A Faded Piece of Papyrus Refers to Jesus' Wife

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — A historian of early Christianity at Harvard Divinity School has identified a scrap of papyrus that she says was written in Coptic in the fourth century and contains a phrase never seen in any piece of Scripture: “Jesus said to them, ‘My wife ...’ ”

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.”

The finding was made public in Rome on Tuesday at an international meeting of Coptic scholars by Karen L. King, a historian who has published several books about new Gospel discoveries and is the first woman to hold the nation’s oldest endowed chair, the Hollis professor of divinity.

Good point.

What you're saying is quite true. To claim position in the Church as Jesus' close kin, would have been accepted, even expected in those days when family/tribal systems of affiliation were the norm and pedigree/genealogy were of such intense interest. This makes it all the more striking that all the claims are collateral: people might put forward an uncle/aunt/stepbrother connection, cousins by the dozens, but nobody ever ventured to suggest they were Christ's son or grandson.

If it were even remotely credible that Jesus might have had a son, there would eventually have been a dynastic dispute. But it never happened.

Malachi Martin, by the way, is being accurate, not just "Papally Correct", when he speaks of half-brothers, step-brothers or cousins, rather than full blood siblings, of Jesus. Although in Greek there are separate words for "cousin" and "nephew," the translators of the Old Testament used the Greek word, "adelphos," i.e. "brother," even when it was clear that no blood brother is meant. This happens some 20 times in the Greek Septuagint, which was the version familiar to all of the Evangeliss as well as Paul: Abraham refers to his nephew, Lot, as his brother; Laban calls his nephew, Jacob, his brother; in Leviticus cousins are called brothers; etc., etc. The Greek translators, certainly familiar with the Hebrew usage, still has no problem using "adelphoi" for everybody.

The individual brothers named in the Gospels, are specified as the sons either of Clopas or of "the other Mary," or (as some maintain) of both Clopas and "the other Mary."

I have a masters degree in theology. What many do not realize is that starting in the 2nd Century—while orthodox Christianity was spreading like wildfire throughout the Roman empire—numerous non-Christian cults, competing with Christianity—started trying to adopt the idea of Jesus as one of their own.

The writings which make up the New Testament were done by AD 90 or 100 at the latest. Liberal scholars’ ideas—from 75 and 100 years ago—that the NT were 2nd or 3rd Century writings have been thoroughly refuted—hence NT scholarship, liberal & conservative, today admits that the NT books are from the 1st Century.

The liberal (Dan Brown-esque) argument now, is that the Church had no idea which books to include or exclude as authentic until the 4th Century—and so scholarship should include mid-2nd to 3rd Century writings as possibly true accounts-—even though these were written some 100 to 200 years AFTER the NT books we actually find in our bibles.

It would be like finding a book written about George Washington—purporting to be a true eye-witness account (but without any references) written in 1890 or 1950, and somehow giving it equal weight to the writings about Washington by Jefferson, Hamilton, or Franklin.

If you know anything at all about the late Roman empire, these folks were many things...but they weren’t uneducated, stupid, ill-informed, or naive when it came to historical writings.

The leaders of the Christian church were not ignorant about what was the written “testimony of the Apostles” (as the New Testament was then often called) from the 1st Century, compared to what other religious groups—in direct opposition and competition to orthodox Christianity—were saying about Jesus, some 150+ (or 200+ in this text’s claimed age) after Jesus walked the earth.

There is a whole body of literature from this period called the Gnostic gospels, which are completely known to scholars (with no dark conspiracy covering up things deep in the Vatican). The reason these are not popularly known—is that scholars (or anyone with a brain) who reads them will know they are fanciful works of fiction—very much unlike the character of the New Testament gospels—and unless one is interested in 2nd or 3rd Century culture—are worthless in understanding the historical Jesus crucified (and raised...) in AD 30.

Conspiracy theories are fun...but the reason serious scholarship, over time, usually rejects them—is that they are most often proven merely products of the imagination.

The idea that the “real” Jesus was markedly different than what the earliest, most thoroughly authenticated books in the world—eye-witness testimonies, paint him to be... is just another fanciful conspiracy, by people who really don’t like Jesus’ claims.

I have a bunch of the gnostic texts, including Robinsons “the Nag Hammadi Library” (HarperCollins, 1990) and agree most of it does not deserve serious scholarship.

But I am constantly wondering how much editing actually happened early on when the Council of Nicea occurred.

I should say, though, that one of my books is Murdocks Syriac Testament, translated about 1850 from the known Peshito versions (known at that time), and it pretty much agrees with the translations from the Greek. The language can be described as more “earthy”, more like the way a common man would speak.

Perhaps we will never know. On a personal level for me, it makes little difference whether he was married or not, no doubt there were a couple female followers he was close to, it says something in my mind that some of the other apostles seemed to complain about how close he was to Mary.

And as an aside, one of the things he preached about was marriage itself, his hatred of divorce.

Since Jesus treated women with respect, and actually talked with them...(unlike the rabbis and respected teachers of the day (and Muslim Imams today)) it wouldn’t surprise me if some of the Apostles grumbled about that... However, the New Testament texts—again, THE very earliest accounts (by far) we have of Jesus, don’t tell us anything about that.

I think it’s hard to imagine what a superstar Jesus was...even 100 or 200 years after he was gone. SUCH a very popular figure that the Gnostic cults picked him up as their own (even while bitterly disparaging the original Apostles).

It really is a fanciful conspiracy theory though that essential facts of his life (like the idea that he was married) were edited out post-Nicea (AD 325)...as we have the canon (list of the books) intact as early as the Muratorian fragment (ca. AD 170) and, it’s been said that THE ENTIRE New Testament could be reconstructed from the works of the early Church Fathers (AD 125-450) since they quoted the NT books at length.

Ockham’s razor would suggest—rather than a dark conspiracy of powerful (though at the time persecuted and often executed) bishops editing out things in Jesus’ life—things like Jesus as a boy turning clay pigeons into real ones...or...his having a wife... really were exactly what they appear to be: Writings by groups OPPOSED TO CHRISTIANITY who were spuriously claiming Jesus as their own.

The New Testament is an authentic eye-witness testimony, other texts—from hundreds of years later, are not.

End of story.

Well, afaik none of the Greek texts pre-date about 90AD, so they ARE NOT eyewitness testimony.

My mention of the Peshito version agreeing with the Greek translations was in support of the idea that there was little editing of the Greek versions we came to know. The four or five Peshito versions date from the 100-115 AD timeframe, so there was little time for diversion/editing.

I never said that a mention of Jesus’s wife was edited out. What I said was SOME THINGS were probably edited, and it would be very interesting to know the who/what/where of it.

No need to be rude. If you chose to look at things like a good student, you can’t let your personal opinions/theocracy get in the way.

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