Here’s a round up of thoughts on the scrap of pyprus that refered to Jesus’ wife:
Stephen Prothero, Boston University religion scholar and author, CNN Belief Blog:
What we do know is that we live in a country besotted with Jesus and in an age obsessed with marriage and sexuality and the body, which is why this tiny papyrus is making such big waves. As for me, I don’t much care what Jesus thought about marriage, or whether he engaged in it. I think we as a society tend to collapse religion far too readily into bedroom questions, as if Jesus came into the world to tell us with whom we should be having sex, and how. I’m more interested in what Jesus has to say about wealth and poverty, the rich and the poor. And there is plenty in the available record to read and heed, “if only we have ears to hear.”
Steven R. Harmon, professor Gardner-Webb University School of Divinity and author, Associate Baptist Press News Blog:
The celibacy of Jesus is not essential to Christology, just as Jesus’ maleness is not essential to Christology… The particularities of Jesus’ historical existence are representative of the totality of human experience, from birth through death and resurrection, even if they do not reflect the particularities of every human being’s experiences… Theologically, for Jesus to have been married would not require us to re-think historic Christological doctrine. But historically, there is not sufficient evidence to suppose that he was–even if the best interpretation of this fragment is that Jesus therein is referring to a woman named Mary as his “wife” in the usual sense of that word.
Stephen Colbert, The Daily Show, via LA Times:
“You’re a fit dude, you wear sandals. You spend most of your time hanging out with 12 other guys. People were starting to talk,” he joked. “As happy as I am for my bro-siah, this news has got me a little bummed out. I settled down, but he was still a party animal, always turning water into wine, hanging out with prostitutes. But now he has a wife.” Colbert worried about what would happen the next time he confessed his sins to Jesus. “You know he’s going to tell her. You can’t have secrets in a marriage.” He also warned that Jesus would have to change his distinctive look: “He can forget that beard and the robe. From now on it is clean-shaven and a polo shirt.”
Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest and contributing editor to the Catholic magazine America, NYTimes:
It wouldn’t upset me if it turned out that Jesus was married. His life, death and, most important, resurrection would still be valid. Nor would I abandon my life of chastity, which is the way I’ve found to love many people freely and deeply. If I make it to heaven and Jesus introduces me to his wife, I’ll be happy for him (and her). But then I’ll track down Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, who wrote so soon after the time of Jesus, and ask them why they left out something so important.
Melinda Henneberger, political writer, Washington Post blog.
But Judy Howard Ellis, author of a fantasy novel based on the Book of Genesis, from the start dismissed the story as “faith mixed with TMZ,’’ involving a potentially impressive artifact, but “just not a deal-breaker for Christian belief. One fragment? Nah. I wish scholars would spend more time studying the wild things Jesus and the Bible say outright instead of what the gnostic writings purport.’’
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