Author Topic: Ancient Papyrus mentions Jesus' wife... (?)  (Read 4527 times)

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Offline Flipside

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Ancient Papyrus mentions Jesus' wife... (?)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19645273

Knowing early Christian documents' habit for metaphor, they will probably be arguing over this for years, but interesting nonetheless.

Edit: Just wanted to add this from the article, since it made me laugh a bit...

Quote
Jim West, a professor and Baptist pastor in Tennessee, said: "A statement on a papyrus fragment isn't proof of anything. It's nothing more than a statement 'in thin air', without substantial context."

Dead Sea Scrolls anyone?

 
Re: Ancient Papyrus mentions Jesus' wife... (?)
In all fairness, the papyrus in question was dated to the 4th century, so roughly 300-something years after the events in question.  One single fragment without a whole lot of context to go along with it.  We've got thousands of older scrolls and fragments of scripture from the 2nd and 3rd centuries that corroborate one another so consistently that it makes the New Testament one of the most well preserved ancient texts in existence.  Under the weight of all that other documentation, this one fragment's claim is a bit dubious.

If this was relating to any other ancient document, say Euclid's Elements, everyone including historians would be pretty skeptical about one fragment among thousands deviating from the rest, and rightly so.

So one scroll from 300 years later comes out and has some incomplete hints of something odd; that isn't terribly surprising.  There are probably more out there, especially given what we know about the gnostics, Marcionism and other sects that split off from the church and made up their own doctrine.

[shrugs] It sounds interesting from a historical point of view, but we already knew there were a lot of different factions that split off from what was left of the 1st century church by that point in history.
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Offline Dragon

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Re: Ancient Papyrus mentions Jesus' wife... (?)
Until they find something from early 1st century, I don't think it's really meaningful. Not to mention the church is unlikely to change the official version even in this case.

 

Offline Flipside

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Re: Ancient Papyrus mentions Jesus' wife... (?)
Yup, the current Bible itself is based on the outcome of a meeting around that time of Coptic Christians who sat down and decided which Gospels should and should not be included in the Bible. This is probably just one of those fragments that was left out because it was incomplete, or did not fit with the concept of Christianity at the time.

The thing is, this isn't a bolt from the blue, there have been several documents that have inferred a relationship, and it was even suggested that the 'Blood of Christ' that Mary Magdalene took was actually the offspring of Christ, but the problem is, when you get into religion, saying anything outside the accepted norm is considered blasphemy, rather than curiosity, so having a level-headed conversation about it is often very difficult and it gets buried.

Edit : To be honest, some of the omitted chapters make very interesting reading, such as the 'Infancy Gospel of Thomas', in which Christ kills a child for splashing a pool of water....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infancy_Gospel_of_Thomas
« Last Edit: September 19, 2012, 01:48:39 pm by Flipside »

  

Offline Nuke

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Re: Ancient Papyrus mentions Jesus' wife... (?)
jesus was a serial killer
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Offline Flipside

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Re: Ancient Papyrus mentions Jesus' wife... (?)
To be honest, what I love about that Gospel is the ending, where Joseph tweaks Jesus' ear until he undoes all the damage he's done, because in many ways it is character development for Jesus and highlights the fact the He was a (in Biblical definition) a product of both humanity and deity, and that, like most adolescents, he struggled to come to terms with who he was and what he could do and needed discipline.

Oddly enough, it is probably the ending more than the acts he performed that precluded that Gospel from the Bible, no-one wants to hear about the Son of God getting his ear tweaked...

 
Re: Ancient Papyrus mentions Jesus' wife... (?)
I've wondered more than once about Jesus' adolescence.  We already know he ditched his parents to teach in the temple, and they were frantically searching for him for quite awhile.  Wonder how severe the flogging was for that?  There is an awful lot about his life we do not know.  Whether it was never recorded or just not deemed worthy of preservation, who knows?
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Offline Wobble73

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Re: Ancient Papyrus mentions Jesus' wife... (?)
To be honest, what I love about that Gospel is the ending, where Joseph tweaks Jesus' ear until he undoes all the damage he's done, because in many ways it is character development for Jesus and highlights the fact the He was a (in Biblical definition) a product of both humanity and deity, and that, like most adolescents, he struggled to come to terms with who he was and what he could do and needed discipline.

Oddly enough, it is probably the ending more than the acts he performed that precluded that Gospel from the Bible, no-one wants to hear about the Son of God getting his ear tweaked...

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Offline Thaeris

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Re: Ancient Papyrus mentions Jesus' wife... (?)
I would point reference to what perihelion noted in Reply #1 as well...

Books that were not adopted by the Church were usually not adopted for a reason, as there are problems with the doctrine or information included within those books. I'll be interested when trained theologians report on their findings of the material - until then, this is just what it appears to be: hype for journalists.
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Offline Flipside

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Re: Ancient Papyrus mentions Jesus' wife... (?)
Yup, as I said before, this was probably missed out for being incomplete or not projecting the right message. A sentence that starts with 'My Wife' could be anything from a parable to the first ever stand-up routine ;)

 

Offline Nemesis6

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Re: Ancient Papyrus mentions Jesus' wife... (?)
I've wondered more than once about Jesus' adolescence.  We already know he ditched his parents to teach in the temple, and they were frantically searching for him for quite awhile.  Wonder how severe the flogging was for that?  There is an awful lot about his life we do not know.  Whether it was never recorded or just not deemed worthy of preservation, who knows?

You're wondering about characteristics of a person whose very existence has not been proven, so it's a bit weird, I think, to wonder about life-details in this case.

 

Offline Flipside

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Re: Ancient Papyrus mentions Jesus' wife... (?)
No offence Nemesis, but can we try to keep this a historical debate, rather than a religious one, we've already got one thread on the board that is quite heated, and I don't want to give my fellow moderators even more work ;)

 

Offline Dragon

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Re: Ancient Papyrus mentions Jesus' wife... (?)
I think it's been pretty well established that there existed a philosopher near the beginning of the 1st century who got crucified by Romans who didn't like his philosophy. I've heard about documents which mention that the same philosopher visited India at some point of time, and spent some time in a Buddhist monastery. Aside from this and holy texts, there isn't much material about his life, and some of those texts are most likely somewhat modified to fit christian theology.

Anyway, I'd like to see the rest of this papyrus translated before jumping to any conclusions.

 

Offline Flipside

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Re: Ancient Papyrus mentions Jesus' wife... (?)
If the next line is 'is so fat...' I'm going to laugh my ass off ;)

 

Offline karajorma

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Re: Ancient Papyrus mentions Jesus' wife... (?)
Meh, Wife jokes have been done to death.  I'm waiting for the bit where he starts on his father. :p
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Offline yuezhi

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Re: Ancient Papyrus mentions Jesus' wife... (?)
jesus was a serial killer
and then he was a zombie
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Offline Flipside

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Re: Ancient Papyrus mentions Jesus' wife... (?)
Meh, Wife jokes have been done to death.  I'm waiting for the bit where he starts on his father. :p

"And Joseph spake unto his companions, 'The Force is strong in this one...'" ;)

And yes, I know you meant the other father, but I thought his route was probably safer :p

 

Offline karajorma

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Re: Ancient Papyrus mentions Jesus' wife... (?)
Yeah but you're kinda setting up a perfect "No, I am your father." joke. :p
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Offline Flipside

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Re: Ancient Papyrus mentions Jesus' wife... (?)
:lol:

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Offline Mongoose

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Re: Ancient Papyrus mentions Jesus' wife... (?)