The Story of Jesus' Wife

[charde]

A faded fragment of papyrus known as the “Gospel of Jesus’s Wife,” which caused an uproar when unveiled by a Harvard Divinity School historian in 2012, has been tested by scientists who conclude in a journal published on Thursday that the ink and papyrus are very likely ancient, and not a modern forgery.

Skepticism about the tiny scrap of papyrus has been fierce because it contained a phrase never before seen in any piece of Scripture: “Jesus said to them, ‘My wife...’ ” Too convenient for some, it also contained the words “she will be able to be my disciple,” a clause that inflamed the debate in some churches over whether women should be allowed to be priests.

The papyrus fragment has now been analyzed by professors of electrical engineering, chemistry and biology at Columbia University, Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who reported that it resembles other ancient papyri from the fourth to the eighth centuries. (Scientists at the University of Arizona, who dated the fragment to centuries before the birth of Jesus, concluded that their results were unreliable.)

The test results do not prove that Jesus had a wife or disciples who were women, only that the fragment is more likely a snippet from an ancient manuscript than a fake, the scholars agree...

...A forger could easily create carbon black ink by mixing candle soot and oil, he said: “An undergraduate student with one semester of Coptic can make a reed pen and start drawing lines.”

But the scientists say that modern carbon black ink looks very different under their instruments. And Dr. King said that her “big disappointment” is that so far, the story of the fragment has focused on forgery, not on history.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/10/science/scrap-of-papyrus-referring-to-jesus-wife-is-likely-to-be-ancient-scientists-say.html

Thought the results were interesting, but I'm not surprised at how much of the evangelical world will likely respond...

[AllPurposeAtheist]

Wait till the rest of the fragment finds his wife was named Ernie and had a long beard!

[stromboli]

Rabbinical Jews were/are married men. Jesus is often referred to as a Rabbi. Makes sense.

" in Jewish law, the European gloss of R. Isserles on the Shulchan Arukh OH 581:1 states that only one who is married may lead the congregation in worship - note that this is the Hazzan/Shaliah Tzibbur and not the Rabbi whose function may only have been to teach."

So he may not have needed to be married, but other things I've read indicated that few Rabbis were single.

[charde]

It wouldn't surprise me at all, I agree about rabbi's generally being married.

More that it's just the "traditional cultural view" (of Jesus as single, let alone some white guy with blue eyes) being challenged and making people antsy.

[stromboli]

All the evidence not withstanding, he is still pictured as a Nordic blond white guy. Go figure.

[Walker_Lee]

Jesus did not have a wife of any kind. He was not a rabbi of any kind being the fact he was God and everything. He actually talked against the traditional religion. You can see that especially in the sermon on the mountain.

[PopeyesPappy]

That’s your dumbass interpretation. Which is unsurprising based on your previous posts on this forum.

[stromboli]

Jesus as Rabbi

From the Biblical record, we have note of 7 different groups/types of people who refer to Jesus as “Rabbi” or “Teacher” (the rough translation): His disciples (Mark 9:5, Mark 11:21 etc.); Pharisees (John 3:1-2); John the Baptist’s disciples (John 1:35-38); Common people (Mark 10:51, John 6:24-25); Torah teachers (Matthew 8:19); Herodians (Luke 3:12); and the Sadducees (Matthew 22:23-32). Additionally, he refers to himself by this title (John 13:12-14, Luke 22:10-11).

Rabbi meant either teacher or sage, and most people assume the meaning is the latter.

but a direct translation means a Jewish scholar or teacher, esp. one who studies or teaches Jewish law.

Despite whatever you believe, to the Jews a married Rabbi would be the norm, not an unmarried one. From a historical standpoint it is just as possible he was married as not.

The Christian version of whoever Jesus (Joshua) was is heavily edited in any case, and filtered through different corrections, according to who was writing the correction.

[aileron]

Jesus did not have a wife of any kind.

Thanks for clearing that up because, you know, bald assertions prove so much.

[stromboli]

So this 30 something dude hangs out with 12 apostles and travels around, his only female companions are his mom and a hooker. And he has a thing for washing people's feet. Sounds like a gay foot fetishist convention.

[Minimalist]

I always like to find out what the jews have to say about things jewish...rather than rely on these xtian shitwits to twist things to their own purpose.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/Rabbis.html

The term rabbi was first used in reference to the rabbis of the Sanhedrin during the first century C.E. Throughout the medieval period the term referred to the common man, while the term harav implied scholarship.

Ah...so some loser from Galilee would not have been any sort of rabbi.  What a surprise!

[ApostateLois]

His followers may have called him "rabbi" or "guru" or whatever. I doubt that he was an actual rabbi any more than a Catholic priest is anyone's "father," even though he is addressed as such.

Whether Jesus really existed or not, I can't say (it seems unlikely), but there are traditions of him having not only a wife, but a twin brother. Now, we know that gods impregnating human women, and sometimes marrying them, are as common as mud in myths around the world, and in fact, that is how the Bible describes Jesus' conception. Demi-gods, too, sometimes married mortal women as is the case of Hercules (son of the god Zeus and the mortal woman Alcmene) who married Megara and later, Omphale. It wouldn't have been hard to incorporate any of the older myths into the story of Jesus, so that he had a wife and children. Twins, too, abound in mythology (Romulus and Remus, Artemis and Apollo, Castor and Pollux, etc.), so it is easy to see where the myth of Jesus having a twin would have come from. As with nearly every other aspect of the Jesus story, these ideas were borrowed from other cultures and religions.