Vatican paper: Papyrus on Jesus' wife a fake
A scrap of papyrus dating back to the 4th century is said to allude to the notion that the Jesus Christ had a wife. / CBS News
VATICAN CITY The Vatican newspaper has added to the doubts surrounding Harvard University's claim that a 4th century Coptic papyrus fragment showed that some early Christians believed that Jesus was married, declaring it a "fake."
The newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, published an article Thursday by leading Coptic scholar Alberto Camplani and an accompanying editorial by the newspaper's editor, Giovanni Maria Vian, an expert in early Christianity. They both cited concerns expressed by other scholars about the fragment's authenticity and the fact that it was purchased on the market without a known archaeological provenance.
"At any rate, a fake," Vian entitled his editorial, which criticized Harvard for creating a "clamorous" media frenzy over the fragment by handing the scoop to two U.S. newspapers only to see "specialists immediately question it."
Karen King, a professor of early Christianity at Harvard Divinity School, announced the finding last week 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.
The issue has had resonance since Christian tradition has long held that Jesus was unmarried, and any evidence to the contrary would fuel current debates about celibacy for priests and the role of women in the church.
As such, it's not surprising that the Vatican would challenge the claim.
King has said the fragment doesn't prove Jesus was married, only that some early Christians thought he was. She has acknowledged the doubts raised by her colleagues and says the fragment's ink will be tested to help determine when it was written.
Some scholars attending the conference questioned the authenticity of the fragment, noting its form and grammar looked unconvincing and suspicious. Others said it was impossible to deduce the meaning of it given the fragmented nature of the script.
Camplani, a professor at Rome's La Sapienza university who helped organize the conference, cited those concerns and added his own, specifically over King's interpretation of the text - assuming it is real.
Rather than taking the reference to a wife literally, he wrote, scholars routinely take such references in primitive Christian and biblical literature metaphorically, to symbolize the spiritual union between Jesus and his disciples.
The absence of any reference to Jesus being married in historic documents "seems more significant than the literal interpretation of a few expressions from the new text, which by my reading should be understood purely in a symbolic sense," he wrote.
Camplani nevertheless praised King's academic paper on the subject as scientific and objective.
In its announcement about the discovery, Harvard said the paper would be published in January in the Harvard Theological Review, a peer-reviewed journal. The journal later said it hadn't committed to publication and would await testing on the fragment's ink to help determine its authenticity.
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This bit of writing, like all the other popularly accepted bits of writing (i.e. bible and/or dead sea scrolls), have no supporting facts to back them up. I do, however, find it far more believable that this man had a wife than the story about this same man who claims to be a god (Or is it the son of a god? They never seem to get this bit straight as they see to claim it's both..).
The bible has been translated into various languages, introducing error, as well as having been "copied" by a multitde of monks who made there own decisions about what "fit" and what "didn't".
Once the church "heirarchy" got involved, LOT's of changes got made!
The present day English version (any variation that you choose) of the bible could be PRETTY far off of the meaning that was originally intended 2000 years ago!
1. Do you think that bible believers don't know that the Bible is a collection of books from a variety of authors?
2. So, the Noah's flood story agrees with Sumerian accounts? If there had been such a flood what you expect but various accounts of a flood in various cultures. (That is, what you find.) If this was, in fact "Noah's flood", the Sumerians would have descended from Noah - wouldn't you expect the oral tradition to coincide?
3. My King James Bible translated 400 years ago has essentially (language style aside) verse-by-verse the same meaning as virtually any modern translation. Where the translations don't agree, you can look back at the Greek or Hebrew source documents for yourself. If what you are asserting has any validity, archeologists would be unearthing multiple versions of many of the bible writings. There is NO EVIDENCE of this - in fact the opposite is true and confirms the incredible respect the Hebrew and later Christian scribes had for each word of what they considered Holy Scripture.
The scroll of Isaiah unearthed at Qumran was 1000 years older than the previous oldest version. So, how much had this book been changed in 1000 years? Aside from the odd letter here and there - not at all.
The investigation into this text fragment has not even BEGUN, yet you can already see the opposition to ANY question Jesus marital status, even though the BIBLE does not specifically say whether he was married or not!
If you think that this fragment would destabilise the worldview of any Christian that has honestly looked at the evidence for the biblical Jesus, you must be joking.
She appears to be playing some sort of academic game here since she knows full well that the typical lay person - as evidenced by the many ridiculous comments on this CBS site - knows nothing about ancient papyri or the many Gnostic heresies that flourished during the 2nd through the 4th or 5th centuries.
This document has no bearing whatsoever on the life of Jesus of Nazareth and Dr. King knows this. She also knows that sooner or later the academic world will speak up in force and she will withdraw any wild claims she has made about this papyrus fragment.
If real, it would disprove of the basic tenets of the Catholic Church from its very inception (male supremacy). If they got that wrong, what else have they gotten wrong?
Between the weight of that and the continuing scandal of unmarried pedophile priests, the Church would crumble.