The primary concern of the Gnostics would not have been whether Jesus was actually married but how they might portray Jesus in a way that would illustrate their own myths and rituals. Furthermore, Coptic texts of this sort did not emerge in the context of “intra-Christian controversies” but from breakaway Gnostic sects, groups that had rejected the witness of the apostolic eyewitnesses. In the first place, while certainly possible, it’s far from certain whether the fourth-century fragment known as The Gospel of Jesus’s Wife was translated from any second-century text. Looking at the second- and third-century sources, I’m not so sure.
In the midst of these arguments, some Christians claimed Jesus was married while others said he wasn’t.
The fragment provides “direct evidence,” according to King, “that claims about Jesus’s marital status first arose over a century after the death of Jesus in the context of intra-Christian controversies over sexuality, marriage, and discipleship.” In other words, second-century Christians were arguing about issues related to sex and marriage. King has presented the so-called “ Gospel of Jesus’s Wife” as evidence that arguments over the singleness of Jesus were a pressing issue among second-century Christians. The Early Christian Perspective of Jesus' Relationshipsĭr. All of this kerfuffle will soon die down, quite possibly with the revelation that the fragment was a forgery in the first place.Īnd yet, the publicity may have raised a legitimate question or two in the minds of Christians and others-questions such as, “Why do Christians assume that Jesus wasn’t married? And would it matter if he was?” With that in mind, let’s take a quick look at the earliest historical traditions about the Messiah’s marital status. Other scholars have already raised valid questions about the fragment’s authenticity as well as pointing out the irregularities in how the research was publicized. Public Radio International suggested that this fragment might “challenge hundreds of years of religious belief” by re-igniting “a centuries-old debate about the role of women in the Christian faith.” (Never mind that the fragment tells us little, if anything, about the role of women in Christian faith or that this debate isn’t exactly in need of re-ignition-it’s remained fairly well-ignited for a long time.) According to Bloomberg Business Week, “evidence pointing to whether Jesus was married or had a female disciple could have ripple effects in current debates over the role of women.” (Never mind that the New Testament is filled with examples of female disciples and that their existence has never been in question.) The Washington Post claimed the papyrus had renewed debates “about scholarship focused on Jesus’s marital status and the veracity of early church documents.” (What the text has to do with the truthfulness of early Christian texts, I am not sure what it has to do with the marital status of the historical Jesus is, as it turns out, practically nothing.) A scholar from Harvard University has presented a fragment of papyrus, allegedly copied about three centuries after the days when Jesus walked on the earth, that includes this clause: “Jesus said to them, ‘My wife.’” The news media reacted as if the five Coptic words underlying this clause had suddenly reset the entire field of biblical studies.
#Unmarried man v attend jesus undistracted full#
This embarrassing aspect of human nature has been on full display once again on television screens and news headlines. Does not mean that marriage is wrong or sexuality is wrong, which sometimes draw the line too far in terms of using his marital status as a commentary on marriage, which would be inappropriate. So we have no evidence that he desired to be married or was married or that there was some part of his ministry that involved marriage. Jesus was at a stage of life where he gave up everything in order to perform the purposes of his father. Now we want to be careful we don't go too far to say that because Jesus was not married, marriage or sexuality are automatically evil in some way. There is no record of that in any historical account or any biblical account.
So anybody who's saying that Jesus was married is just making that up. So anything that would suggest that Jesus was married is pure conjecture, and we would say usually being articulated by people who have some agenda to undo the biblical record and add something to it. There is no evidence that Jesus was married in the books that give us the history of his life.
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