Jesus of Nazareth..and his lovely wife.

Greetings ATS'ers! This one's sure to rattle some cages for those who take the Bible as Gospel.

(Pun absolutely intended.)

It appears a recent discovery of an ancient text written on Egyptian papyrus has just completed a round of scrutiny at the Harvard Theological review. The text reference's Jesus of Nazareth as having a wife, and as of now there's been no signs of modern forgery.

The results of a carbon dating test found that the papyrus probably dates to eighth-century Egypt, about 400 years later than King originally thought, but still in ancient times. Other tests found the ink’s chemical composition consistent with carbon-based inks used by ancient Egyptians. And microscopic imaging revealed none of the suspicious ink pooling that critics thought they saw in lower-resolution photographs of the fragment. Such pooling could have offered evidence that the ink was applied in modern times.

Source: The Boston Globe

With that, let the flood gate opening commence:

What are your thoughts ATS'ers?

Personally, I have always thought the claims that Jesus was married were likely true. Makes sense in many ways. I don't see how having a wife would affect Jesus' holy status, anyway.

All those poor celibate priests...

I see no problem with Jesus having a wife.

Good on him, mate!

reply to post by parad0x122


The text still dates to 8th century. Too long after the advent to be taken seriously, in my opinion. It seems everyone and their brother wanted in the Jesus game in those days.

I also read where there were so many grammatical errors that scholars believe that it was either written by an uneducated layman or mis-copied by a careless scribe.

Jesus had a brother also and apparently there is a book in a Greek Orthodox church that confirms the marriage also.

Of course he had a wife.
The social implications for not having a wife back then would have been severe. There is no doubt he had a wife as far as I'm concerned.
Whether or not it was Mary Magdalene i'm not sure, but at the very least I think there is another gospel named after her.

Does it really matter if he was married or not? I wonder how many children he had? Where did his kids go to?

The original carbon-dating test of the papyrus, conducted by the University of Arizona Accelerator Mass Spectrometry Laboratory, gave a date of 400 to 200 years before the birth of Jesus. Researchers concluded that the result may be unreliable because the sample size was too small.

A second carbon-dating test was conducted by Noreen Tuross of Harvard and produced a mean date of 741 A.D.

I wonder what the extremes of the 741 AD date were.

In any case, the difference between the two dates doesn't increase my confidence in radio carbon dating. I suppose one could assume that the sample size in the second test was larger, but it doesn't state that in the article. Wish they would have elaborated a little more about why or if someone should have more confidence in the second test. (other than the obvious problem with the first test indicating it was written before Jesus was born).

To be fair, the tiny fragment never says that Jesus was married.

The fragment appears to be cut from the middle of a larger document; it contains just eight partial lines, written in a crude hand, one of which says, “And Jesus said to them, ‘My wife,’ ” The next says, “She will be able to be my disciple.”

The first line, according to King’s translation, says in part: “My mother gave me life.

Source

He could have been talking about His ministry, or about being a disciple and giving up one's family to walk with Him. He could of simply said to a woman of the time, "I treat her as I would my wife. She will be able to be my disciple." They are only raising assumptions based on a fragment of text that can be taken out of context. The text could have also said, "She is not my wife. She will be able to be my disciple." Maybe that fragment was Him answering a question from a disciple.

They don't know for a fact, and neither do we. I would hate to postulate a theory without known facts just to further any type of nefarious agenda. On the other hand, there are about 20 years missing from His life that are scarcely written about, if at all. So we truly don't know the answer from either side. Why even make it a big issue?





ETA: This may be another source of proof that shows He existed. Some people still to this day deny He ever walked the Earth. So beside the fragment mentioning the word "wife"...it mentions the existence of the man named Jesus of Nazareth. All of which is much more relevant than the subject of a word in the fragment itself.

It proves more than most people want to admit.

rickymouse
Does it really matter if he was married or not? I wonder how many children he had? Where did his kids go to?

It matters. If Jesus was born of a virgin, and was fully man and fully a god, then his DNA would be special, one would postulate, and his lineage would be "royalty".

If he was an Essene master, but a normal human, which is what I tend to think, he wouldn't have had to marry, like most Jewish men were mandated to do, but he could have.

What's most telling, IMHO, is that you have one camp of 'expert scientists' saying that it is absolutely not a forgery and another camp of 'expert scientists' saying that it is not only a forgery but a poor one at that. So truth is clearly a whatever-you-want-it-to-be commodity.

I wouldn't be surprised to find that this were true. So far however, it seems there's a lot more testing to be done to more accurately determine both the age and legitimacy of this find. Regardless, I don't feel it'd make Jesus any less Holy than he already is. If anything, I'd hope it would cause a reformation allowing Priests and other clergy to wed. I always felt that not allowing them to do so really disconnected them from some of the experiences everyone else goes through. Heck, it may even allow them to do their jobs a bit better!

reply to post by havok


Very cool find! That's the real kicker too: Jesus used so much symbolism/analogy in his teachings, that even if we had a 100% verbatim account of what was said or written, we still wouldn't ever be able to tell what message was intended by what was said or written.

For all those who think it's important for God to come to Earth and live the life of a man, so such a being could experience what it meant to be a human being (as if it wouldn't already know), I find it rather difficult to believe that a lot of people would think he didn't do the thing most ordinary men would do, which is take a wife and build a family. Of course, it seems like he pretty much abandoned that family when he started his ministry at age 33, but in those days, at that time, he might already have children approaching marrying age.

Skadi_the_Evil_Elf
Personally, I have always thought the claims that Jesus was married were likely true. Makes sense in many ways. I don't see how having a wife would affect Jesus' holy status, anyway.

it lends a human dimension to his being that undermines the purity of his status as "god in the flesh".

rickymouse
Does it really matter if he was married or not? I wonder how many children he had? Where did his kids go to?

Enter the holy grail conspiracy...

reply to post by 168617


Every body knows about Jesuses brothers. That was never a secret. Mary and Joseph were husband and wife. They had several children. Joseph James Jude and Simon. They just weren't full brothers to Jesus if you believe in the virgin birth.

windword

rickymouse
Does it really matter if he was married or not? I wonder how many children he had? Where did his kids go to?

It matters. If Jesus was born of a virgin, and was fully man and fully a god, then his DNA would be special, one would postulate, and his lineage would be "royalty".

If he was an Essene master, but a normal human, which is what I tend to think, he wouldn't have had to marry, like most Jewish men were mandated to do, but he could have.

Essene master is about what I feel he was also. It seems he became able to communicate with and steer the power of nature though, making him a Messiah like other Messiahs in history. It doesn't appear that Jesus was the only one to be a messiah from what I have read, there were others.

reply to post by rickymouse


Yep. There were other Messiahs. Cyrus the Great was one. King Saul and King David were both referred to with same adjective as the Greek term "Christ" also, as well as others.