The New York Times and Huffington Post published an article
today announcing the discovery of a papyrus fragment that “contains a phrase
never seen in any piece of Scripture: “Jesus said to them, ‘My wife…”. In
addition, this ancient fragment (smaller than the size of a business card) also
contains the phrase: “she will be able to be my disciple.” The scholar
presenting this discovery, Harvard’s Hollis Professor of Divinity, Karen L.
King, “repeatedly cautioned that this fragment should not be taken as proof
that Jesus, the historical person, was actually married. The text was probably
written centuries after Jesus lived, and all other early, historically reliable
Christian literature is silent on the question, she said.”
Still, these media outlets appear to be publishing the story
to illustrate the position that early Christians were debating the issue (of
Jesus’ marital status and desire to have a female disciple) as though it was
something open for debate. The article suggests there were early competing
traditions related to the most basic characteristics of Jesus. Like Bart
Ehrman’s claim in books like Lost
Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew,
the article presents selected quotes from Professor King that might lead one to
believe that the Jesus we know today was simply one of many similarly ancient
competing versions of Jesus:
“This fragment suggests that some
early Christians had a tradition that Jesus was married,” she (King) said.
“There was, we already know, a controversy in the second century over whether
Jesus was married, caught up with a debate about whether Christians should
marry and have sex.” (from the Times article)
Of course the truth is that this particular discovery is not
remarkable at all. It was not authored by “early Christians” (if they were
Christians at all); but was instead written in the fourth century, nearly 300
years after the eyewitness authors of the Gospels finished their work. In
addition, this is reportedly a Coptic text, written in a region and tradition that
was well known for it’s late and heretical contributions to apocryphal
literature. In fact, experts examining this fragment have already identified
phrases that “resemble snippets from the Gospels of Thomas and Mary.” Even the
early Church Fathers wrote extensively about many of these late forgeries and
illegitimate narratives. I’ve examined most, if not all of these apocryphal
texts and posted what I’ve discovered on our PleaseConvinceMe.com website.
I’m fascinated that papyrus scraps of this nature are so
quickly published and celebrated, even though the scholars have yet to weigh in
on whether or not the fragment is even legitimate:
“The provenance of the papyrus
fragment is a mystery, and its owner has asked to remain anonymous. Until
Tuesday, Dr. King had shown the fragment to only a small circle of experts in
papyrology and Coptic linguistics, who concluded that it is most likely not a
forgery. But she and her collaborators say they are eager for more scholars to
weigh in and perhaps upend their conclusions.” (from the Times article)
So, with only a “small circle of experts” consulted and with
results that may be “upended”, major media outlets are still quick to publish
the papyrus fragment. Why? It seems that there is a continuing secular desire
to convince the world (especially believers) that we should abandon everything
we think we know about Jesus. We can’t trust the Gospels; they’re not the only
source of information about Jesus, and He may not be who (or what) we thought
He was.
"Beyond internal Catholic
Church politics, a married Jesus invites a reconsideration of orthodox
teachings about gender and sex," said journalist and author Michael
D'Antonio, who writes about the Catholic Church, in a blog on
The Huffington Post. "If Jesus had a wife, then there is
nothing extra Christian about male privilege, nothing spiritually dangerous
about the sexuality of women, and no reason for anyone to deny himself or
herself a sexual identity." (from the Huffington Post article)
Yes, if scraps like this are to be trusted over the New
Testament gospels, there is a lot to rethink. But there’s no reason to trust
anything other than the canonical gospels. They are the earliest and most
reliable descriptions we have of Jesus. The picture of Jesus in these gospels
was consistently repeated from apostolic teacher to student, from the original
eyewitnesses to the second generation of believers (like Ignatius and
Polycarp), to the third and fourth generation of disciples (like Irenaeus and
Hippolytus) and beyond. This picture of Jesus as the unmarried, miracle working
Son of God who died on the cross and rose from the dead was repeated for 300
years before this particular scrap of papyrus was ever penned.
But we probably won’t see a story about that in the New York
Times or Huffington Post.
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