CAMBRIDGE — A Harvard professor has identified what appears to be a scrap of fourth-century Egyptian papyrus containing the first-known explicit reference to Jesus as married, a discovery that could stoke millennia-old debates about marriage and sexuality in the Christian church.
The fragment, which has been preliminarily authenticated but must undergo further testing, also portrays Jesus as referring to a woman as his disciple.
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Those interested in gaining some perspective would do well to look at the books of Elaine Pagels, particulary her fascinating work "The Gnostic Gospels" which covers the wide range of early Christian teachings that were mostly expunged in the 4th century (remember that Nicene Creed you learned to recite?) in order to enforce a centralized orthodoxy. What I find most interesting are the writings that encouraged individulas to seek their own path to salvation, all very eastern philosophy sounding, and all threats to the church hierarchy, so it's little wonder they wound up on the cutting room floor.
There's no great mystery to Christian celibacy. It was all about property. In aroung the year 800 the Catholic Church went celibate to prevent incoming priests from passing down their land and property to their sons, the common practice. No wifes, no sons, all property goes to the church. Nice scam.
I wonder if she was a princess!
Fascinating and beautifully reported bu Lisa Wangsness.
And, Mr. Bill Green once again comes through with a stunning photograph. Man's a genius with a camera.
The Globe is extremely fortunate to have both of these fine journalists on its staff.
I doubt that this scrap of paper will do much to move the Vatican, but perhaps it will reenergize research into these earliest documents for more evidence on the role of women in the early Christian church.
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Here we go... The Boston Glob seeking a way to imitate a 1966 Time magazine cover: "Is God Dead"? You gotta wonder why the early 2012 news media tries to set itself up as the mediator class in an issue that has rocked the Western world for centuries. A married Jesus is only one teensey step on a road to the Glob's wish to be a world decider.
So, once again I have to ask - did you bother to read the article? This is not the Globe's findings. Also, if the Globe is so awful, why do you spend your days posting in their comments section?
a 'world decider' ? what does that even mean ?
and meanwhile, the Archdiocesan spokesMAN concedes that scholarly research as begun? what does THAT mean?? for a Church which has kept its collective, male foot on the throat of women for millenia, it means delay, dissemble and sit tight. from priest to monsignor to bishop to cardinal to pope, this crowd is morally bankrupt, fiscally corrupt and sexual crime enablers. no doubt on THAT point, Mr. spokesMAN. where have all the nuns gone?
What difference would it make to anything or anyone if Jesus was married?? He came down to earth to live, to suffer, and to die for our sins, as a HUMAN! Guess what? Humans get married. I'm sure he also cried, laughed, ate, went to the bathroom, and slept! Why would any piece of a human life change ANYTHING about His teachings that so many people only "mouth" and blaspheme anyway??
I don't see where the papyrus or the ink was carbon-14 tested. Please don't let Annie Dookhan run those tests!
Some evidence points to the possibility that Jesus was not only black but also gay. But who cares? His message was a good one. The message has been 100 times modified, twisted and formed to support the power structures of men of the "church" but the original message was a pretty good one.
If he was married, so what? Even if he is God incarnate, which, in itself, is a blatant and stunning impossibility, he had the right to get married. Why should we be shocked? Now as for whether Jesus is God incarnate, the question is answered by another question. Can you pour the ocean into a golf hole? And read the New Testament closely and you will find that Jesus never unequivocally said he was God. He said "You say that I am." That is not an answer to the question posed to him by I forget who. Then read on. He mostly described himself as thr "Son of man". Moving further on: You cannot rely on the authenticity of the text since there were so many scribes copying from the copies of others and I add many years later. And if Jesus did rise from the dead, his physical body I mean, as the Church firmly teaches, there is no logical reason why he would return only at the end of time, as claimed in the New unreliable Testament. If he still lives physically, as the Church teaches, then he should return to us and attempt to clear up a bunch of questions. The Church, God bless her, means well but her teachings are mostly holy baloney, pious but well intentioned fraud. So Jesus, if you are in the bread wafers in the local Catholic churches, why not just appear to us since, after all, your physical body still exists according to Church teachings. Of course that won't, since you are not inside the bread or the wine and your physical body did not rise, only your spiritual one, as the rest of humanity. But the holy baloney will continue on for another two thousand years.
no doubt other texts were burned when the Church became an imperial ideology. there is a good reason why the Inquisition, which has its own Pope now, has been so resilient. so many crimes; so many lies.
one would be tempted to find survival of this scrap as miraculous if one did not understand the patriarchal violence unleashed during the last couple of millenia. and those are sins that the Church and its minions can not be forgiven. ever wonder why the Church is so loud in its "defense" of fetuses?? a guilty conscience and displaced morality. now, let's hear from the Catholic League and that smarmy Bill Donohue about how any evidence of early Church gender equality is bogus, forged or misunderstood. sure.