Does New Document Prove That Jesus Had a Wife?

Does this piece of papyrus prove that Jesus had a wife?

The New York Times is carrying a story of a scholar who has a piece of papyrus which refers to Jesus having a wife.

She’s even dubbed it “The Gospel of Jesus’s Wife.”

Isn’t that “special.”

Does this mean that Dan Brown was right all along? That Jesus was married? To Mary Magdalen even?

Are we going to have to deal with all that nonsense again?

Before things get too far out of hand, let’s take a look at this issue and what it means . . .

 

The Basic Facts

According to the NYT:

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.

The provenance of the papyrus fragment is a mystery, and its owner has asked to remain anonymous [Source].

Okay, let’s stop right there. That leads to the very first question . . .

KEEP READING.

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