BaedonWebz Newz: What if Jesus had a wife?

Friday, September 21, 2012

What if Jesus had a wife?

Appearance of Jesus to Mary Magdalene after resurrection, Alexander Ivanov, 1835 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Thu Sep 20 2012 22:14:31 GMT-0500 (Central Daylight Time)

(A) 3-inch-long piece of papyrus translated by a Harvard scholar as “Jesus” talking about “my wife” doesn’t prove he was married, but it raises the question, “What if?”

This provocative scrap, if established as authentic, runs counter to traditional Christianity. Yet local theologians say it’s unlikely it would be a game-changer for women in the Church — not even in Catholicism.

….

The discovery of the papyrus, made public by Harvard Divinity School historian Karen L. King on Tuesday at the International Congress of Coptic Studies in Rome, does reignite for some a centuries-old debate about Jesus’ marital status and wife, perhaps Mary Magdalene — a “Mary” is mentioned among the fragment’s few lines, written in Coptic.

The fragment, apparently from the 4th century, contains another partial line: “She will be able to be my disciple.”

http://www.canoncitydailyrecord.com/ci_21590504/denver-theologians-weigh-meaning-gospel-jesus-wife

Actually, if Jesus was married, it wouldn’t change much of the current state of Christianity. It might lend a little more to women being treated a little more fairly in some Churches, but in the long run wouldn’t change the fundamentals.

The nature of Jesus as a man has always been a topic of debate. The Gnostics believed he started off as a man, but when the Holy Spirit descended upon him at his baptism, he became something other than human. This idea didn’t make it into modern Christianity.

Some have pointed out that a wife was never mentioned when reference was made to the relatives of Jesus. Could this oversight be because she was one of his disciples? We only know about the chosen twelve men that were his closest students. We know hardly anything about the 70 mentioned in Luke 10:1-20. What we do know about the life of Jesus is found in the four accepted gospels. Each of these works was written 40 years or more after the Crucifixion. There is much that is unknown about the person, that was Jesus. All we have are what his followers deemed to be noteworthy and further their movement.