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A UMNS Feature
By Heather Hahn*
7:00 A.M. ET Sept. 25, 2012
Papyrus fragment
A web-only photo courtesy of the Harvard Divinity School/Karen L. King.
If Jesus had been married, don’t you think Paul or the biblical Gospel writers would have mentioned it?
That’s the question many Christians have raised after the announcement by Harvard Divinity School professor Karen L. King of a fourth-century papyrus fragment in the Egyptian language Coptic that includes the phrase: “Jesus said to them, my wife.”
Some scholars already have raised concerns that the fragment — which is of unknown provenance — could be a forgery meant to look like something 1,700 years old.
But even if it is authentic, King and United Methodist scholars of
early Christianity are quick to emphasize that the discovery offers no
evidence about the historical Jesus. It does not prove Jesus was
married.
For one thing, there’s a greater distance between any fourth-century
document from Jesus’ day than between a document from ours and George
Washington’s. King speculates that the fragment she labels the “Gospel
of Jesus’ Wife” might be a translation of an earlier Greek text from
the second half of the second century, but even that possibility puts
it significantly later than Paul’s letters and the biblical Gospels.
“Rather, the importance of the ‘Gospel of Jesus’s Wife’ lies in
supplying a new voice within the diverse chorus of early Christian
traditions about Jesus that documents that some Christians depicted
Jesus as married,” says a draft of King’s research paper to be published in the January 2013 issue of the Harvard Theological Review.
Still, this small piece of papyrus, no bigger than a cell phone,
already has reignited an old debate about Jesus’ marital status — one
that long predates “The Da Vinci Code’s” climb on the U.S. best-seller
lists.
Many religion scholars, including United Methodists and those at
United Methodist-related universities and seminaries, see the find as a
teaching opportunity.
“I think we should take it very seriously as an example of debates
going on in early Christianity,” said Mark A. Chancey, a United
Methodist lay person and professor of religious studies at Southern
Methodist University in Dallas. He recently co-authored a book on the
archaeology of early Judaism and Christianity, “Alexander to Constantine: Archaeology of the Land of the Bible.”
“It gives us perspective on the debates we’re having in our own day
about who is suited in leadership roles in the church and who is
regarded as worthy of having special insight. The particulars are
different, but in their own way, these are still very live issues in
our own church,” he continued. “What we are seeing increasingly is that
early Christianity was more diverse and less static than we often
imagine.”
Scripture and the historical Jesus
Christ appears to Mary Magdalene in this 1834 oil painting by Ivanov
Alexander Andreevich located in The Russian Museum in St. Petersburg. A
web-only public domain image.
The New Testament makes no mention of whether Jesus was married.
Likewise, even previously discovered Gnostic gospels and other
extra-canonical texts leave his marital status open to question.
As Chancey put it, the fragment is the first found that makes “specific mention of a Mrs. Jesus.”
A number of scholars of the New Testament and early Christianity, including Chancey, find that silence telling.
“I think it is possible but unlikely that Jesus was married,” said
Mark Goodacre, associate professor of religion at Duke University in
Durham, N.C. Goodacre has posted multiple entries on the find at his New Testament blog.
“We do hear about wives of key figures in the New Testament,
including Peter and Jesus' brothers, but we never hear about Jesus’
wife. Moreover, there were several Christian apostle couples who
travelled together, like Andronicus and Junia, and Prisca and Aquila.
So it is not like the early Christian texts are silent about husbands
and wives overall.”
Ben Witherington III,
New Testament professor at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore,
Ky., notes that Jesus as itinerant preacher likely did not have time
for conventional family life.
“He was more than a little busy bringing in God’s Kingdom, healing
the sick, etc.,” said Witherington, who is an ordained United Methodist
elder and has a Ph.D. “Even when he goes home, say in Mark 6, there is
no evidence he has his own house or family there. It’s only his
brothers, sisters and mother who are referred to as his family.”
Ann Graham Brock, affiliate professor of New Testament at Iliff
School of Theology in Denver, is not so sure. Brock studied under King
and knows Coptic. She also is the author of “Mary Magdalene, The First Apostle: The Struggle for Authority.”
“You would think that if Jesus had been married that the gospels
would have been mentioned it, but on the other hand, you cannot always
make an argument from silence,” she said. “Just because it is not
mentioned doesn’t mean he couldn’t have been.”
The original marriage debate
Most scholars estimate that the earliest New Testament book was
Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians around A.D. 50. The Gospel of
John, the last of the four biblical gospels to be written, was probably
composed around A.D. 90–100 (more than a half century after Jesus’
ministry).
But, thanks to the preservation of the desert, scholars continue to
find more accounts of Jesus’ life that may originate in the latter part
of the second century. These often reflect the philosophies and
interests of various early Christian movements, such as Gnosticism,
whose adherents claimed a special knowledge of Jesus or gnosis in Greek. King’s papyrus fragment may been part of one of these traditions.
Based on its similarities to other second-century gospels, King
speculates the fragment may allude not to the historical Jesus as much
as second-century disputes.
Long before Christians started debating same-sex marriage, early
church leaders were debating whether marriage itself was a good idea.
Paul addressed this concern in Corinthians 7:28, noting “If you marry,
you do not sin.”
By the middle of the second century, extreme renunciation started
growing more popular, and some Christians saw a life of celibacy as a
higher spiritual calling. Gnostics themselves were often among the
champions of asceticism.
Clement of Alexandria reported that some of his Christian
contemporaries “say outright that marriage is fornication and teach
that it was introduced by the devil.” These Christians, Clement wrote,
cited Jesus “who neither married or had any possession in this world”
as a role model.
Clement took a more moderate view, approving of sexual intercourse
in marriage but only for the purpose of procreation and only without
passion.
King and others hypothesize that the reference to Jesus’s wife may
have been meant as a counterbalance to the trend toward monasticism.
“The papyrus is fragmentary, but here you have Jesus seemingly
referring to his own wife and making a strong stand for the
acceptability of marriage and the idea that you don’t necessarily have
to be celibate,” Chancey said. “You also have a reference to a woman as a
disciple, which is a title of great respect.”
Joel B. Green, an ordained United Methodist elder and associate dean
of the Center for Advanced Theological Studies at the evangelical
Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif., raises another
possible interpretation of the fragment.
“Jesus’ reference to ‘my wife’ could be a metaphorical reference to
the church. This would be a departure from texts that refer to the
church as the bride (not the wife) of Christ, but this possibility
ought to be considered,” said Green, who was New Testament editor of
the Common English Bible.
“This highlights the problem we have with interpreting this
fragment,” he said. “It provides us with no complete sentences, no
paragraphs, no context at all. This means that anything we say about
its meaning and significance is largely guesswork — educated guesswork,
maybe, but guesswork nonetheless.”
Would it matter if Jesus were married?
However, Green and other United Methodist scholars agree that if it
ever were proved that Jesus had been married, it would not make much
difference to United Methodist conception of Jesus as divine and human.
“We believe that Jesus shared completely in our humanity, and this
belief wouldn’t be changed at all were we to have proof that he was
married,” Green said.
Jim L. Papandrea, a Catholic layperson and assistant professor of
church history at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston,
Ill., said such a revelation might have some impact on Catholic
theology.
“I think it would make a difference, in the sense that so much of
the monastic life is based on the assumption that people who are called
to voluntary celibacy are following in Jesus’ footsteps,” said
Papandrea, author of “Reading the Early Church Fathers,” from Paulist Press.
“If it could be proven that Jesus was married, that would call into
question a part of the basis for religious orders, and perhaps for a
celibate priesthood. However, I would be quick to add that the
assumption that Jesus was unmarried is not the only justification for
these things, so it’s not as though the rug would be pulled out from
under them, so to speak. But it would raise some discussion.”
The Rev. Ryan Rush, pastor of First United Methodist Church in
rural Carlisle, Ark., admits he is a bit disappointed that the
fragment’s discovery offers no such proof. If true, it might offer a
chance to reflect more about the human side of Jesus and how Christians
regard marriage, he said.
“The very fact that Jesus shares in our humanity 100 percent except without sin is pretty revolutionary.”
*Hahn is a multimedia reporter for United Methodist News Service.
News media contact: Heather Hahn, Nashville, Tenn. (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org.
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