'Jesus' wife' fragment is not a fake

[Frank Merton]

Lots of documents teaching heterodox elements got suppressed: who knows what we would learn if we had copies of all of them. What little slipped through is astonishing enough.

[pbarosso]

this isnt necessarily true just because its old

[coolguy]

If Jesus was married good for him.i think he was.

[cindybee53]

God incarnated as a man to experience all that a man experiences in life...including death. Why then, do people think he would have left out sex, marriage and everything else that is a natural part of life? That is just stupid. Of course he married and had children of his own, no doubt!

[CaliforniaFurr]

Since Jesus was a Torah observant Jew, it would be unusual for him to be unmarried. "Be fruitful and multiply" is the first commandment in the Torah. Most scholars place Jesus' birth between (6-4 BC). He survived John the Baptist who was beheaded after (34 AD). So Jesus would have 40 to 42 yrs old at the time of his crucifixion. By then his children, if he had any, would have been grown (women marrried as young as 13 and men as young as 16 in that day and time) and maybe married with children themselves. Lives were hard and short, so perhaps his wife died before he began his ministry? The fact is, we know very little about Jesus prior to his baptism.

[SHaYap]

I believe today the main concern was not that JC and Mary was married or not but rather more fearful of the claims for the possible descendants of JC ~

Frankly I believe that JC was married , I mean with Mary tallying forth up and down Galilee with the lot of them ~ whot would the neighbors say ?

Furthermore ~ JC is would have done the right thing ~ he's just that kind of guy in my book ~

[Magnanimus]

Since Jesus was a Torah observant Jew, it would be unusual for him to be unmarried. "Be fruitful and multiply" is the first commandment in the Torah. Most scholars place Jesus' birth between (6-4 BC). He survived John the Baptist who was beheaded after (34 AD). So Jesus would have 40 to 42 yrs old at the time of his crucifixion. By then his children, if he had any, would have been grown (women marrried as young as 13 and men as young as 16 in that day and time) and maybe married with children themselves. Lives were hard and short, so perhaps his wife died before he began his ministry? The fact is, we know very little about Jesus prior to his baptism.

But then by that same token, would you regard Franciscan monks as being deliberately sinful with their celibacy?

Keep the climate of Jesus' story in mind. We think that we're obsessed with the apocalypse now, when the Left Behind books are on the New York Times' best seller list and you can't swing a dead lolcat on the internet without hitting a site that says Obama is hiding the Aramaic characters for the Mark of the Beast in his presidential signature. First century Judaea actually was under the fist of a draconian and borderline-theocratic Empire that existed to suppress rebellions and tax provinces into oblivion, while feeding funds to a 1% that took nearly two millennia and the invention of the stock market to find its equal.

Jews of the day believed that they were at the End, and if the Christians are right, we were. Hence the end of the BC age and the beginning of the shiny, new Anno Domini dating system. Granted, the dates were applied retroactively after Christians took over and that dials the date of the Crucifixion and accompanying events back to about 25-30 AD/CE.

Sects and cults of apocalyptic mysticism were frequently popping up, and while we can't say for sure, it seems that Jesus may have been involved with one order called the Essenes. The Essenes had a reputation for their asceticism and celibacy could have been considered acceptable to them or similar groups. Why strive to introduce a child into a world as it's set to end? Now, matters of faith aside, imagine if this wholly mortal Jesus of Nazareth fellow, who spent all of his time around apocalypticists and ascetics like his cousin John the Baptist, actually believed he was the foretold Messiah of old who came to save his people. In what may be the only productive case of a cult leader with a Christ-complex, he goes through with the whole thing and dies a martyr for his cause. What value would there be in having your own kids before you secured your throne as the rightful king of the Jews?

[Magnanimus]

I believe today the main concern was not that JC and Mary was married or not but rather more fearful of the claims for the possible descendants of JC ~

I heartily agree. Can you imagine what a scenario in which we discovered a genetic tree for a deity would be like? You know movies like Gattaca or Logan's Run where a relatively intangible concept is used to dictate an entire dystopian society? If we had the Nazarene's genome, it'd be a sure bet that we'd stratify society based on relative relatedness to Him.

Ghengis Khan took so many wives from so many tribes, combined with Asia's relatively recent population explosion that something like a third of all east Asian men tested showed common ancestry to the figure. Now take that same set up and invert it so only a handful of people reliably have common ancestry from the Christ. With our level of technology we'd end up identifying them and trying to reassemble a living messianic genome the same way we're trying to breed aurochs back into existence. In a couple hundred years, it'd be the Pharaohs all over again-- just a bunch of critically inbred divine-nobles, crawling all over each other like a box of hamsters.

[aka CAT]

What ignorance distorts:

Catholics refer to the bride of Christ, the Church, all of the time.

She is identified with the Blessed Virgin Mary aka Queen of Heaven,

since Jesus, to the disciple John, said, "Behold your mother," e.g.

an explanation by Pope John Paul II follows:

After recalling the presence of Mary and the other women at the Lord's cross,

St John relates: "When Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved

standing near, he said to his mother, 'Woman, behold, your son!'. Then he said

to the disciple, 'Behold, your mother!’" (Jn 19:26-27).

These particularly moving words are a "revelation scene": they reveal the deep

sentiments of the dying Christ and contain a great wealth of meaning for Christian

faith and spirituality. At the end of his earthly life, as he addressed his Mother and

the disciple he loved, the crucified Messiah establishes a new relationship of love

between Mary and Christians[...]

Jesus completes his sacrifice by entrusting Mary to John

The words of the dying Jesus actually show that his first intention was not to entrust

his Mother to John, but to entrust the disciple to Mary and to give her a new maternal

role[...]

Mary becomes the Mother of all disciples

Jesus' words, "Behold, your son", effect what they express, making Mary the mother

of John and of all the disciples destined to receive the gift of divine grace[...]"

http://www.ewtn.com/...oc/jp2bvm49.htm

That did not mean that Jesus and John were actual brothers

any more than Jesus' relating to others as siblings was literal.

Whereas Christ's devotion was to Our Father, His duty was to

the children of God as entrusted to the doctors of the Church.

So consuming is the Savior's responsibility to the family of God

that neither Jesus nor priests are given to conventional marriage.

Furthermore, as the role of the Church is that of Mary, i.e. to focus

upon the Son of God as model, I see no conflict of gender roles

as do those who complain of bias in the ordainment of males only,

e.g.Through the Sacrament of Holy Orders, priests, [...]by the anointing of the Holy Spirit,

are signed by a special character and so are configured to Christ the priest, in such a way

that they are able to act in the person of Christ the head[... T]he ministry of the priest is a

service which forms the Christian community and co-ordinates and strengthens other

charisms and services[... A]s 'educators of the faith'[, t]hey work, therefore, to see that the

faithful are properly formed to reach true Christian maturity."

http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cclergy/documents/rc_con_cclergy_doc_15111998_rolep_en.html

Edited November 23, 2014 by aka CAT

[Marcion Meets E. Sibyl]

'Jesus' wife' fragment is not a fake, scientists claim

This must be the "Part 2" fragment that WAS NOT eaten by ants.

[Marcion Meets E. Sibyl]

Since Jesus was a Torah observant Jew,

That's one version to the Jesus story, but tell that to the Marcionite Christians.

.

[White Crane Feather]

You're the one who chose to cast aspersions on early church history, declaring that it was not what the "church authorities" wanted us to think. Since you never actually elaborated on what you think the church authorities wanted us to think, nor on what you think actually happened, I was left to fall back on what I know of early church history (I own at least two books dedicated to early church history, one of them written by a Christian, the other secular), so I'm quite sceptical of what you think the "church authorities" are trying to hide from us regular plebs. Church history isn't rosy, especially as we moved past the 7th century(ish) but no one's hiding anything, and no one can deny the earliest Christians who moved Emperor Julian to such an extreme statement. But if you have proof that church authorities are making us think something that isn't so, I'd be very interested in seeing whatever thread you choose to start about it

I'd like to read those books PA, would you mind siteing them?

Edited November 29, 2014 by White Crane Feather

[+Link of Hyrule]

I'd like to read those books PA, would you mind siteing them?

Will do. I've got a friend staying at our place and he's asleep in the spare room at the moment (the spare room also doubles as the house library) so I can't check on the titles. And I no longer own the secular text I referred to (I don't know what happened to it, I can only assume it got lost during the last house move) so I'll have to give you a raincheck on that one, but the other text is, to my knowledge, accurate on the details of the early church. But I can't recall the name of the book, so once again, that leaves me to tomorrow when my friend is awake and not going to hate on me for waking him up at nigh 1am

[+Link of Hyrule]

I'd like to read those books PA, would you mind siteing them?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Birth-Church-Constantine-Ad30-312-Monarch/dp/1854246585/ref=cm_lmf_tit_1/279-3615675-5906609

Hey WCF, the link above is to the book that you wanted information on

[Chocolate Sandwich]

What if Jesus did have a wife, what if he wasn't born of a virgin but instead to a scared middle eastern teenager who feared the ramifications of letting the community know she had been deflowered, what if he was placed on that cross, died, and never did walk the earth again? Would any of those things have changed the impact he had on his fellow man or made his ministry any less inspiring? People fall in love and get married, the threat of death tend to make people lie, and body doubles are a common thing in this day and age; so why wouldn't the powers that be have been able to find a Jesus lookalike in order to enact their plans for global domination and population control?

[Leonardo]

What if Jesus did have a wife, what if he wasn't born of a virgin but instead to a scared middle eastern teenager who feared the ramifications of letting the community know she had been deflowered, what if he was placed on that cross, died, and never did walk the earth again? Would any of those things have changed the impact he had on his fellow man or made his ministry any less inspiring? People fall in love and get married, the threat of death tend to make people lie, and body doubles are a common thing in this day and age; so why wouldn't the powers that be have been able to find a Jesus lookalike in order to enact their plans for global domination and population control?

Is it better to live your life believing a comfortable lie, or knowing an uncomfortable truth?

[Marcion Meets E. Sibyl]

'Jesus' wife' fragment is not a fake, scientists claim

Wife or no wife, Jesus was a red-blooded, carpenter (robust and intelligent) man, according to the stories. I've never read anything in the NT about celibacy among his group. Peter was married, and Paul had a "thorn in his flesh."