Mr. and Mrs. Jesus Christ?
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At an academic conference in Rome on Tuesday, Karen L. King, a church historian at Harvard Divinity School, presented a finding that, according to some reports, threatened to overturn what we know about Jesus, as well as the tradition of priestly celibacy. She identified a small fragment of fourth-century papyrus that includes the words, “Jesus said to them, ‘My wife…’ ” Another clause appears to say, “she will be able to be my disciple.” Some experts have concluded that the manuscript, written in Coptic, is authentic.
But does this mean that Jesus was married? Probably not. And will this fascinating new discovery make this Jesuit priest want to rush out and get married? No.
It is more likely that Jesus was celibate. Remember that Dr. King’s papyrus dates from the fourth century — roughly 350 years after Jesus’s life and death. The four familiar Gospels, on the other hand, were written much closer to the time of Jesus, only a few decades away from the events in question. They have a greater claim to accuracy — even if the new manuscript is, as has been surmised, a copy of an earlier, second-century text. The Gospel of Mark, for example, was written around A.D. 70, only about 40 years after the crucifixion.
And what do the Gospels say? For one thing, the Gospel of Mark describes Jesus, who had settled in the town of Capernaum, on the Sea of Galilee, as receiving a surprise visit from his family, who had come from his hometown, Nazareth. “A crowd was sitting around him; and they said to him, ‘Your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside, asking for you.’ ” Why no mention of a wife?
The Gospel of Matthew, written only 15 or 20 years after Mark, recounts how the people of Nazareth were shocked by Jesus’ preaching. “Is not this the carpenter’s son?” they asked about their former neighbor. “Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And are not all his sisters with us?” At this time, Jesus is presumably around 30 years old. Again, in this long catalog of his relatives, why no mention of a wife?
And why, with so many women present at the crucifixion (various Gospels include Jesus’ mother, Mary Magdalene, another woman named Mary, Salome and “the women who followed him from Galilee”), is Jesus’ wife omitted?
The silence in the Gospels about a wife (and children) in this context most likely indicates that Jesus did not have a wife and children during his public ministry, or in his past life in Nazareth.
What about the most popular candidate for the role: Mary Magdalene? Could she have been Jesus’ wife, as supposed by Dan Brown’s novel “The Da Vinci Code”? (By the way, I’m not equating Dr. King’s careful scholarship with the novels of Mr. Brown, though the conclusions some might draw are similar.) Mr. Brown’s hypothesis fails by another criterion: Mary would have been referred to, like every other married woman in the Gospels, by her husband’s name. She would have been identified not as “Mary Magdalene” but almost certainly as “Mary, the wife of Jesus.” [More]
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12 Comments
Jim,
Why is marriage offensive to you?
Francis — It’s an attempt to tear down all of the Church’s teachings — if Jesus was married, then maybe He didn’t raise Himself from the dead either, maybe He wasn’t God, maybe He was just a good man, maybe He was simply a foolish man!
What about if Jesus were married it would show the sublime importance of the holy state of matrimony.
Why would a fourth (probably fifth ) century Coptic scrap of papayrus trump the highly literate knowledge of the first and second century Apostles and Church Fathers?
Who knows the mind of God, Maybe that whole virgin birth thing was to show the extra ordinary person Jesus was. There have been other myths of Virgin births to announce an important Birth. So, God may have have had Jesus born of a virgin to stress his importance. I would love to know that Jesus was married.
What’s offensive? That Jesus was a man like us, and may have been himself in the sacrament of marriage? This offends you? Didn’t Paul tell us that Jesus is like us in ALL thins. You do know that at time Jesus had to pass gas and urinate and deficate don’t you?
Yes, but the fact that the Church teaches that the Blessed Mother was “ever-virgin” is an important consideration. Why would God have chosen His mother to be impregnated by the Holy Spirit and to be ever-virgin if it wasn’t important?
Our ancestors once assumed that the earth was flat, and that the sun revolved around the earth. The Catholic church tried to enforce this cosmology as being essential to the Faith.
Today we know and we believe differently about the earth and the sun. As to Jesus’ celibacy, marriage or family status, the most honest answer at this point is: We don’t really know, and we may never know! What we SHOULD know is that forcing people to think or believe one way or the other, in the absence of adequate proof, is harmful to faith, if not outright fatal.
Florian; Like our Lord, Jesus who gently woes us into belief in Him, Who has come to save us from our sins. The Church does not force it’s beliefs on anyone – You can decide not to chose to follow the teachings of the Church and the beleifs of Catholics handed down to us through tradition for centuries. No one is forcing you to believe Church teachings.
While it is more likely that Jesus was celibate isn’t it a great exercise to think of Jesus, who was like us in all things except sin, a married man?
I think it is more likely that this was another man named Jesus, which was a common name among the Jews in the time of Christ. Could it be the Jesus who tried to lead a revult? Or Jesus the Zealot? Or..?
No, Tony, it’s not a great exercise at all. It is offensive to me as a Catholic.