scholarship — and beyond.”* 

So what are we to make of this great revolutionary discovery?  Absolutely nothing. For one, the fragment is thought to date to the fourth century, about three hundred years after the life of Christ.  Two, it contains only fragmented sentences consisting of eight separated lines and totaling thirty words with no surrounding paragraphs or context. Three, it is the only surviving text that suggests that Jesus was married which means that it was not a believable idea to those closest to the historical Jesus. Moreover, it is written in Coptic (an Egyptian language) which means the most that this fragment can prove is that a small sect of Egyptian Christians made it a part of their religion to believe that Jesus had a wife.  

This is why Dr. King herself admits that the fragment says nothing about whether or not the actual historical Jesus had a wife.  According to her,

"This is the only extant ancient text which explicitly portrays Jesus as referring to a wife. It does not, however, provide evidence that the historical Jesus was married, given the late date of the fragment and the probable date of original composition only in the second half of the second century."*

This is coming from Dr. King who is not a conservative by a long shot.  There are other problems too.  Like whether the fragment is even genuine to begin with. Even the Huffington Post has recently speculated on a forgery.*     

So what about all this media hype about Jesus' wife?  William Lane Craig calls it - "lazy and reckless reportage," and Al Mohler says it is "sensationalism masquerading as scholarship," but I think my favorite response was from New Zealand philosopher Glenn Peoples:

"So is there anything shocking here? No. Does this change anything in regard to what the overall body of evidence on the life of Jesus has to show us? Not in the least. Will it get people excited, bloggers blogging about the orthodox Christian cover-up of the real Jesus and the suppression of the truth? No doubt. Prepare yourself. Suddenly, people are going to read a sensational article about a tiny scrap of parchment and become experts on early church history."*

-LittleGoose
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* http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/19/us/historian-says-piece-of-papyrus-refers-to-jesus-wife.html?pagewanted=all&_moc.semityn.www

*http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/9553178/Ancient-papyrus-could-be-evidence-that-Jesus-had-a-wife.html

*http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/18/the-gospel-of-jesus-wife-_n_1891325.html

*http://www.albertmohler.com/2012/09/20/the-gospel-of-jesuss-wife-when-sensationalism-masquerades-as-scholarship/

*http://news.hds.harvard.edu/files/King_JesusSaidToThem_draft_0917.pdf

*http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20120921/us-scholar-jesus-s-wife/

*http://www.beretta-online.com/wordpress/2012/the-gospel-of-jesus-wife/