Open Discussion:
Despite the fact that religious and historical scholars are saying that the recently-discovered coptic writings that refer to Jesus’ “wife” do not prove whether or not Jesus had a wife, the discovery has people talking…
What would be different had Jesus been married?
How would it change the everyday Christian? The Catholic priest or nun? Those who are against organized religion?
How would it change the way you saw Jesus?
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I think that it would make people doubt that he was the son of God. For myself, I’m more likely to doubt the document or the translation of the document that was found. It may also be referring to another Jesus.
One of the things that struck me about Jesus was that there was no upside for him if he was just a man. He didn’t seem to want power or position. He never raised an army. He lived a life of service and taught that people should help others. It seems to run counter to almost everything I would expect from human nature. Was he simply an outlier? I suspect he was the son of God.
Why couldn’t he be the son of god, or a mystic connected to the god-force, and still have a wife? What makes sexuality so suspect that you can’t be connected to god and it?
I always wonder that too!
The other great mystery is why even atheists seem to call on god as they Orgasm!
There are several different religions that told stories of gods mating with mortal women. I suppose it’s always possible. It’s probably the feeling that if he chose an individual for a wife, he cares for that individual more than he cares for others. That’s one of the problems I had growing up with the concept of God’s chosen people especially since I wasn’t Jewish.
What- Blasphemy!
Where is my RPG?
I need to protest….
The supposedly recently discovered Coptic Texts of antiquity only support many other texts which have survived in copied formats down the Millennia – and there are copies of them all in the vaults of the Vatican Library…. and else where. Gospels abound, but so many were suppressed in favour of four guys (a number who never even met this Jesus guy) – Mathew, Mark, Luke & John.
Will it make a difference to the views of some? No way! They are so wedded to King James, and have been since 1611, the idea of a matrimonial Jesus and even a sexual one will just not get through their onion skin. They may suffer revelatory apoplexy – but as faith does not require knowledge or reality, it will be short lived.
Most people are squeamish over the idea of their parents having sex! If you accept that Jesus was God incarnate and that God is your father …. well, the squeam will be running a muck.
..vaults of the Vatican Library…
ah yes, Ive often wondered what treasures are in that library
A few thoughts:
1. This particular find is being treated with a considerable degree of suspicion, scepticism, caution, or distrust by many leading scholars within the field. This is a field that has seen several high profile forgeries over the last decade. It is quite likely that this is just the latest in that line. Many important voices have pointed out features of the fragment that are unusual (the script in particular and the cutting are features that I have seen a few scholars commenting upon).
2. The fragment – and let’s not forget that we are dealing with a very small and ambiguous fragment of a text here – is probably from the fourth century, and the text contained is no earlier than second century.
3. The canonical gospels, which make no reference to the wife of Christ, are significantly earlier texts (putatively founded upon eyewitness reports of Jesus). The text itself, if genuine, is probably related to the later Gnostic gospels, which are quite different from the canonical gospels in several respects, both in context and in style.
4. We do not know the provenance of the fragment. This is a crucial point.
5. The degree to which such a small fragment resonates so strongly with the contemporary zeitgeist should set warning bells ringing. It is worth reflecting on just how unlikely such a fragment is in the first place. As they say in the field, extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence. Such evidence has yet to be provided. The anonymous owner of the fragment wants to sell his collection to Harvard: such a sensationalist fragment is a very good way in which to make the most from such a sale.
6. Karen King seems to have handled things very well. Whatever transpires, I don’t believe that King’s scholarship in this matter can really be faulted.
I see no reason to believe that the text in question, if genuine, tells us anything about the historical Jesus, a point that most scholars, even those supporting the authenticity of the fragment have been at pains to point out. It is merely a testimony to later beliefs about Jesus in certain (mostly likely marginal) contexts. The canonical gospels’ omission of the fact that Jesus had a wife would be decidedly strange, considering the many other relatives of his that they mention.
So what difference would it make if Jesus were married? Here are a few possible issues:
1. It might unsettle the non-dynastic character of the Jesus movement.
2. It would complicate the symbolic relationship between Christ and the Church, as a person symbolically standing for a greater entity would be unmentioned by the text (think of Mary’s symbolic relationship with Israel and the Church as an analogy here). The gospels employs marital imagery in reference to Christ on frequent occasions. Christ is the ‘bridegroom’. If Christ were actually married, we would have to decide where to situate Christ’s wife relative to this symbolism.
3. The relationship between marriage in this age and the eschatological marriage of Christ and the people of God would be complicated.
4. Christ had normal human DNA and sex is not a sinful thing, so there are no problems on that front.
The chief issues relate to the eschatological character of the Jesus movement. The Jesus movement would lose some of the clarity of its non-dynastic, eschatological character if Jesus were married, as the bond of the present age would be in danger of obscuring to some degree to the greater marital bond of the age to come, and the earthly wife the Church as bride.
This would affect the practice of individual Christians through a relaxing of the eschatological tension and the apocalyptic break, leading to a greater normalization of earthly marriage than the New Testament seems to maintain.
Jim Davila, a Professor of Early Jewish studies, and an expert on this sort of thing, expresses the situation as it stands rather well:
“THE GOSPEL OF JESUS’ WIFE is getting endless attention in the media and the blogosphere, but I don’t see very much today which adds anything new. As far as I know, no papyrologist has come out in favor of its authenticity or even pointed to another ancient papyrus fragment that shares its odd features. So it looks to me as though we have a small fragment that really, really fortunately preserves just the words that say exactly what we really, really would like to have an ancient gospel fragment say about Jesus. Coincidentally, the physical features of the fragment are also highly unusual or even unprecedented. So we’ve won the lottery twice. Either that or it’s a fake.”
I look at the tone and mode in which this suspect (or yet-to-be-proven) document was positioned in the mass-media. IMO, it was waived in the face of Christians in a “how do like like your savior now???”
Answer: Couldn’t give a flippidy flup any less. And I fail to see how anyone can possibly place one micron of relevance on this thing. If there were ever a pure product of the media, its this thing.
Jesus (Yeshua) was a Jewish Rabbi before He became the Christian Savior. In Judaism, marriage is one of the 613 Mitzvot (commandments) so, of course, He was likely married. By the way, the conjugal rights cited below are for the wife, not the husband:
The Laws of Marriage Include Four Commandments: Two positive commandments and two negative commandments, which are: (1) To take a wife by marriage contract and sanctification ceremony; (2) For a woman not to have sexual relations without a marriage contract and sanctification ceremony; (3) Not to withhold food, clothing, and conjugal rights; (4) To be fruitful and multiply from one’s wife (Source: http://www.mechon-mamre.org/jewfaq/613.htm).
“Jesus (Yeshua) was a Jewish Rabbi before He became the Christian Savior. “
I’ve heard this statement or a version many times before and I’ve disagreed with it every time. I do not remember any time in the New Testament where Jesus did not believe that he was the son of God. Some Christians assert that Jesus knew this prior to conception.
The first commandment says that I am the Lord your God. You shall have no gods before me. So unless the belief in the Holy Trinity is a tenet of Judaism, Jesus was never a Jew.
Yes – It does get interesting when you have to deal with the internal contradictions that come from the Old Onion Skin in edited highlights. This Is the Word Of God ( As Edited By so many over so many millennia and across multiple languages and it is 100% authentic … including the spelling mistakes).
… Jesus is born of a Jewish Woman – which makes him Jewish – but he is actually God which means he can’t be Jewish – and so he is open to founding a whole new religion, which is designed to save everyone …. and due to the poor PR job, God gets his own child murdered by the people he wanted to save from some eternal hell fire and damnation, which is actually not even mentioned in the Onion Skin itself! Curiouser and curiouser. Maybe if he had done a better job over Leviticus it would have saved so much trouble … and he could have put a foot note on those Ten Commandments as in:
“Though shalt not Kill “*” ”
*Note: I may send myself in human form on a mystery shopping expedition to see how you are doing, add a few new ideas or commandments, that sort of thing – I haven’t made my mind up yet – so be extra careful to not kill anyone you may suspect is actually me in human form.
Personally – I can’t figure out why God did such a bad PR job – didn’t just use his heavenly boom box – announce to the whole world that he was having a kid and that everyone should listen to him. Maybe he was too busy dealing with the logical conundrums caused by the Babel Fish!
Or maybe God was still busy wondering about how to intelligently design things. After all the Onion Skin does say that God created everything in heaven and on earth, so he even created Lucifer – Satan. Not a very intelligent thing to have done! … and of course when he found out he had gotten the recipe wrong why was or is God not able to undo his mistakes?
… and don’t get me started on the queries about the intelligence of designing such things as cholera and a reproductive system for humans that has lead to the deaths of so many women and children!