Papyrus Referring to Jesus' Wife Likely Genuine, Scientists Say

[Frodo]

Papyrus Referring to Jesus’s Wife Is More Likely Ancient Than Fake, Scientists Say

By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
APRIL 10, 2014

A faded fragment of papyrus known as the “Gospel of Jesus’s Wife,” which caused an uproar when unveiled by a Harvard Divinity School historian in 2012, has been tested by scientists who conclude in a journal published on Thursday that the ink and papyrus are very likely ancient, and not a modern forgery.

Skepticism about the tiny scrap of papyrus has been fierce because it contained a phrase never before seen in any piece of Scripture: “Jesus said to them, ‘My wife...’ ” Too convenient for some, it also contained the words “she will be able to be my disciple,” a clause that inflamed the debate in some churches over whether women should be allowed to be priests.

The papyrus fragment has now been analyzed by professors of electrical engineering, chemistry and biology at Columbia University, Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who reported that it resembles other ancient papyri from the fourth to the eighth centuries. (Scientists at the University of Arizona, who dated the fragment to centuries before the birth of Jesus, concluded that their results were unreliable.)

The test results do not prove that Jesus had a wife or disciples who were women, only that the fragment is more likely a snippet from an ancient manuscript than a fake, the scholars agree. Karen L. King, the historian at Harvard Divinity School who gave the papyrus its name and fame, has said all along that it should not be regarded as evidence that Jesus married, only that early Christians were actively discussing celibacy, sex, marriage and discipleship.

[afleitch]

If it's genuine in all respect, both in it's authenticity and it's message it doesn't really matter. Christianity has the fingerprints of a religion 'designed by committee' during it's first few centuries so I'm sure if this was available then it would have been disregarded then for the same reasons as it would be today.

[I Will Not Be Wrong]

Very interesting.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Christianity was indeed far more varied in its beliefs until orthodoxy was imposed by the state as its price for making it the state religion.  Frankly, it would be surprising that no early Christian group thought Jesus had a wife given the wide divergence in beliefs among such groups on other Christological issues.  Given the metaphorical language used in the canonical texts of Christ as the bridegroom and the church as the bride, it is also possible this short fragment was merely envisaging that the "wedding" of Jesus and church had taken place. (Or maybe not as one would have to look at the actual text to determine if that metaphor is a possible interpretation of it.)

[The Mikado]

Genuine in the respect that it's not a modern forgery doesn't really mean much.  There were a wide variety of Christian traditions in the early Church.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I don't see why this is news. There are plenty of texts from Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages that advance unorthodox understandings of some aspect or another of Christianity. This is in fact true of every religion. The only special thing about this is that people tend to find the apparent subject matter more interesting than, I don't know, a text from the same period that advanced Sabellianism or something.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I've taken a look at the text now.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/hds-high-traffic-assets/TheGospelofJesusWife.pdf

It's such a small fragment, eight incomplete lines on one side and a few scattered words on the other, there's not much to infer from it.  There's nothing in it that would be inconsistent with traditional "the church is the bride of Jesus" metaphorical language. It also could be interpreted as conveying a strongly gender egalitarian message.  It's a small enough fragment with too little context to say much about it unless one views it via the biases one already has.

[Zioneer]

Oddly enough, while my church believes that God has a wife, we don't generally believe that Jesus had a wife.

[afleitch]

To be fair, they could discover a fragment that says Jesus had a pet cat and people would still be saying he was just talking metaphorically about the wider church

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

To be fair, they could discover a fragment that says Jesus had a pet cat and people would still be saying he was just talking metaphorically about the wider church

True, altho other than creating something in common between himself and Mohammed, I can't think of any theological implications of Jesus having a pet cat.

[Deus Naturae]

To be fair, they could discover a fragment that says Jesus had a pet cat and people would still be saying he was just talking metaphorically about the wider church

Why would they say that? It's not like that fact would be inconvenient for any church or denomination.

[Simfan34]

BREAKING NEWS: BS NOT MODERN INVENTION      SHOCK, HORROR AS IT IS DISCOVERED ANCIENT PEOPLES CAPABLE OF SAYING NONSENSE     "NOT EVERYTHING YOU READ ON A PARCHMENT OR PAPYRUS IS TRUE", SAYS HISTORIAN

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

BREAKING NEWS: BS NOT MODERN INVENTION      SHOCK, HORROR AS IT IS DISCOVERED ANCIENT PEOPLES CAPABLE OF SAYING NONSENSE     "NOT EVERYTHING YOU READ ON A PARCHMENT OR PAPYRUS IS TRUE", SAYS HISTORIAN

So, you are in the Bible is bogus camp?

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Wait... are you saying Jesus wasn't a virginal white guy with ripped abs?!?