The Gospel of Jesus' Wife," or this papyrus, was unveiled Tuesday, Sept. 18, 2012.
Posted on 09/28/2012 7:29:38 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
A Vatican City newspaper has claimed that a controversial ancient document that alludes to Jesus possibly being married is a fabrication.
L'Osservatore Romano ran an article by Alberto Camplani, a leading scholar on Coptic documents, who said that the Coptic papyrus recently unveiled as saying Jesus was married is a fake.
"In spite of the drift in the media marked by tones which are quick to shock, unlike so many other items presented at the conference, the papyrus was not discovered in the process of excavation but came from an antiquarian market," wrote Camplani.
"Such an object demands that numerous precautions be taken to establish its reliability and exclude the possibility of forgery."
Camplani and Giovanni Maria Vian, editor at L'Osservatore who wrote an accompanying editorial column, both cited scholars who doubted the authenticity of the papyrus document.
"At any rate, a fake," wrote Vian, who in addition to being editor also has expertise in early Christian history.
Last week, Karen King, a professor of early Christianity at Harvard Divinity School, presented a fourth century Coptic papyrus document before an international body that focuses on Coptic studies.
King stated that the document, likely a Coptic translation of an earlier 2nd century document, had Jesus refer to a woman named Mary as "my wife."
As the document is being analyzed for authenticity, King herself admitted that the document would not prove that Jesus was married, but at most would only show that some early Christians assumed him to be.
In his article, Camplani argued that even if the document were true, the statement of Jesus referring to "my wife" could also mean his bride the Church, a common symbolic parallel, rather than a literal spouse.
Other Christian scholars and leaders have also expressed skepticism about the Coptic papyrus document in regards to the claim of Jesus being married as well as its authenticity.
"One British newspaper notes that the claims about a married Jesus seem more worthy of fans of Dan Brown's fictional work, The Da Vinci Code, than 'real-life Harvard professors,'" said R. Albert Mohler, president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, in a commentary.
"If the fragment is authenticated, the existence of this little document will be of interest to historians of the era, but it is insanity to make the claims now running through the media."
In an earlier interview with The Christian Post, Sean McDonough, professor of New Testament at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, described it as "simply the latest in a seemingly endless parade of sensationalist headlines obscuring sober historical thinking about the Bible."
To the headline: yea duh!
With all the modern scientific testing available, why not just test it and get over all the hubbub?
What am I missing here?
Jesus, do you have to go out fishing with your friends again?
I need help around the house.
Yeah really.
He's going where? In this weather? Is he nuts? He's gotta know how bad the Sea of Galilee gets when those winds blow! What does he think is going to happen with a small boat like that? Sheesh! ;)
What did you expect the Vatican to say? They have to protect their turf, right?
Don’t trust that Peter feller either. He is a bit of a two-face.
“Quid est veritas?” is lost on the obtuse.
Some of the fakes are very good, that’s why.
One could use 1700 year old papyrus paper, and, even create (or recreate) old ink of the same time frame..
I had heard early on that some the wording wasn’t quite right for the era—and seemed to have been copied straight from other gnostic documents...and that for that, and other reasons...the experts were suspicious.
In any event, we already know competing religions (the gnostics) wrote wacky things about Jesus...some 150+ years AFTER His life on earth, so WHO CARES if they claimed HE had a wife—it’s as credible as if I claimed Abraham Lincoln was really a vampire slayer.
Looks like it isn’t the only thing that has come out of Harvard that’s been a fake.
Dan Rather has protested: I have authenticated this document!
“their (the Vatican’s) turf”
Do you really think this is only an attack upon the Catholic Church’s discipline of celibacy and not all of Christendom and the self-control it preaches?
The class of 98 is exempt from having to use /s tags.
That said, I believe the Harvard Professor, Dan Brown, and most liberal theologians deny Christ, the Father and have particular disdain for the Holy Spirit. They serve a different king, a king of lies and deceit.
In relation of Roman Catholicism as well as the Orthodox, I as a Protestant am an inheritor of a faith that has been preserved over the centuries. Even today the Roman church serves as a shield against the attacks against the faith and the bible.
My comment was to emphasize the obvious Dan Brown believers response to this Vatican source. Rather than evaluate the content of the criticism, the Harvard professors and other theological liberal professors will dismiss this criticism because of the source rather than the content.
I thought, "Holy cow, here's a guy who usually makes sense. Somebody musta hacked his FReep-account!"
The fact is that this is a papyrus fragment supposedly from the 4th century
Even if it IS from the 4th century, it is:
In short this is just sheer speculation.
Secondly, this fragment is pretty definitely speculation. It's like someone seeing a fragment of Jesus calling John the beloved and jumping to the conclusion of gayness. Actually it's worse than that, it's like someone seeing a fragment written 400 years later (and with no other corroborating pieces of evidence) which has Jesus saying "John is my .." and then making guesses from that.
Actually, this is not an attack, just a silly statement. If taken in the secular world, it’s like someone saying that Augustus Caesar was Chinese based on a fragment written 400 years later that has Augustus saying “My middle kingdom...” and the rest being cut away.
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