The headlines, as usual, are
sensational: “Shedding new light on Jesus’ marital status?”; “A faded piece of
papyrus refers to Jesus’ wife; Historians believe it is authentic; may reignite
debate.”
The article that follows, published
in today’s Post-Gazette, was written
by Laura Goldstein of the New York Times. It concerns a tiny piece of papyrus in the
possession of Prof. Karen L. King, an historian of early Christianity at
Harvard Divinity School.
The papyrus fragment includes a
text in Coptic (an Egyptian language written with Greek characters) including
the phrase, “Jesus said to them, ‘My wife . . .’” A later clause says, “She will be able to be
my disciple.” As far as Prof. King and
other scholars can determine, the papyrus dates from the 4th
century. She guesses that it may have
been copied from a 2nd-century text.
Back to the headlines. None of them is actually wrong, although the
first is certainly misleading, saved only by the question mark at the end. As the article points out, Prof. King
“repeatedly cautioned that this fragment should not be taken as proof that
Jesus, the historical person, was actually married. The text was probably written centuries after
Jesus lived, and all other early, reliable Christian literature is silent on
the question, she said.” Just so.
What this text tells us is that
its writer portrayed Jesus as having
a wife. That is interesting as a
reflection of the author’s outlook, but does not constitute strong historical
evidence that Jesus was actually married.
In this regard, the present discovery is much like the “Gospel of Judas”
that was brought to public notice in 2010.
That document, apparently produced within a 2nd century
Christian community influenced by gnosticism, has Jesus commend Judas as his
best disciple. For more on that
document, on gnosticism, and on how we should regard such finds, see this article that I wrote at the time.
To the headlines again. There can be no disputing that “a faded piece
of papyrus refers to Jesus’ wife.” That
“historians believe it is authentic” is true as long as we read the article and
see that here “authentic” means “actually a 4th century scrap rather
than a much more recent forgery.”
“Authentic” does not imply, as we saw Prof. King emphasizing, that the
document is accurate in seeing Jesus as married.
Finally, the “may reignite debate”
headline. This one is undoubtedly
accurate—anything will get people arguing again over things we think important
enough to argue over. According to Ms. Goldstein,
the papyrus could spur debate over whether Jesus was married, whether Mary
Magdalene was his wife and whether he had female disciples. She notes that debates on these questions
seem “relevant today, when global Christianity is roiling over the place of
women in ministry and the boundaries of marriage.”
I think it safe to say that the
new find will become an occasion for more discussion on these issues. I don’t believe that it has anything new and
substantial to bring to that discussion. What we might say about the questions
themselves is perhaps matter for future blog posts!
A final note, for the sake of
accuracy. Ms Goldstein says in the
article that discussion “is particularly animated in the Roman Catholic Church,
where despite calls for change, the Vatican has reiterated the teaching that
the priesthood cannot be opened to women and married men because of the model
set by Jesus.”
It is a mistake to say that the
Catholic Church says that the priesthood cannot be opened to married men. There are married Roman Catholic
priests—generally men who were married Anglican or Episcopal priests and who
joined the Catholic Church. Celibacy for
priests is a matter of discipline in the Catholic Church, not a matter of
doctrine. Theoretically, the Church
could modify this discipline at any time.
On the other hand, Pope John Paul II wrote in Ordinatio Sacerdotalis in 1994 that, as a matter of doctrine, “the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly
ordination on women.”
©
2012 Andrew K. Bechman
