Faded Piece of Papyrus Refers to Jesus' Wife...

Imnukingfutz

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Apr 9, 2012
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Kingdom of Nigh
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/19/us/historian-says-piece-of-papyrus-refers-to-jesus-wife.html?_r=1


A historian of early Christianity at Harvard Divinity School has identified a scrap of papyrus that she says was written in Coptic in the fourth century and contains a phrase never seen in any piece of Scripture: “Jesus said to them, ‘My wife ...’ ”

The faded papyrus fragment is smaller than a business card, with eight lines on one side, in black ink legible under a magnifying glass. Just below the line about Jesus having a wife, the papyrus includes a second provocative clause that purportedly says, “she will be able to be my disciple.”

The finding was made public in Rome on Tuesday at the International Congress of Coptic Studies by Karen L. King, a historian who has published several books about new Gospel discoveries and is the first woman to hold the nation’s oldest endowed chair, the Hollis professor of divinity.

Now, does it matter to Christians if Jesus was married? Will it hurt, help or not matter at all to the Christian faith?

To me it does not matter. He was a man after all. He may have even had children...it still doesnt change his teachings.
 
Don't believe it myself. It was on purpose he didn't have a wife because I believe he knew he would be raised to the 2nd heaven. This is an Islamic POV so I believe he will be married when he comes back as the messiah
 
Don't believe it myself. It was on purpose he didn't have a wife because I believe he knew he would be raised to the 2nd heaven. This is an Islamic POV so I believe he will be married when he comes back as the messiah

Its hard to speak about the Islamic POV, I dont know enough about the faith to even make an educated guess about a lot of the belief structure.

Personally, being raised a Catholic, it doesnt matter to me one way or the other. Whether or not he was married has no bearing on his teachings.

I guess it would effect the dogma and structure of the Christian tenants of some of the different sects of the faith.

To me it is all about searching for the truth.
 
Don't believe it myself. It was on purpose he didn't have a wife because I believe he knew he would be raised to the 2nd heaven. This is an Islamic POV so I believe he will be married when he comes back as the messiah

Its hard to speak about the Islamic POV, I dont know enough about the faith to even make an educated guess about a lot of the belief structure.

Personally, being raised a Catholic, it doesnt matter to me one way or the other. Whether or not he was married has no bearing on his teachings.

I guess it would effect the dogma and structure of the Christian tenants of some of the different sects of the faith.

To me it is all about searching for the truth.

To Christians it shouldn't make sense either because don't you believe he will get married when he comes back? I don't think he had children though. But these finds are interesting if they find more it would be nice to see about all Prophets
 
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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/19/us/historian-says-piece-of-papyrus-refers-to-jesus-wife.html?_r=1


A historian of early Christianity at Harvard Divinity School has identified a scrap of papyrus that she says was written in Coptic in the fourth century and contains a phrase never seen in any piece of Scripture: “Jesus said to them, ‘My wife ...’ ”

The faded papyrus fragment is smaller than a business card, with eight lines on one side, in black ink legible under a magnifying glass. Just below the line about Jesus having a wife, the papyrus includes a second provocative clause that purportedly says, “she will be able to be my disciple.”

The finding was made public in Rome on Tuesday at the International Congress of Coptic Studies by Karen L. King, a historian who has published several books about new Gospel discoveries and is the first woman to hold the nation’s oldest endowed chair, the Hollis professor of divinity.

Now, does it matter to Christians if Jesus was married? Will it hurt, help or not matter at all to the Christian faith?

To me it does not matter. He was a man after all. He may have even had children...it still doesnt change his teachings.

I hope Jesus had a wife that he loved and considered his best friend. :)
 
...
A historian of early Christianity at Harvard Divinity School has identified a scrap of papyrus that she says was written in Coptic in the fourth century and contains a phrase never seen in any piece of Scripture: “Jesus said to them, ‘My wife ...’ ”
...

the nicene creed was used as a filter to accept/reject the various xtian holy texts (there were lots of them extant back then) around 325AD. at that time xnity was going thru various heretical crises and some definitive statement was needed as to what xtians believe, so the council of nicea was called, met & decided. they wrote the creed and then used it as a filter to determine what of all the various texts floating around back then was to "officially" appear in the xtian new testament. then about 1200 years later the caths had their council of trent in response to the prots reformation attempts etc etc etc etc etc

of course today 1700 years later some of these rejected scripts appear every now & then, but i don't think too many xtians care because they already know the current cath/prot bibles are "approved" and all the other stuff rejected


http://www.kencollins.com/explanations/why-07.htm
http://www.kencollins.com/bible/bible-c1.htm

The Nicene Creed is the definitive statement of Christian orthodoxy.

Origins of the Nicene Creed
The Nicene Creed was formulated at the First Ecumenical Council at Nicea in AD 325 to combat Arianism, and it was expanded at the Second Ecumenical Council at Constantinople in AD 381 to balance its coverage of the Trinity by including the Holy Spirit. It is the only creed that was promulgated by any of the seven ecumenical councils and thus it is the only creed that is truly ecumenical and universal. In the Orthodox Church, it is the only creed.

The New Testament and the Nicene Creed are deeply entangled with each other. The wording and the concepts in the Nicene Creed come from the New Testament—in fact, one of the most important debates at the Council of Nicea concerned whether it is proper to include a word in the Nicene Creed that does not occur in the New Testament. On the other hand, at the time that the Church issued the official canon of the New Testament, it customarily compared writings to the Nicene Creed to determine if they were orthodox. So you are correct if you say that the Nicene Creed proceeds from the New Testament, and you are correct if you say that the New Testament is certified by the Nicene Creed.

To put it more precisely, the Nicene Creed and the canon of the New Testament were formed together as part of the same process....

edit - get the dates/numbers right
 
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Granny don't believe it, she says Jesus was pro'bly talkin' about the church bein' his bride like it says inna Bible...
:cool:
Doubts over Harvard claim of 'Jesus' Wife' papyrus
Sep 19,`12 -- Is a scrap of papyrus suggesting that Jesus had a wife authentic?
Scholars on Wednesday questioned the much-publicized discovery by a Harvard scholar that a 4th century fragment of papyrus provided the first evidence that some early Christians believed Jesus was married. And experts in the illicit antiquities trade also wondered about the motive of the fragment's anonymous owner, noting that the document's value has likely increased amid the publicity of the still-unproven find. Karen King, a professor of early Christianity at Harvard Divinity School, announced the finding Tuesday at an international congress on Coptic studies in Rome. The text, written in Coptic and probably translated from a 2nd century Greek text, contains a dialogue in which Jesus refers to "my wife," whom he identifies as Mary.

King's paper, and the front-page attention it received in some U.S. newspapers that got advance word about it, was a hot topic of conversation Wednesday at the conference. Christian tradition has long held that Jesus was unmarried, although there is no reliable historical evidence to support that, King said. Any evidence pointing to whether Jesus was married or had a female disciple could have ripple effects in current debates over the role of women in the church.

Stephen Emmel, a professor of Coptology at the University of Muenster who was on the international advisory panel that reviewed the 2006 discovery of the Gospel of Judas, said the text accurately quotes Jesus as saying "my wife." But he questioned whether the document was authentic. "There's something about this fragment in its appearance and also in the grammar of the Coptic that strikes me as being not completely convincing somehow," he said in an interview on the sidelines of the conference.

Another participant at the congress, Alin Suciu, a papyrologist at the University of Hamburg, was more blunt. "I would say it's a forgery. The script doesn't look authentic" when compared to other samples of Coptic papyrus script dated to the 4th century, he said. King acknowledged Wednesday that questions remain about the fragment, and she welcomed the feedback from her colleagues. She said she planned to subject the document to ink tests to determine if the chemical components match those used in antiquity. "We still have some work to do, testing the ink and so on and so forth, but what is exciting about this fragment is that it's the first case we have of Christians claiming that Jesus had a wife," she said. She stressed that the text, assuming it's authentic, doesn't provide any historical evidence that Jesus was actually married, only that some two centuries after he died, some early Christians believed he had a wife.

MORE
 
It doesn't make any difference if he was married or not. Probably one of the books Constantine tossed. Won't effect the faith. I could have been a reference to the Bride of Christ for all we know. Without the rest of the text we have no Idea what it's about.
 
The council of Nicea in 324 AD was kind of a necessity.

Constantine saw the Christian uprising as a threat to Rome and its way of life. He "allowed" Christianity to exist to keep the peace as long as they believed in what his council had put together, the proper Christian belief system...a new power structure of sorts, the Church.

The Bible doesnt mention if Christ was or wasnt married. Many believe that the omission to the fact means he wasnt married, as the Catholic church has mandated a life of celibacy by its priests around 1400 or 1700 AD. (I forget the date).

While many others believe that Mary Magdaline was his wife and according to the Gospel of Mary, she was the next leader of the church.

I think until we find more texts regarding this issue, it will only be speculation and guessing games.
 

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