Friday, April 26, 2024
Contact    |    RSS icon Twitter icon Facebook icon  
Unexplained Mysteries
You are viewing: Home > News > Spirituality > News story
Welcome Guest ( Login or Register )  
All ▾
Search Submit

Spirituality

Jesus' wife parchment is not a fake

By T.K. Randall
April 11, 2014 · Comment icon 66 comments

Leonardo da Vinci's 'The Last Supper'. Image Credit: Leonardo da Vinci
A fragment of papyrus with writing that references the wife of Jesus is believed to be genuine.
Written in Coptic, the parchment was discovered by Professor Karen King and appears to make a reference to "my wife" in words attributed to Jesus himself.

Now following an extensive series of laboratory testing the fragment has been declared genuine with no signs of forgery. The news has generated much controversy amongst religious scholars who had previously declared the "Gospel of Jesus' Wife" a fake due to its questionably bad grammar, spelling and handwriting.
"The main topic of the fragment is to affirm that women who are mothers and wives can be disciples of Jesus - a topic that was hotly debated in early Christianity as celibate virginity increasingly became highly valued," said King.

"This gospel fragment provides a reason to reconsider what we thought we knew by asking what the role claims of Jesus's marital status played historically in early Christian controversies over marriage, celibacy, and family."

Source: Independent | Comments (66)




Other news and articles
Recent comments on this story
Comment icon #57 Posted by Magnanimus 10 years ago
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 r... [More]
Comment icon #58 Posted by aka CAT 10 years ago
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... [More]
Comment icon #59 Posted by No-thingBornPassion 10 years ago
'Jesus' wife' fragment is not a fake, scientists claim This must be the "Part 2" fragment that WAS NOT eaten by ants.
Comment icon #60 Posted by No-thingBornPassion 10 years ago
Since Jesus was a Torah observant Jew, That's one version to the Jesus story, but tell that to the Marcionite Christians. .
Comment icon #61 Posted by White Crane Feather 10 years ago
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, es... [More]
Comment icon #62 Posted by Paranoid Android 10 years ago
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 tomorr... [More]
Comment icon #63 Posted by Paranoid Android 10 years ago
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
Comment icon #64 Posted by CocoOutsideCremeFilled 9 years ago
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 lo... [More]
Comment icon #65 Posted by Leonardo 9 years ago
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 lo... [More]
Comment icon #66 Posted by No-thingBornPassion 9 years ago
'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."


Please Login or Register to post a comment.


Our new book is out now!
Book cover

The Unexplained Mysteries
Book of Weird News

 AVAILABLE NOW 

Take a walk on the weird side with this compilation of some of the weirdest stories ever to grace the pages of a newspaper.

Click here to learn more

We need your help!
Patreon logo

Support us on Patreon

 BONUS CONTENT 

For less than the cost of a cup of coffee, you can gain access to a wide range of exclusive perks including our popular 'Lost Ghost Stories' series.

Click here to learn more

Top 10 trending mysteries
Recent news and articles