Jesus' Wife

[Doggey75]

In the next issuse

Jesus' Children

[Minimalist]

[Mudhammam]

The papyrus dates from sometime between the sixth and ninth centuries, possibly the fourth, but regardless, it is far too late to really affect any historical perspective on the original Christian movement.

Copies of copies of copies....just like the rest of the holy horseshit that the jesus freaks wave around as if it means something.

I don't think one needs to embrace the label of Christian to take a historical interest in the religion and how it originated. All the earliest manuscripts and artifacts I've come across indicate a split from Second Temple Judaism in the beginning to mid first-century A.D. Even though we don't possess any writings from that period in their original form, copies often reflect the essence of the original and in the case of the earliest Christian writings, our ability to compare lots of distinct and early manuscripts far exceeds that of other ancient works.

[Sinbad]

I don't think one needs to embrace the label of Christian to take a historical interest in the religion and how it originated.
[/quote]
Absolutely. In fact more of the non-religious should take an interest in its history. This way more people in time will understand the difference between truth ie names, places, archaeological findings etc and fiction such as conversations with god, miracles and such like.

[Minimalist]

a split from Second Temple Judaism in the beginning to mid first-century A.D.

That's the story which they began telling. Evidence for it happening is so thin it is transparent.

[Mudhammam]

a split from Second Temple Judaism in the beginning to mid first-century A.D.

That's the story which they began telling. Evidence for it happening is so thin it is transparent.

How so? I'm not really interested in debating the dating of the New Testament or relevant extra-bliblical references to the early Church, primarily because I don't think New Testament studies and the historical method in general is very scientific or reliable. I say this because both liberal and conservative camps have a wide variety of interpretations on key issues and there seems no path to solvency until archaeologists do the hard work and make some further discovery that leads to extensive progress. I do think scholarship is getting better and more refined since the Enlightenment but it has a ways to go. That said, I try to combine the best of all arguments and compromise by allowing for time frame in the middle. This puts all the Gospels post 70 A.D. and possibly into the early second century. I think there are about six Paulian epistles considered authentic. Those six Paulian epistles and the Gospels are what I think are most historically relevant, and probably the book of Revelation. Paul's works are arguably 50-60A.D.-ish considering internal language, content, etc. So granted you push all these into the second-century, you still have a movement that has already some coherency and structure, in both doctrine and organization. What argument is there for any other century but the first of the Common Era, and at least by the middle?

[ThomM]

Scholars at the Harvard Theological Review announced Thursday that they see no evidence of forgery in an ancient text mentioning “Jesus’ wife.” The fragment of parchment made waves 18 months ago when scholars first made its discovery public. But before jumping to any conclusions, here’s what’s most important to keep in mind.

Carbon dating of the “Jesus Wife” fragment dates the text to the 8th century in Egypt. That is some five hundred years after the official Biblical text was already agreed upon, even by the latest dating estimates. The point of the fragment has never been to prove that Jesus was or wasn’t married—the gospels themselves, written within a hundred or so years of Jesus’ death, are silent on that point.

Today it is easy to imagine that the Bible has always been one cohesive book. But it actually took centuries for early church leaders and theologians to agree on what letters, gospels, and writings counted as “canonical,” allowed to be counted as the official Word of God. Hundreds of different gospel writers and authors wrote hundreds of texts about God and Jesus. Today we have fragments upon fragments of these documents, some are quite long, some are no more than a word, or a half a word.

While not all of them were accepted as Scripture, they do tell us something about how communities worshiped and what was important to them. So, if the parchment fragment is indeed authentic, it tells us that there was at least one community of believers that imagined that Jesus did have a wife, and it meant enough to how they lived their spiritual lives that they recorded it in a parchment. Without more information, we are left to imagine what that meant for how they allowed women to work in churches or what role they gave women in society.

It also tells us something about our own contemporary views about God. We are fascinated with the idea that maybe, a God made human could have married. We wonder what implications that has for how we should view women, especially in a time when Pope Francis seems to be nudging the door open for women in the Catholic Church.

And, one thing is for certain: everyone wishes the fragment could have been bigger.

http://time.com/57705/jesus-wife-parchme...en-church/

If Jesus had a wife, and was not without sin, because he enjoyed the pleasures of the flesh, then he was not the perfect sacrifice. It is one of the reasons that any scripture mentioning Jesus as less than the perfect divinity was left out of the final compilation of the bible.

The christ is a historical figure - as real as Hercules and Zeus - IE - a religious MYTH.

And it is in the way that the current xtian sect fail to understand the laws and traditions of the Jewish religion - which the christ is claimed to have been born into - that exposes LOTS of problems.

1 - The messiah was to be of the Blood Line of King David (himself likely a myth as well) At the supposed time of the christ - it was thought that the man supplied the "seed" and the woman was only the dirt the seed was planted in and grew - but had no direct BLOOD relation to. So - the claim that the christ had NO human father - also means he could not have been of a human blood line based on that belief.

2 - The most holy commandment to the jews from their god was to go and populated the world. Teachers were men and were are required to be married - in order to teach in the temples. (Or widowed - but that of course would not apply as well). The christ - unless he was married - would not have been allowed near the temples without a wife. And remember - based on the Prophecies of the messiah - the christ could not actually have been the Jewush messiah - so to claim to be the actual son of Yahweh would have had him stoned to death - IF he actually had survived that far to begin with.

However - the story of the wedding in Canaan - if a person really looks at it - was clearly the story of the wedding of the christ. IT is/was tradition that the brides family pay for the wedding dinner - and the groom pay for the "drinks" - which then would have been wine. Think about it - WHY would anyone go to Mary - to complain that they were running out of wine - unless one of her sons was getting married - since that is the only connection she would have to the drinks. And she referred the questioners to the christ -identifying the person supplying the wine - the groom at the wedding. It was likely LATER that sex became taboo - and therefore beneath the claim of the god - so the simply pushed away from it. But there are lots of writings that would appear to indicate that the christ myth included a wife.

As far as claiming the bible to be "one cohesive book' - that is comical. The bible has never been cohesive in any way - has lots of contradictions - lots of errors in reality - and it is clearly the result of the writings of LOTS of different people. Writing style analysis has shown - for instance - that the book of John - was written by three different people.

[Minimalist]

This puts all the Gospels post 70 A.D.

Yes, but how far "post 70" is the issue.

I think there are about six Paulian epistles considered authentic.

I don't know what "authentic" means in this case. All written by "Paul?" All written by the same person? How about edited by the same person - Marcion? The fraudulent epistles are obviously later constructions but even the "authentic" ones seem to have been re-written.

Paul's works are arguably 50-60A.D.-ish considering internal language, content, etc.

I'll argue that. There is one historical marker which indicates that the author was recounting a situation which happened between 84 and 64 BC. Granted, this was a time of turmoil in Judaea as the Hasmonean Dynasty was tearing itself to pieces and rival claimants to the throne secured the help of external powers but none of that does the jesus story any good. This reference to Damascus being under the rule of Aretas of Nabatea occurs in 2 Corinthians which is always cited as one of the "authentic" epistles. So, yeah, who the fuck knows what authentic means.

Its like when they say the "historical" jesus. The term is almost meaningless.[/quote]

[The Valkyrie]

Would the wife of Jesus be as disappointed as many others are with him?

He's only come once . . .

[Mudhammam]

I don't know what "authentic" means in this case. All written by "Paul?" All written by the same person? How about edited by the same person - Marcion? The fraudulent epistles are obviously later constructions but even the "authentic" ones seem to have been re-written.

Written by a Jewish Christian missionary to the Gentiles who formerly led a devout life as a Pharisee even to the point of persecuting those he thought were guilty of blasphemy. What evidence is there that every copy of Paul's "authentic" epistles we possess were fabricated or at least tampered with by Marcion? That's just one person and my guess is that we have a lot of Paul quoted in other writers who were not so closely aligned with Marcion's theology (I say "guess" because I can't cite a direct reference for this claim but I'm fairly confident we could find many Pauline references in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th centures--perhaps you'll disagree, in which I'm open to hear your case).

I'll argue that. There is one historical marker which indicates that the author was recounting a situation which happened between 84 and 64 BC. Granted, this was a time of turmoil in Judaea as the Hasmonean Dynasty was tearing itself to pieces and rival claimants to the throne secured the help of external powers but none of that does the jesus story any good. This reference to Damascus being under the rule of Aretas of Nabatea occurs in 2 Corinthians which is always cited as one of the "authentic" epistles. So, yeah, who the fuck knows what authentic means.

I haven't come across this objection before so I'll look more into it. I must ask though, if this is the case as you describe, would this make correct historical references to persons or events in other New Testament writings, such as Paul's other epistles, serve to strengthen the common first-century dating for many of them?

Its like when they say the "historical" jesus. The term is almost meaningless.

I'm not so sure about that. Granted, the historical Jesus leaves little trace in the New Testament although I think some facts can be reliably gleaned: He was a Jew from Galilee, probably born in Nazareth, was very devout and charismatic in his faith but placed a very liberal and perhaps Hellenistic spin on it, perhaps had powerful religious delusions and thought he was a god or at the very least had prophetic status, started a movement that caused some controversy with the religious leaders in his region; in turn, perhaps this led to a situation that made him a political liability and false accusations (or perhaps some disorderly conduct that called for him to be put down as a common criminal--maybe escalating during the week of Passover) led to his crucifixion. I don't see why a strong case can't be made for some vague historical Jesus, even if all we have to go on are what his earliest followers thought of him. It's probably a very similar situation, if not better, than the overwhelming majority of figures from the ancient world (including many kings and rulers).