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Gospel of Jesus's Wife Likely a Fake


Still Waters

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A papyrus holding text that suggests Jesus Christ was married and whose authenticity has been a matter of intense debate since it was unveiled in 2012 is almost certainly a fake.

Karen King, the Harvard professor who discovered the Gospel of Jesus's Wife and has defended its authenticity, has now conceded that the papyrus is likely a forgery and that its owner lied to her about the provenance and his own background.

http://www.livescience.com/55110-gospel-of-jesus-wife-a-fake.html

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This sounds like a disaster for Professor King. Many people following the story seem to have been onto the Fritz character for a while, but not her.

She had a letter whose letterhead doesn't match the date of the letter? She doesn't catch that, but others do? This is why God made grad students, to check out things like that.

Fake antiquities are not rare. King seems not to have taken simple precautions, assuming this version of events is accurate.

Those of us who post on "historical Jesus" subjects frequently have to deal with the fallacious argument-substitute that because "academic consensus" has closed ranks around a real-live Jesus, those of us who doubt are irrational (and worse) for not joining the parade.

King is an elite scholar in that field. Even on these facts (if they are facts), she won't let go of the possibility that the papyrus will turn out to be genuine anyway. Uh huh. Well, we wouldn't to be so open-minded that our brains fall out, now would we?

BTW, the Atlantic article is available free online

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/07/the-unbelievable-tale-of-jesus-wife/485573/

and links to coverage of King's response,

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/06/karen-king-responds-to-the-unbelievable-tale-of-jesus-wife/487484/

Quote

When I called her (King) in March while reporting my Atlantic story, she said she was not interested in commenting on—or even hearing about—my findings before publication...

... (Later) I asked why she hadn’t undertaken an investigation of the papyrus’s origins and the owner’s background. “Your article has helped me see that provenance can be investigated,” she said.

That provenance can be investigated is news to her???

Edited by eight bits
The new quote boxes work fine. Really, they do.
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the old saying about being 'too good to be true' comes to mind ...

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She probably couldn't see past the boost it would bring to her career to find such a history changing proof.  Poor ducks...  She should keep trying, except her career is probably over.  Being sloppy in your methods when you represent a school like Harvard is not acceptable.

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Oops,  I guess she learned to investigate the provenance, next time, if there is a next time.   

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While there are not a lot of extra-biblical reference to Jesus, I just read the account of Christ written by the Jewish historian Josephus. Although it is very short, he alludes to the fact that Jesus was more than a man, that he died and was raised the third day, that he was in fact the Christ (Messiah) and that his followers (Christians) were still around at the time of his writing.

On the other hand, Roman and Jewish leaders of the day set about to falsify the resurrection, virgin birth and anything else they could about Jesus and that is still going on today, sometimes in subtle ways. For example the changing of B.C. and A.D. to B.C.E. and A.C.E. in how we date things. Interestingly, the pivot point of both systems is the birth of Jesus, but the second systems seeks to remove any reference of the event. The marriage reference is just one more in a long line of such things.

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While I'm not a total disbeliever, I'd like to see new translations from the original scrolls if possible.  Any manuscript that has been translated and "updated" as much as the Bible has needs to be relooked at from the original documents.

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4 hours ago, paperdyer said:

While I'm not a total disbeliever, I'd like to see new translations from the original scrolls if possible.  Any manuscript that has been translated and "updated" as much as the Bible has needs to be relooked at from the original documents.

Which "original scrolls?"  The best that can be done is some very old scrolls and those are fragmented.  The originals perished long ago.

With one possible exception:  a poem entitled "A Hymn to the Sun by the King" is very similar to the 104th Psalm.  It was found in the tomb of the Pharaoh Ay.  The wording is far enough from that of the 104th Psalm that scholars can't be sure that they are the same document.  But they are close enough to raise that possibility.  Could it be that the 104th Psalm was written by an Egyptian Pharaoh?

 

Question for Jeanne and/or eight bits:  during the Dark Ages there was another calendar in use.  It started at Jesus' death instead of his birth.  Does anybody remember who created it and when?

Doug

Edited by Doug1029
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1 minute ago, Doug1o29 said:

 

Double post

Edited by Doug1029
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A question arises as to what, exactly, constitutes a "forgery."

If an article was actually written by someone other than its ascribed author, does that make it a forgery?  If so, then all the gospels and most books of the Bible are forgeries.

If an article disagrees with previous revelation, does that make it a forgery?  If so, the Bible contains lots of forgeries.

The church was busy rewriting parts of the Bible up until the early fifth century.  Those parts are, by definition, forgeries.  Parts of it could be contemporary with King Vortigern of the Arthur sagas.  Evidently, early Christians didn't think the Bible was a "holy" book.  Up until about 140, Christians didn't even have a Bible.  Marcion provided them with one, but the church didn't like it and called it a heresy.  So whose heresy is the true one?

Doug

 

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I guess "antiquity forgery" has been around for a long time. Much money can be made.

This one though, is different. It's not a forgery, as such, rather a creation of a document (though cleverly partial) on certifiably old parchment fragment in an attempt to skew religion itself, in this case Christianity.

Edited by pallidin
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What about all the evidence that the Christian Bible uses other religions fables like the resurrection, water into wine, healing the sick, the flood, virgin birth in a sub par place, walking on water, feeding hundreds of people with one basket of food, and expected to return to save everyone on Earth, etc.  Why aren't those things questioned more?

I would like to read an edited Bible with all of the coincidental happenings removed, how much would be left?

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CJ

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I would like to read an edited Bible with all of the coincidental happenings removed, how much would be left?

You might want to try Thomas Jefferson's redaction,

http://uuhouston.org/files/The_Jefferson_Bible.pdf

Quite a bit. Jesus was a chatty fellow, or so the story goes.

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I believe it was JC being overly chatty that caused himself all that trouble with the temple elites ~

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On ‎6‎/‎19‎/‎2016 at 1:38 PM, Sundew said:

While there are not a lot of extra-biblical reference to Jesus, I just read the account of Christ written by the Jewish historian Josephus. Although it is very short, he alludes to the fact that Jesus was more than a man, that he died and was raised the third day, that he was in fact the Christ (Messiah) and that his followers (Christians) were still around at the time of his writing.

 

That account referring to Jesus was not written by Josephus. The monks who copied his manuscripts centuries later added references to Jesus. Josephus was a Jew who never converted Christianity therefore he did not believe in the resurrection and that account did not come from him.   

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Doug

Ooops, I forgot you'd asked earlier in this thread

Quote

Question for Jeanne and/or eight bits:  during the Dark Ages there was another calendar in use.  It started at Jesus' death instead of his birth.  Does anybody remember who created it and when?

Apparently there was such a thing mentioned in some medieval texts, but sorry, I don't know who created it.

PM Jeanne? I don't know whether or not she's following this thread.

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If ancient writers are going to make out someone as a God, they sure  are going to cover up anything  pertaining to their real  life, the real  Jesus may have been married with a wife or not with children.

 

Edited by docyabut2
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22 hours ago, maxcred said:

That account referring to Jesus was not written by Josephus. The monks who copied his manuscripts centuries later added references to Jesus. Josephus was a Jew who never converted Christianity therefore he did not believe in the resurrection and that account did not come from him.   

 

If that were true I would expect a much more in depth study of his life and miracles. The brevity is in fact what astounds me, although it's not like they had 24/7 news available like today. The text does not say he converted to Christianity, it says basically that at the time of his writing Jesus' followers were still around, as they are today. 

Josephus also had a lot to say about Pilate as well, who was regarded as a myth also by scholars until an ancient stone reference to him was found. Had that fragment not been found, any mention of Pilate could have also been chalked up to the monks I suppose. 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by Sundew
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SunDew

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... who was regarded as a myth also by scholars until an ancient stone reference to him was found.

Pilate was regarded as a myth by whom? Which scholars? What's your source for this claim?

Jospehus mentions Pilate in both his Antiquities (which you've just read) and his earlier Jewish War (2, 169-174). Philo of Alexandria also mentions Pilate (Embassy to Caligula, 299-305). Pilate's adminsitrative position in Judea existed before he held it, and a similar position existed afterwards (it was "demilitarized" at some point). Somebody held that position from 26 to 36 or 37. There are coins from the area that attest to a Roman administration at that time.

We often hear that even today only a handful of "academic specialists" don't accept the Gospels as reliable historical documents. If so, then how could there ever have been an academic consensus that Pilate, Jesus' murderer, was fictional when Jesus' murder was and is supposedly a factual certainty?

The Pilate stone is interesting because it is the only known inscription with his name. It offers evidence of a previously unknown activity of his, building what appears to have been a shrine of the imperial cult. However, Pilate's existence, employment and whereabouts from the mid-20's to mid-30's were secure long before the stone was found.

What is to be gained, I wonder, by saying that somebody or anybody got something like this wrong? Well, you'll be providing us your source, won't you? Then we'll see who benefits more clearly.

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Ignoring the typical ranting atheists... It was customary for the groom to provide wine at a wedding. For Jesus to be the one providing the wine, especially using such a miracle, it would point to him being married.

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  • 1 month later...

Many of the Bible books are not exactly "forgeries," since they make no claim as to who wrote them and we only have much later traditions.  Many of the Pauline epistles are forgeries, but many are not.  

Pilate almost certainly existed, as did the Herod family.  So what?  Modern historical fiction often includes figures that really existed -- it doesn't confirm or disconfirm anything.  The Gospels have a lot of things in them that don't fit known history and geography and contradict each other a lot.  That is why Christians invented their "hermeneutics," so as to try to wedge explanations into things that can't be explained (like the completely different nativity stories found in Matthew and Luke).  It all kind of feels as though they were writing the stories somewhere else and only had a fleeting off-hand knowledge of Palestine (much as would happen if I were to try to write a story about Afghanistan).

I can see being a Christian out of tradition or out of an attachment to the ethical teachings (well, at least some of them) but thinking what is in the Bible is always or even mostly real history is just absurd and when I see people arguing otherwise I just go away.   They are too stupid for me to bother with.

 

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On 2016-06-21 at 3:11 PM, CJ1983 said:

What about all the evidence that the Christian Bible uses other religions fables like the resurrection, water into wine, healing the sick, the flood, virgin birth in a sub par place, walking on water, feeding hundreds of people with one basket of food, and expected to return to save everyone on Earth, etc.  Why aren't those things questioned more?

I would like to read an edited Bible with all of the coincidental happenings removed, how much would be left?

 

how could Jesus have married a female when he surrounded himself with men and none of them were married either ? From what I read between the lines the disciples were woman haters.There is much more one can say about them and modern day priests but I won't go there. When it comes to religions of all faiths is like opening a can of worms.

Pope Calixtus III and his relatives and children  (yes he was married and had kids, one the infamous Lucretia ) had a reputation of greed, lust, power and murder. Not a very nice bunch of Christians. A history lesson on how the church treated people might open some eyes. Jesus being married is not that far fetched after all Jesus was a Jewish male and it was expected that males take a wife.

 

 

 

 

 

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On 6/24/2016 at 1:47 AM, Sundew said:

Josephus also had a lot to say about Pilate as well, who was regarded as a myth also by scholars until an ancient stone reference to him was found. Had that fragment not been found, any mention of Pilate could have also been chalked up to the monks I suppose. 

 

 

 

 

 

What is in Josephus ain't necessarily what was originally in Josephus, and Josephus had his own agenda.  I never heard of the idea that Pilate was a myth.  One interesting thing about Josephus is that even though he lived within walking distances of modern Nazareth, he never mentions the place, although he does list several hundred Galilean communities.  Nazareth is never mentioned in the Talmud nor the Old Testament either, nor in any other writing dating from before several centuries later, and the one mention from 200 CE is highly debatable.  It seems likely that modern Nazareth came into being much later because of the peculiarity of there being no place that Jesus was said to be from.  Even the geography of modern Nazareth does not fit the narratives in the Gospels about the place.  So if you want myth, choose Nazareth (probably derived from an LXX mistranslation of a passage in Isaiah).  

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St. Helena the Great :

 
Quote

 

St. Helena, the mother of Constantine I, is believed to have discovered the cross upon which Jesus Christ was crucified.

Synopsis

Born in Bithynia, Asia Minor (present-day Turkey), circa 248, St. Helena was married to Roman Emperor Constantius and had a son who would become Constantine I, also known as Constantine the Great, the first Roman emperor to become a Christian. St. Helena, who converted as well, oversaw the construction of churches on Holy Land sites. She would later be credited with discovering the cross upon which Jesus Christ is believed to have been crucified. St. Helena died circa 328 in Nicomedia (present-day Turkey).

 

~

The old girl found a lot more than just the 'true' cross .... :yes:

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In the secret gospel of Mark, Jesus seems to be having a relationship with Lazarus, or some young man that follows him around naked except for a blanket. That would make him gay, wouldn't it. All I'm saying is, if I were the son of god I wouldn't be running around with 12 other guys. But that's just me. He probably was also married just as David was married to both of King Sauls children Jonathan and his sister. He married Jonathan first. Saul bad to beg him to marry his daughter. So it runs in the family.

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