Jimmy,
When I saw this article hit CNN, I hoped that someone would do a even-handed refutation of the sensationalist claims.  I immediately thought of the Bride of Christ metaphor and how this could simply be a restatement of that, but you’re right… there’s just not enough context.

I’m sure I’m going to get more than a few smug people thinking they were right all along, so I will be forwarding them directly to this article. 

Thank you and God Bless.

I will also be forwarding this link to what is sure to be many people trying to turn a tiny scrap of questionable origin into another lost gospel. One that some how got missed when the Holy Bible was codified.
Thank you for your work, and God Bless.

Some people grasp at straws to back up their beliefs (or lack of belief). It’s amazing how people can become the very thing they hate- so eager to disprove Christ they ignore logic, reason, and the idea of investigating facts.

I also thought of Bride of Christ immediately—of COURSE He has a wife. The Church.

Even if an ‘ancient document’ is found that says Jesus married George the Potter and they adopted (or made via miracle) fourteen offspring, I’m not sure why anyone would assume this one document is true, anymore than they’d believe that an email claiming someone is drugging people and stealing their kidneys is true (oh, wait..)  “The paper never refuses the ink” as my fil used to say. And it never did.

on the Cross Jesus gave His Mother Mary to John, and gave John to His Mother…if Jesus had family Mother Mary would have been taken care of by them..and Christ never would have said what He said…..Jesus, Mary, Joseph save souls

Apologies for the length of this comment, Jimmy, but possibly the earliest positive statement to the effect that Our Lord was not married occurs in a passage in the “Stromateis” of Clement of Alexandria (Book III, 6.49).  Clement died in about AD 215.  In that passage he is controverting the argument that marriage is fornication introduced by the devil.  The people who believed that heresy appealed to the example of Jesus.  Clement puts it this way:-

“There are some who say outright that marriage is fornication and teach that it was introduced by the devil. They proudly say that they are imitating the Lord who neither married nor had any possession in this world, boasting that they understand the gospel better than anyone else. The Scripture says to them: ‘God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.’ Further, they do not know the reason why the Lord did not marry. In the first place he had his own bride, the Church; and in the next place he was no ordinary man that he should also be in need of some helpmeet after the flesh.” [etc.]

Tertullian, in De monogamia, 5 (when already a Montanist, and therefore that work is to be dated to about the same time as Clement’s death) asserts that Christ “was wholly disengaged from marriage” [innuptus in totum], and that in the flesh He was a eunuch [spado], but if that the believer is not equal to imitating that form of perfection, Christ comes in a spiritual sense as a monogamist, for “He has one spouse, the Church” [unam habens ecclesiam sponsam].

Of course, neither Clement nor Tertullian can strictly be taken as evidence of the main fact they assert (that Jesus was unmarried), but they are at least unequivocal on it and comparatively “early”.

The phrase “she will be able to be my disciple” is impossible as a disconnected fragment, since the feminine pronoun would not be used in that construction, and the subject of the previous sentence would be unavailable if this were a fragment.

It is not important issue whether Jesus was married or not.
Because it cannot change the fact that Jesus loved God unconditionally and such unconditional love saves our soul.

It would have been far more “normal” for Jesus, as a Jewish man, to be married & certainly wouldn’t be anything to be hidden or covered up for centuries.Basically, it would have been common knowledge & not something that needed to be discovered two thousand years later on a scrap of papyrus.

Jimmy, thanks for your piece. I was especially puzzled by the indication in the NYT article that this fragment is one further piece of evidence to add to our understanding of the early Christian debate over whether Jesus was married. To that end, I appreciate your mention of the strange “definitely-not-about-marriage” passage in the Gospel of Thomas.

As an FYI, the one Gnostic passage that seems to get the most play in this “debate” however, comes from the Gospel of Philip (63-64), in which the word “kiss” is used in close proximity to Mary Magdalene. The text is quite fragmentary at that particular point, but some have taken it to mean that Jesus was kissing Mary, thus they were married. Obviously, this is a silly argument, but I thought it worth mentioning as the “best” piece of early Christian evidence for this strange, strange view.

I wonder whether the NY Times would print an article about a questionable discovery suggesting something contrary to what Islam teaches. I suppose they would say such an article is not fit to print.

Posted by Rene on Wednesday, Sep 19, 2012 10:50 AM (EST):I wonder whether the NY Times would print an article about a questionable discovery suggesting something contrary to what Islam teaches. I suppose they would say such an article is not fit to print.”
**
Or SAFE to print.
:)

It’s amazing how many people deny the divinity of Jesus and mock His church and yet are so fascinated as to whether or not He was married.

Im always impress how people or institutions, like NYT question the validity of the books of the new testament. Are they authentic, we’re they meant to be read this way or that and on and on. Yt when something aligns with their agenda to add discordance, raise questions about central dogma they are all of a sudden orthodox Christians who readily accept the documents as..well, Gospel. Especially when the new documents questioning church teachings are in question. The new document MUST be true. It’s the type of approach that my children use. It changes as it suits them.
As a scientist, I would really like to see the entire document authenticity, translation and THEN we can discuss its place in history.

Hey, what’s happening to the NYT? Are they starting to promote Christian fundamentalism? This pseudo-evidence doesn’t prove anything. Of course Jesus has a wife. The Church has been saying it for centuries, and the bible too. (Ephesians 5:22-25, Revelation 19:7-9 21:3 21:9)

Oh, and I forgot, Jesus is a door too. (Jn 10:7)

Scholars? HAR HAR HAR!

One of the basic logical problems that I see, is that there seems to be this assumption that antiquity of a statement equates to truth of the statement.  Does this mean that the idea of “historians” lying or altering facts to suit a particular position is a completely modern phenomenon and thus we are always to believe that every statement, whether proved or not, is Gospel, as long as it was made by an ancient “historian”, even when we have no clue as to who this historian was?

The early Christian world was full of Gnostics and other heretics, many of whom thought they had had a “superior” Christianity revealed to them.  One writes of a Jesus whose real spirit watched his own crucifixion from a cave across the valley from Golgotha.  It is perfectly possible that one of these non-Christian Christians, or Gnostics using Christian terms to sell their own brand of nonsense, would come up with false tales about a married Christ, especially by the 4th century. 
What is there to be taken seriously here, other than the desire of the irreligious to mock God?  It is like taking Dan Brown or Nancy Pelosi as speaking for the Catholic Church.

Another story by a shoddy reporting group (NYT). Facts? Who needs FACTS?
Making headlines, and dismissing the Son of God is the main goal and purpose of such inane stories. We have come to expect this—EVERY YEAR, but usually they (stories) arrive around Lent or Easter.
File this under BALONEY.

John 1 (the Prolog) and Isaiah 61 state why Christ came.  As important as the gospel is, His primary reason for coming was to DIE—and that all who would believe in Him would have everlasting life.  Whenever you hear from these goo-goo nutcases, they forget Scripture.  HE is the lamb,—“slain before the foundation of the world.”  Marriage and kids is a worldview rather than a biblical worldview.

In March 2011 the BBC reported on “Jordan battles to regain ‘priceless’ Christian relics.” The report said that: “They could be the earliest Christian writing in existence, surviving almost 2,000 years in a Jordanian cave. They could, just possibly, change our understanding of how Jesus was crucified and resurrected, and how Christianity was born. A group of 70 or so “books”, each with between five and 15 lead leaves bound by lead rings, was apparently discovered in a remote arid valley in northern Jordan somewhere between 2005 and 2007.” And he said, “One of the few people to see the collection is David Elkington, a scholar of ancient religious archaeology who is heading a British team trying to get the lead books safely into a Jordanian museum. He says they could be “the major discovery of Christian history”, adding: “It’s a breathtaking thought that we have held these objects that might have been held by the early saints of the Church.””
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/mobile/world-middle-east-12888421

Well, since then we have heard nothing further from the BBC about this supposed ‘scholar of ancient religious articles’ or anything further about how these “books” have changed ‘our understanding of how Jesus was crucified and resurrected, and how Christianity was born’. It appears that the BBC and others just like writing these kinds of sensational stories which then just disappear into thin air.

An Agnostic friend that was raised Roman Catholic sent a newslink to me this morning from a secular newspaper about this.  I responded to him, by sharing the following points:
* Jesus is the Son of God, and not just another man.  His birth was predicted as far back as the Garden of Eden.
* Jesus’ life, death and resurrection was predicted all over the Old Testament, in over 400 places.
* The New Testament eye-witnesses of Jesus’ death and Resurrection DIED for what they believed was true, and not one mentioned His being married, which would have been a very important fact, had it been true.
* Jesus’ mission was to come to die for sin, and not to enjoy life as a human.
* It has only been about 65 years since the Holocaust, and for over 15 years, some people have denied it ever happened.  Yet, I know a man that lost his grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts and uncles on both sides of his family - so don’t tell HIM the Holocaust is a “myth”.  If “new and improved” knowledge comes out about Jesus, a whopping 400 years after His Resurrection, it’s like those trying to change the truth about the Holocaust.  65 years.  400 years!  How about sticking with what was known to be true, in the year 33AD?  That would provide factual information.

My concern is that since “new and improved” information changes in our church, almost daily, based on “new and improved” revelations from a pious saint that lived in the 17th century, or some writings of a pope that just became known, our Christian beliefs are so watered down and have veered FROM the Deposit of Faith left to us by the apostles, it opens us up to these “new parchments” that claim this or that about our faith, even that of Jesus being married.

All that confusion led my friend, a senior citizen, to having left his Catholic faith many years ago, and now he is, sadly, Agnostic, not knowing what to believe.

I did my best to provide him with good information about Jesus, pointing out to him what happened during the Crucifixion (the earthquake, people rising from the dead, the veil in the Temple torn from top to bottom, though it was noon-time, the sky went dark), and everything that led to the Roman Centurian, a man that knew all about executions, to say, “Surely, this WAS the Son of God.”

If Jesus is Who He says He is, then it would not make sense at all for Him to have a wife. Among other things, the narratives of the 3 temptations show He was in complete control of His faculties, & therefore was not at risk to “burn” with uncontrollable desire. It would have been entirely wrong for Him to contract marriage for a number of ethical reasons, not least of which is that He would perforce leave her a widow upon His Ascension. Many more objections of this sort could be advanced. Moreover, there is no indication in the Gospels that Jesus had any intimate female companionship, notwithstanding Luther’s baseless claim.

So like so many other so-called discoveries, this is an incredibly flimsy attack on the Person of Jesus. Jimmy rightly shows where even the empirical evidence is very weak. Consequently, this article says more about the burning desire of the NYT to discredit the Gospel (& their contempt for Christians) than it does about any credible historical fact.

The timing of this announcement is also suspect, since apparently the collection has been in possession of its undisclosed owner for some time, as there is no narrative of its discovery.

Usually this kind of idiocy comes out in Lent, quite frequently timed to coincide with Ash Wednesday.  The BBC and NYT breathlessly proclaim some new “discovery” whether an ossuary looted from a tomb and then fraudulently altered so as to provide the desired “inscription”, or too many others to detail.  In every single case thus far, the forgery or falsification of an authentic antiquity has been scientifically proven.  People have gotten lengthy prison terms for perpetrating these things.

However, the BBC, NYT, atheistic blogs, etc., never cease to swallow the bait, hook line and sinker, and triumphalistically (and breathlessly!!)
proclaim that this new “find” completely disproves all of Christianity.  That Jesus Christ was not a divine person.  They even attribute total infallibility to the latest “find” or hoax.  However, when the fraud is documented, they either never publish anything whatsoever, or else give a tiny, one-sentence bit buried in the middle of Section Z.

If it’s not an outright forgery, it’s nothing other than the same old Gnostic bunk being trumpted as truth, by people who want Jesus to have had a wife, so they can feel more comfortable denying His divinity,and therefore can feel more comfortable rejecting the Church and her changeless teaching. Sigh.

So aggravating that skeptical or heterodox scholars just keep recycling this utter nonsense, and so many are deceived by it.

I think those who cling to the truth in the midst of this deluge of error and distortion will win a special jewel in their crowns in heaven, because the Lord knows how many attacks they must withstand as the truth receives day in and day out in this wretched culture!

That insipid Peter Jennings of ABC World News Tonight used to pull this stuff and Time Magazine joins in every year with their Easter Week cover story.  Anything goes when it comes to Jesus and Christianity.  They wouldn’t dare come out with something negative about Mohammad and Allah.  The Islamics would file a lawsuit against Diane Sawyer and fire bomb ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN.

We have to remember this was written 400 years after Jesus death, it’s like 400 years from now someone will get a copy of Dan Browns book and say see Jesus was really married and here is a book that proves it.

Next they’ll be claiming it was a same sex marriage.

@Robertlifelongcatholic on Wednesday:  That has already been tried.  Some have claimed Jesus had only men in his inner circle thus it is legitimate to justify same-sex marriage.  The idea is that one or more of the apostles were homosexual.  Not even Peter Jennings would go that far.  Rachel Maddow of MSLSD—very likely.

If Karen King is any indication, Ivy League theology is on par with Ivy League football.

Jesus was not a Christian, he was a Hebrew. The “Church” didn’t exist when Jesus was alive. It was started officially by Constantine in the fourth Century when Constantine made Jesus the Roman “state god.” Jesus was referred to as Rabbi many times in the bible. In Jesus’ day, you could not be a Rabbi unless you were married. So for the fact that the Bible doesn’t mention that he was married is a moot point as in the day the gospels were written, it was common knowledge that a Rabbi had to be married. To say that because the bible doesn’t specifically say that he was married would extend to saying that Jesus never went to the bathroom as it never speaks of such an action in the bible. Finally, it was Rome that paid for the Council of Nicea that picked & chose what books would become canonized for the Roman church and remember, Rome was a patriarchal society and women were mere property of men.

Thank you for your input on this issue. Atheists and other non-believers are slobbering over this, and hoping that it will drive many away from “the faith.” Nevertheless, the Gospel of Jesus Christ will endure. Just as there are forgeries today, there were forgeries in the days of the early church. Even if this was as old as they say and said what they “think” it says, it doesn’t prove anything. There were people mentioned in the book of Acts who were already beginning to try and pervert the message of Christ. Nevertheless, I think you raise some very interesting and helpful points.

Just gnostic guff…. the fictions of a group that produced a great deal of writings that have no authenticity being composed 200-300 after Christ and the gospels. Literature produced to justify gnostic beliefs.

OK, so lets say that it is authentic, 4th century from a 2nd century source and does say that Jesus was married to Mary.  What difference does that make?  The Church infallibly determined the cannon of Scripture at the end of the 4th Century and this piece of whatever it was, clearly had no credibility to the Bishops who made the infallible determination.  Therefore, it is either part of one of the so-called lost (and rejected) gospels or is part of some other document that the Church rejected or ignored.  So, NYTs, have fun with this, Hollywood make a movie and skeptics, have a party.  We will ignore what the Church rejected all those centuries ago and move on.  Just because it is old doesn’t mean it is any more than a lost heretical comment by some heretic in that time.

So, Mr. Freeman, you’re saying that all the early Christians, from Paul onward, were talking about something that didn’t exist when they talked about the Church?  Even though they are talking about as something they are part of and where they would be aware of its nonexistence?

I’m dissapointed by this response to the New York Times article. The points it makes are indeed valid; the authenticity of this document does need to be questioned and the lack of context makes it impossible to come to any conclusion. However, these points are undermined by the generally condecending tone of the piece. The reader can tell that the author feels attacked, and that undermines his credibility. I feel that this article by a Jesuit priest (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/20/opinion/mr-and-mrs-jesus-christ.html?ref=opinion) is a far more mature way of responding to this discovery.

Is this story not surprising coming from Harvard University?  This was a college originally founded exclusively ONLY to train and develop men as Ministers to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  I need not remind anyone how far, very far Harvard has strayed from their original mission.

Did Jesus have a wife? I don’t know. There is no way of proving or disproving that statement.

Does it matter one bit whether he did or didn’t? I don’t think so.

So, ok - a piece of a document mentions a wife.

Yet, somehow, I’ll be able to sleep tonight.

I hope everyone else does also.

If we run the tape forward—say about a thousand years—there will undoubtedly be an archeologist who discovers an old video tape saying that George Bush blew up the World Trade Center as a way to start a war with Iraq. Another archeologist will discover a documentary proving that the Americans never landed on the moon—something about shadows not being right. Another will find evidence that president Kennedy lived well after he was shot in Dallas tucked away in a naval hospital in Maryland. It is not surprising that someone 2000 years ago may have said Jesus was married. It would be surprising if they hadn’t.

I wonder why the true miracles like the image of Guadalupe and the Shroud of Turin (among others) are not given more press coverage in light of how fascinated the media seems to be in the life of Jesus. Thanks for the article based on facts.

I agree with you Jimmy that people will keep talking about it because it is a really interesting topic. Would Jesus even be the marrying type given his character? I explore this, with many biblical citations at my blog: http://biblefunmentionables.com/2012/09/20/jesus-wife-discovered-the-top-12-signs-that-your-messiah-may-not-be-marriage-material/ Enjoy!

Paul showed up almost 40 years after Jesus died. And if you really read Paul, he seems to know nothing about Jesus except his death and resurrection. He speaks nothing about the miracles or even the virgin birth. Just his death and resurrection. Then, the first Gospel was written almost 90 years after Jesus’ death. Plus, even though the gospels are named Matthew, Mark, Luke & John, none of them were written by them. They were all written anonymously. Remember the story of the stoning of the woman where Jesus said “Let him without sin cast the first stone”? My Bible has a footnote saying that ancient texts don’t recognize this verse. Why? Because it wasn’t part of the original Bible. It was added years later…many years later.
For those who say the “Church” was in existence back in the day of Paul, synagogues were the Hebrew church. It wasn’t till Rome took over the faith in the 4th century that they tore down the synagogues and built the Roman “Churches” in their place.
Gnostics were heretics? Only to the Roman church. To the Coptic Christians (who pre-date the Roman flavor of Christianity), the Gnostics were the keepers of the “mysteries” on Jesus’ teachings. Jesus taught the deciples how to heal people. That is how they supported themselves as they went from town to town spreading Jesus’ message. Remember the story where Jesus heald the blind man with mud and spit in his eyes? Just before the miracle, the Bible speaks of Jesus teaching the group on the road they were travelling. What was he teaching them? We will never know.
Finally, as to Jesus being married…as I stated before, no Hebrew would call Jesus Rabbi if he was NOT married. The Hebrew faith, like most faiths, see the duality of the male/female existence. Roman Catholics worked around this by raising Jesus’ mother, Mary, to the female position in their religion to satisfy those who Rome wanted to include in their “faith.” Before Jesus was the state God, the Caesar was considered “God incarnate” (that is why they had to make Jesus “God incarnate” to make the Roman citizens happy) and it was a male-only religion.  Another point, in the days of Jesus, the groom at a wedding is the one who provides the wine for the event. Remember when he turned water into wine and someone commented to him “you saved the best wine for last”? That is because Jesus was the groom at the wedding!
You all try to see Jesus in the light of the 21st century and have no clue of the Hebrew traditions of His day. Maybe if you learned about Him through history lessons and not from the apologists of the Church, you would have a clearer understanding.

Peter Freeman- Where are you getting your information?  Paul was “Saul” and he was at the stoning of Stephen, the first martyr.  I do not believe that was 40 years after Jesus’ death.  Paul was about the same age as Jesus, so do the math. 

But if YOU read Paul, you’ll see that he told the Galatians that he spent 3 years in the desert of Arabia, being tutored directly by the Holy Spirit, about everything he needed to know.  Paul met with Peter, James and John, for only about 2 weeks before continuing on his missionary journies, and the apostles and Paul were on the same page, so much so that Peter called Paul’s writings, “Scripture”, the BEST place to know the nature and character of God: who revealed Himself to us as Father, Son (Jesus) and Holy Spirit.  Please stop trying to confuse people.

The Bible is 100% consistent, and one can SEE the Hand of God, the real Author, in the Old Testament as well as in the New Testament.  It’s clear.  Jesus is the Bridegroom of the Bride, His Church.  Jesus had no human wife.  It’s silly, like the Gnostic “gospels”. The Apostles creed and the Nicene Creed - is key to the Christian faith, and it was written from the Deposit of Faith, documented in Scripture.

100% consistent? You are really drinking the Kool-Aid with that one. The four gospels don’t even recount the resurrection the same!

There are many copies of the bible that have been discovered that date back to the first five centuries and there are more differences between them than there are words in the bible. Ig God wrote the bible, he sure had a hard time keeping the words and meaning straight. Take for example the story of the camel trough the eye of the needle. The word for camel and the word for rope in the Coptic language (the language Jesus spoke) was the same only the accent for one was at the beginning of the word and the other was at the end. So the story of a rope (vs. thread) passing through the eye of a needle is very clear and does not need some back story to be made up of some arch in a city. But since the copies of the bible back then were done by hand and usually not by someone who read the language as a first tongue, the translation error was an easy one to make. How do we know the original words? Because we have scholars who know the Coptic language. A good book you should read if you really want to learn is “Misquoting Jesus” by the biblical scholar, Bart Ehrman.

WHO CARES…  JESUS WAS A BUM,, A HOBO MOOCH…  TO LAZY TO KEEP BEING A CARPENTER…  HE FOUND IT EASIER TO BE A CON MAN.

@Peter Freeman - For many years, I have been in Catholic Bible study classes, where a few non-Catholic Christians join us, and while I use a Catholic Bible (as do others) the non-Catholics use “Protestant” Bibles, King James versions, etc.  Every one of us is able to be on the same page, literally.  It is the MEANING of the teachings that’s important.  The root words are the root words - the meaning is clear, week after week.
All we have to do is to accept it.  If you look for flaws, and be nitpicky with words, “Whatever the meaning of the word ‘it’ is” - you can dispute anything.  But the people in my Bible study class look for truth, and we find it.  It’s clear.  God does not hide.  He puts what we need on the bottom shelf, so even children can reach it and understand.

Hey! You really need to stop getting your history from the magical University of Google. Constantine started the church? Why would he choose a Hebrew god, when he has plenty from the Romans and the Greeks? Please. Give me a break! Any scholar worth their salt admits that the Catholic Church has been around for 2000 years. Deal with it. Stop insulting the beliefs of others. If you don’t want anything to do with our Church then go find some other religion to suit your needs.

Just because something is old it does not mean it is true. If someone finds one of those tabloids full of celebrities gossip, they would be very much mistaken if they believe the junk written in it!

And also, there is another possibility: Jesus was a very common name, as was Mary. This piece may be authentic, but not referring to our Lord Jesus, but to someone called Jesus.

The fact that some manuscript is old does not make what is says true.
It may very well have been written with the intention to mislead those who read it.

On the other hand, we may also consider that the name Jesus was very common, as was the name Mary. Surely the names mentioned there do not refer to our Lord Jesus or His Mother Mary.

As always the media wants to make a big deal of something that is not.

I didn’t get my history from Google. I studies comparative religions when I went to college. So, tell me how the Roman Catholic Church was around worshipping a Hebrew God when Mithras was the state God till Constantine was “converted” (even though he lived the life of a Pagan till he died). Constantine was a shrewd politician. With so many leaving the state church to follow this Hebrew carpenter he did the obvious. Made the Hebrew carpenter the state God. That is factual history not the made up story of an organization that is only intended to control the masses (not Jesus’ view but Rome’s view). The Roman Catholic Church is what is left of the Holy Roman Empire.

A lot of the commentators to this post sure get worked up for something that can’t be proved or disproved and doesn’t matter in the whole scheme of things.

“So, tell me how the Roman Catholic Church was around worshipping a Hebrew God when Mithras was the state God…”

Sure, Mr Freeman; just as soon as you tell all of us why, according to St Justin the Martyr in “First Apology,” that , “The evil demons, however, have passed on its imitation in the mysteries of Mithra.”

Or, did you not read The Early Church Fathers in your comparative religion studies?

What do I think?  I think there’s going to be a History Channel or Discovery Channel documentary just before Christmas, possibly rerun just before Easter that essentially “proves” Jesus had a wife.

@JohnE:  No doubt the host may be either Oprah or Chris Matthews from MSLSD.

Yes, you are not Sparticus! Yes, we covered the Early Church Fathers. But if you go back even farther in the “Roman Church”, you would find they said the same thing every time they introduced a new “god-head” to discredit the one they were leaving behind. Mithras came about around 300 BC. There have been a long line of “state gods” over the centuries and with each, the Caesar was considered that God incarnate. It was Constantine who broke with tradition and said Jesus was God incarnate and thus broke the lineage of the rites of Caesars.

Dear Mr Freeman. In your comparative religion class did you learn that, based upon the acts of Pontius Pilate, the Roman Senate debated adding Jesus to the Parthenon?

As an aside, you give no indication you have read the Early Church Fathers.

The idea that the event where Pilate released a murderer of a Roman soldier over the requests of Hebrews to crucify Jesus is laughable to most historians. Pilate hated Hebrews and could care less what they thought.
As for the early “Fathers”, the Confessions of St Augustine was my favorite as he was the first in history to reflect inwards as to the cause of his lot in life where before, it was always seen as the act of some external entity.
BTW, do you know of the Privatio Boni (without looking it up?)?

As an observation on my part, you do not seem to know much about Rome itself or what happened before the life of Jesus to put any of this in context. I learned much about the Hebrew faith growing up on the East coast where many of my friends are Hebrew. And on that point, do you know why Hebrews did not see Jesus as the Savior?

Dear Mr Freeman. It is clear you are winging it on the fly. Far from knowing the Early Church Fathers as you claim you do, you do not even know the New Testament. Of COURSE Pilate cared what the calamitous Jews were accusing him of…

Sheesh.

Goodbye

Perhaps you might be interested in a conservative Protestant’s view on this.  Well, To paraphrase our 40th. president, Ronald Reagan, there they go again!  False doctrines have always been more popular to our fallen human nature than are the doctrines we find in Scripture.  This particular question of whether Jesus married has been a subject of special interest over the past fifty years and in recent years of even more focused interest since Dan Brown wrote his fictional novel, The Da Vinci Code.  Now we find Harvard Professor King has identified a scrap of papyrus, smaller than a business card written in Coptic in the fourth century containing the phrase, “And Jesus said to them, ‘My wife—-.’”  Just below that line there is a second clause that says, “she will be able to be my disciple.”
      To her credit King cautioned that the fragment should not be taken as proof that Jesus was actually married.  Much of the content and thus context is missing but there are snippets from the non-canonical and Gnostic (basically meaning having a superior and special knowledge revealed to a select few) Gospels of Thomas and Mary.  It further assumes that the marriage at Cana was in fact Jesus’ marriage.
      The text beyond “my wife” is cut off so even if the document is authentic these words might even be a reference to the church.  Even some of the scholars who have seen the papyrus have questioned its authenticity and “one scholar questioned its grammar, translation and interpretation.”  Interestingly behind all of this seems to be a financial and not theological motivation as the owner of the papyrus, who shared it with King, will donate it to Harvard—IF the university “buys a substantial part of his collection.”  Indeed avarice abounds!
      The phrase regarding her being able to be Jesus’ disciple is emphasized to support desperate calls for the Vatican (and I suppose many conservative protestant churches) to allow women and married men to become priests.  Curiously the article and King are silent on the words of Paul in his letters to Timothy and Titus which also preclude women.
        By the time you read this King will have presented her paper at the International Congress of Coptic Studies which met on September 25.  My take on her conclusion is that it is akin a slingshot trying to demolish Gibraltar.  The Christian faith is based squarely on history not mythology, on fact and not fiction.
      Too often we want to develop our own theology from below rather than believe that which has been revealed from above.  Yes, while we do know that most Jewish men did get married before age 30, which, according to Luke 3:23, is about how old Jesus was when He began His ministry; it is not true that all Jewish men married.  Archeologically we know from the ruins of Qumran and biblically we know of special cases like John the Baptist that there were various exceptions. We also have Jesus’ own teaching for His disciples in Matthew 19:10-12 that it is fine to be celibate for the sake of the coming Kingdom of God, especially if one cannot handle life-long fidelity in marriage.
      Most who argue that Jesus got married will point to the marriage at Cana.  But that has to be a weak argument from silence unless John 2:1-12 specifically says so.  John 2:1 tells us that there was a wedding in Cana and that not only were Jesus’ brothers and disciples there, but also His mother were there.  This is an odd statement if she was in fact the mother of the groom.  It would not be necessary to emphasize that she was present if this was a wedding in which she had an important role to play.
      Verse 2 says that His disciples had also been invited to the wedding.  Again, this is very odd language if this is a story about Jesus’ own wedding or even a wedding of any of His siblings.  Then in verse 3, when the wine runs out, Mary tells Jesus that they have no wine.  To which Jesus replies, in verse 4, “What is that to you and to me?”  Clearly neither Mary nor Jesus has any obligation in the catering affairs of this event, which they would have had were it His of a family member’s wedding.
      But the clincher for me that the story is not about Jesus’ wedding is found in verse 12.  We are told that Jesus went down from Cana to Capernaum after the wedding celebration WITH HIS MOTHER, His brothers AND His disciples.  Now whatever else Harvard Professor Karen King and other “scholars” might say about early Jewish weddings one thing is sure; when it is over the groom does not go home with his mother, his family and his friends!!!
      Thus, we are not dealing with Jesus’ wedding in John 2:1-12 or anywhere else in the New Testament, or in early Christian tradition, or in fourth century non-canonical Coptic writings.  Even the less historically accurate Gnostic gospels do not tell us that Jesus was married, much less to Mary Magdalene.  This is not because there is a theological problem with His being married but because historically it never happened. 

I believe in Catholic works, tradition and beliefs; however, I must say that sarcastic disproofing quandries only attribute to the potential violence in not only words, but actions that could displace and injure people all over the world. With the constant motion of violence related to religous beliefs and doubt of our origins, a “this and that” methodology of proving righteousness in thought can be just as misleading as the methodologies used by others to display new and thought-provoking questions about our leader.
Is it such a bad thing that this has been presented? Would it present you with a faith altering experience that would make you turn away from the church?
We Catholics have been incredibly strong, stubborn and resilient as result of our devotion to faith. Embracing what could be an awe inspiring revalation to our beliefs could only aid in our faith experience as husbands, wives and parents.
To take away from scientific methodologies by concerning ourselves with who and how this document came about would be a travesty. By not acknowledging history, or disproving false attempts- we only mock ourselves and add to rumor that blocks people from joining our church.
Change can be positive if proven to be real; allow the chance for scholars to show and acknowledge reality- whether true or false. From that point, it would be reasonable to allow Rome to observe the document so long as it is not kept from our knowledge, and given back to its rightful owners.

it is a little late so I apologize if there are mispellings!

Well, Mr “not Sparticus”, you obviously don’t know anything outside of your precious religious circle as you have never answered any of my questions. Not even one from inside your circle…about the Privatio Boni. So I can assume your knowledge is based on apologist teachings of the Church.

You probably have a hard time accepting that Jesus and his Apostles were brown men.

I did a word search on this article and the comments and came up empty when doing a search for the name Jeremiah.  The prophet Jeremiah was commanded by God to remain unmarried.  I’ve also read that the prophet Elijah was celibate, and I think that there were others as well. There is Old Testament precedent for Jesus embracing a life of celibacy.

“You probably have a hard time accepting that Jesus and his Apostles were brown men.” The race card, alas, is less trump than trumpery, a peashooter of a Parthian shot. Gammon and spinach, with a side of poppycock.

Why are you nutters so afraid of confronting the fact that if your Jesus was a man, as your religion teaches, then he had the same bodily functions as any other man. Which means that Jesus walked around the Middle East belching, farting, defecating and having erections. And if he had erections, you know what he did with that, right?

Bwahahahahahahahahahahahaahhaahahhahah!!!!

Picture that the next time you’re deep in prayer!!

Wow, if people are so upset about Jesus being married I can’t wait until they announce he had 2 sons and a daughter.

“Just because something is old it does not mean it is true.”
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Yet you believe the Bible over more current, accurate texts. Ordinarily, people live and learn—you just live (a very sheltered, small life).

Rita:

You quoted my comment: “Just because something is old it does not mean it is true.”
and said:
‘Yet you believe the Bible over more current, accurate texts’

I must tell you: I don’t believe in the Bible because it is old, I believe in what is says because it is inspired by God.

Read more: http://www.ncregister.com/blog/jimmy-akin/does-new-document-prove-that-jesus-had-a-wife#ixzz27Xoi09XV

I believe that God has inspired ALL the great writings and ALL the great music of man.

Ale-you’re even more gullible and dim-witted than I first thought.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUbjpwyesk0

The New York Times will print anything to destroy the Church.
They don’t need any proof of anything.  Documentation means nothing to them.

Satan loves the NYT.

The Bible which was inspired by the Holy Spirit is TRUTH.

The bottom line needs repeating: ” The bottom line is that the newly announced fragment is of doubtful origin, may be fake, and is so devoid of context that it’s hard to tell what the passage is even about. “

Let’s get back to the thing the NYT wants us to be distracted from - the Presidential Election and their buddy Obama.

On the internet see: ” What Catholics REALLY Believe Source ” or http://whatcatholicsreallybelieve.com .
See the answer to question # 13.  Containing links to the following:
1)  A statement by Cardinal Ratzinger (Pope Benedict) - to see if you can still receive Holy Communion based upon how you vote (what is proportionate in the USA to the murder of approx 1 million innocents each year).
2)  A Voting Guide for Serious Catholics;
3)  Where do Candidates stand on key issues (2012 Presidential);
4)  A Comparison of the 2012 Republican and Democratic Party Platforms;
5)  A link to the short video “Test of Fire”.

@ANNE [“2)  A Voting Guide for Serious Catholics;
3)  Where do Candidates stand on key issues (2012 Presidential);
4)  A Comparison of the 2012 Republican and Democratic Party Platforms”]  I support all these informative scorecard tools for Catholics to make informed and biblical choices when voting for candidates.

I also recall 10, 15 and 20 years ago when Catholic leadership railed against and laughed at Evangelicals for doing the exact same thing.  Nice to see Catholics now see such wisdom instead of just “mailing it in” for Pelosi, Biden, Durbin, Leahy, Sebellius and anyone named “Kennedy” simply because they are Catholic.

When I saw that article online I thought to myself that you would probably write an intelligent rebuttal. Thank you for not disappointing!

This is a good subjed for Maury Povich.
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-01-30/entertainment/chi-interview-maury-povich-20120130_1_maury-povich-shirley-povich-paternity

No one know about his fifth generation. Normally we calculate a period for one generation is 30 years. Jesus Christ was living in this world is 2000 years ago. Then we calculate 2000/30=66. So total 66 generation. No one know the generation of Jesus Christ. From Jesus to till date there is 66 generations have passed. The only authentic source of knowing about Jesus Christ is the ‘bible’. Then what the bible have said, it is to be meticulously followed.

Unless there is any written proof, documentation and/or record of immediate proof than you are innacurate, sir. Keep in mind that the bible is a history book written generations from passdowns after Christ had died, and history books can be proven innacurate. Further, there are hundreds of documents that were “proof” of His existence that are not in the bible because they were declined by the Council Of Nicea. Our following of religion inclines us to believe that the only proof of Jesus’ existence is the bible but that would be a falsehood and of somewhat ignorance. It doesnt hurt faith to allow for scientific backing of data compiled before there were things like carbon dating- it strengthens it.

jesus will have a bride/wife. not the church and not Jerusalem. no one have questioned god about this. if we follow god we should wait upon him. listen to what the holy spirit says.
i have seen visions of a woman standing next to jesus and i am not the only one. young people seeing visions and older people seen dreams.

jesus wife/bride is the woman of revelations 12 and 19 a real woman, born in the last days. psalm 45:6-17 make it clear jesus will marry a woman and there children will inhabit the earth. the bride of christ is a mystery says paul letters. ask god about this mystery. the church will marry our father as in being loyal to him more than adam and eve.
but jesus who is still human he will have a bride. a black bride. you dont know anything if you dont ask god.
jesus never had a chance to get married he will soon.

revelation means 1.A surprising and previously unknown fact, esp. one made in a dramatic way.2.The making known of a secret or the unknown.

god says his bride is a mystery. revelations is a mystery, an unknown fact that is surprising.

if jesus is the new adam to you than who is the new eve?psalm 45:6-17 and Isaiah 54:6.

jesus didnt have time to get married he had to die for us. he was rejected by the jews.read about joseph in the old testament. joseph was also rejected and Pharaoh gave Joseph a gentile bride. Jesus will marry a gentile bride. joseph and jesus life was the same look it up. jesus wife a real female.

Jimmy, excellent review, thanks.

In the Hebrew tradition, the Messiah was not supposed to die on the cross. Angels were supposed to come down from Heaven and take the Messiah off the cross and he would live to take the Hebrews to the promised land. Because He died, the Hebrews did not see Him as the Messiah. With Jesus being a Hebrew, he would have expected the angels. When they didn’t show up, it would explain His comment “Father, why have You forsaken Me?” And because He wouldn’t have expected to die, His intentions would NOT have been to die for our sins.

@Peter Freeman:  Please identify your source that angels were to take the Messiah off the cross?  And your “forsaken” comment is anti Scriptural in lieu of OT prophesy and NT gospel.  Jesus already had said the Son of Man would be put to death and rise on the 3rd day.  How could sin be paid for without the shedding of innocent blood?  He who knew no sin—had to become “sin.”  A propitiation (an appeasement to the Father) for us.  You need help, brother.

I am enlighten by the comment made by certain Paul A. Tambrino on the article by King on wether Jesus was actually married. Well, one must understand that this sort of speculaton have been there right through human history from donkeys years now. Many aricles,novels, comments were written, many cartoons were drawn and issues were made. Press and Mass Media even made great profits out of it. “Great movies”(so called)came on Jesus, to name few…Jesus the Superstar, The Last Temptation, The Da Vinci Code, etc. They did create some harm and damage to the weak faith, no doubt. However, the faith of majority of Christians remained unshaken on the face of this kind of turbulent behaviour. I think the faith of Christianity is based on some true and sound principle of eternal truth and they know what they believe. This is proved by the way the Christians have reacted to all these unpresedented issues unlike Muslims or the bretherens of other faith. We are known not so much by our actions but by our reactions. A strong man doesn’t have to prove his strength.Jesus has stated rightly, when He did say, ” ....false prophets will rise…” very true. That is how He said to his disciples “...remain awake..” because we may sleep but devil never sleeps…..

athew 19

10 The disciples said to him, “If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry.”

11 Jesus replied, “Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given. 12 For there are eunuchs who were born that way, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others—and there are those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.”

Why would it matter if Jesus was married? I can honestly say it wouldn’t change my beliefs. Jesus was part human after all… What is more human than having a wife? I actually quite like the idea of Jesus having a partner. Staying single for 33 years would have sucked. What I really don’t understand is the issue about ‘‘being right’‘. Who, in all honesty, cares? Only smug people who’s opinion is worth nothing to begin with. These are just my thoughts, but after all, ‘‘an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded’’ Timothy 3:2. That’s avocation for married priests. Why not Jesus too?

No Hebrew would call Jesus"Rabbi” if he weren’t married?  If you are basing your entire claim on that statement, you are on shaky logical ground.  Most arguments that include “never” or “always” are similarly flawed.

I want you to think about this question:  Has Jesus done anything in your life?  You may look at the stockpile of information you have gathered quite differently once he does.

Finally, to what ultimate end did you pursue religious studies?  What is their meaning to you?  Faith in Jesus is no religion.  While the quest for truth is noble, it must be remembered that truth is neither the “right answer” nor a personal philosophy.  Truth is a person.

Catherine Ellen, by your statement, if I were to say that a Catholic is ALWAYS a Christian and NEVER a Taoist or a Pope is ALWAYS a man and NEVER a woman, I would be on shaky ground. Two thousand years ago, Religion was more encompassing to all people because there wasn’t the logic and reason of science to offer an alternative explanation of the world. Thus, dogma was held in strict accord and when a religion stated a man had to be married to be a Rabbi in the Hebrew faith, it was followed to the “T”. Just as to today, in the Hebrew faith, a person must be buried in a specific time-frame after death.
I became very sick and almost died three weeks ago. Not only did God spare my life, He repaired my kidneys to the point I don’t need any more dialysis. So yes, miracles do happen and by all accounts, modern medicine says it is a miracle I pulled through so completely and as fast as I did.
Finally, to say that “Truth is a person” seems to fall under your “ALWAYS” argument and thus, by your own statement, must be flawed.

To All that are interested:
Truth IS a Person.  Jesus Himself said, “I am the Way, the Truth…”  Christianity is not a denomination or a religion.  “God” is a Triune Being that revealed Himself to us as Father, Son (Jesus) and Holy Spirit, over a period of 4,000+ years.

Jesus can be seen in the first few chapters of Genesis.  ‘History’ is His Story, recorded throughout the Old Testament (by the prophets) and in the New Testament, by His own life, death, resurrection and ascension.  We can expect Him again, as we know how this earth will end, shown to us in Revelation, the last book of the Bible, when His Bride, the Church, ultimately lives with Him, forever. Jesus is already victorious.  Satan is defeated.  Ephesians Chapter 6 and the Armor of the Holy Spirit equips us to live in this world, with confidence, and boldly approach God.

We have the Holy Spirit living in us.  Calvary & the shed Blood of Jesus, now and forever gives us *direct access* to the Father, in Heaven.  In the meantime, we’d all do well to just read the New Testament, most especially all the letters, IN CONTEXT, and believe what it teaches us.  It will put an end to all the futile suppositions and endless battles about nothing of eternal value.

Major in the majors: get saved, if you aren’t already.  Your eternity depends on it, when modern medicine fails.  The death statistic so far is one out of every one person will die, sooner or later.  Then it’s curtains
and too late.  If today you hear His voice, harden not your heart.