Tom Toles for September 23, 2012

Such nonsense. The papyrus was written centuries after Jesus’ life. At most, it indicates that somebody in the 4th century believed Jesus had a wife. Interesting, amusing, but of no consequence.

It could just as easily be a mystical text, in which Jesus says “My wife, which is the Church, should love me and I love her.” But even if it was a complete text, and has Jesus saying, “My wife is a great gal, and you ought to see our kids! Cute little devils they are” it still wouldn’t prove, or even mean, much of anything.

To those who are in denial and saying this is of no consequence because it was written 4 centuries after his demise… I would point out that NO New Te3stement book was written for nearly a century after the same event.

The scriptures are a collection of stories written by many different men over a long period of time…argue their inspiration, but you cannot argue they reflect the real truth of the people or events as they happened (or didn’t happen).

Belief is having faith that what you are told or read is the truth. Or to paraphrase Mark Twain, “Is that too many for you?”

It’s only those Christians who are super uptight about everything that are getting upset about this.[]The rest of us really couldn’t care either way.

@narrowWhere do you get ‘most under 50’? The current scholarly opinion is that Matthew is the earliest and was written around 70 CE, so badger’s ‘nearly a century’ is more accurate. The earliest mss (which are all the attestations we have) are of course even later than this.

Matthew & John were the only ones who were part of the original 12; Luke and Mark were later followers.[]I take it that you didn’t know that?

bfd

This latest fragment has been further analysed and the text has been found to REALLY say: And then Jesus said to his audience – take my wife, please!

You are not going to riot because Christianity- in this Atheist’s humble opinion- is better than that. No piece of scripture moves me more than the Sermon on the Mount.Islam on the other hand is still an immature religion. It is where Christianity was in the 16th century.

Maybe Clark is right. Why do I say this, well a new fragment has been found and translated as the “Gospel of Irving”!

“There is no god,devil…” I too am an atheist, but you go too far. We can not be certain we are right. One of the things I tried to teach my students was the dangers of the ignorance of certainty.

THIS JUST IN! (From Fox News) The Jesus mentioned here was one Jesus Ramirez an illegal who did lawn and garden work in Jerusalem during the 1100’s..

@richardelguru. Jesus died between 30 – 35 CE (which starts at his birth, give or take a few years). So a gospel written in 70 CE would be – careful, here’s very difficult math – that would be 40 years after his death. 70 – 30 = 40. Read a book.

Dan Brown ( DaVinci Code ) is gonna have a ball with this

Actually, oral traditions are not generally very accurate. You might check out Vansina’s “Oral Tradition as History”. But back to the cartoon, I think this is by far the best cartoon on this rather silly topic.

No, no, no, I heard it actually said, ’ Take my wife, please.’

“But is it a legitimate truthful story of Jesus and his wife Mary or not?”

It’s a leap to go from “There is evidence that Jesus had a wife” to “Jesus’s wife was Mary (Magdalene or otherwise).” I’m not taking a position on the factual basis of either claim, but as a lawyer might say you’ve “assumed facts not in evidence.”

I respectfully disagree, good sir. Had you written “But is it a legitimate truthful story of Jesus and his wife or not?” I would have had no comment. The papyrus fragment is evidence (not proof) that Jesus had a wife, but provides no clue as to her name. There is a tradition that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene, but this fragment does nothing to support that supposition. Perhaps Jesus was in fact married, but his wife’s name was Trudie. Since Mary of Magdala is in fact mentioned by name in the surviving Gospels, is it comapratively likely or unlikely that her status as Jesus’s wife would be omitted?

There is a tradition that Jesus was married, there is a tradition that Jesus had a female disciple, and of course there is a clear association with Mary Magdalene, but there is no cause to presume that these were the same woman.

Compare this to the recent discovery of the supposed grave and remains of Richard III; that there appears to be evidence supporting his spinal defect, it does nothing one way or the other to support the tradition that his twisted body resulted in a twisted mind.:-)

I’m perfectly comfortable allowing others to believe what they choose so long as they do not force their beliefs on others. As to doubt, I heartily recommend it for keeping the brain active. Nothing is so stagnating as the believe that one has all the answers.

The Epistles of Paul are the earliest. Scholars debate and debate, based on historical and internal/external evidence, but the following are considered authentically written by Paul:First Thessalonians (ca. 51 AD)Philippians (ca. 52-54 AD)Philemon (ca. 52-54 AD)First Corinthians (ca. 53-54 AD)Galatians (ca. 55 AD)Second Corinthians (ca. 55-56 AD)Romans (ca. 55-58 AD)

Also, the choice of books in the New Testament, and the order in which they appear, is the Canon, which, as the Catholic Encyclopedia says:"The idea of a complete and clear-cut canon of the New Testament existing from the beginning, that is from Apostolic times, has no foundation in history. The Canon of the New Testament, like that of the Old, is the result of a development, of a process at once stimulated by disputes with doubters, both within and without the Church, and retarded by certain obscurities and natural hesitations, and which did not reach its final term until the dogmatic definition of the Tridentine Council. [16th century AD].

I’m not a Christian, nor do I believe that the New Testament was inspired by God. But I am a historian, and I do know a little about ancient history, and Biblical scholarship. The letters of Paul were largely written by Paul, and all less than 30 years after the death of Jesus. The Gospels were written a bit later. Mark around 70 CE, and the others by 100 CE. They are not eye-witness accounts written by people with modern journalistic ideas of accuracy, but they weren’t written centuries later, either. They are documents of faith, not reportage. There is a large difference between them and a scrap of papyrus from three centuries later. If you mean that neither “prove” anything about Jesus, you’re right. Nevertheless, as evidence of the nature of his life, there is some difference in quality.

you scoffer posters are putting Liberal apostate criticisms as if they were “Gospel Truth”….what unbelievers say and claim is irrelevant. There were many phoney writings at the same time as the First Church in Jerusalem, when Paul the Apostle of Jesus Christ was writing epistles….the Gnostics were notorious, pretending to write for God, but God had not inspired their writings and the writings were not the quality of the genuine scrolls adopted into the Bible.-God the Son, eternal God in spirit form, came to earth to a virgin who consented to the angel’s announcement, and God the Father spiritually caused a miracle conception to give the Son a human body without any human DNA so that Jesus’ blood would be pure and without taint of sin.-Jesus did not come to marry any woman. Jesus came to obey the Father’s will and preach to the Jews for 3 years, giving them the opportunity to accept Jesus as Messiah,but the Jewish leaders rejected Him and the only other mission Jesus had was to be the Lamb of God on the cross, dying and shedding His holy blood to provide Atonement for sins for repentant sinners.-it amazes me how foolish men are to freely publish blasphemy, with the knowledge that the inspired Bible tells us God will Judge every person….Saving Faith does not permit blasphemy.

I think you hit the wrong “Reply” button, right?

So long as religious doctrine is kept vague and metaphorical, it can have a certain poetic value, but as soon as it aspires to be the “truth” in any scientific or logical way, it just gets totally tangled up and trips over itself. My advice for believers is don’t try to make sense, just stick with the warm and fuzzy feelings.

For anybody who’s interested in a thought-provoking take on “Jesus the Man,” you could do worse than check out “The Gospel According to Jesus Christ” by (Portuguese Nobel laureate) Jose Saramago. In it, Jesus is both the begotten son of God and the firstborn son of Mary and Joseph, much to his (Jesus’s) confusion. And although (in this book) Jesus and Mary of Magdala live as man and wife, no official “marriage” could be performed because of the Magdalene’s past as a prostitute. It is of course a work of fiction and should not be taken as anything else, but if the “traditional” Christians claimed the authority to issue fatwahs (and on this point it often appears that they are envious of the Muslims even as they are condemning them), this book would surely provide grounds. Alas, Saramago is already dead, so they can take solace in the idea that he even now lies howling.

zippy06 said, 1 day agoTry to substitute Mohammad for Jesus. In Islam Jesus is a prophet. Funny how that gets left out…(end quote)-The “Jesus” in Islam is nothing like the Bible Jesus.Islam denies that God had a son.Islam teaches that the Bible Jesus did not die on a cross, did not experience Resurrection. Islam teaches that Jesus was merely human, and will return to earth as a Muslim and deny the New Testament Bible record, and serve as aide to Islam’s Mahdi, and kill all Jews and Christians and destroy all symbols of the cross.-@ahab, I mis-spoke…I meant to say that Jesus, conceived by a miracle, and God in heaven being his earthly father, was born without a human man’s DNA. Of course Jesus had his virgin mother’s DNA. Jesus was totally “Man” and totally “God”…..and therefore the only possible sacrifice to atone for mankind’s sin. “Without the shedding of blood there is no remittance (of sin)”….God’s Rule.-If the Bible is not true, then every human is lost. But God did “inspire” thoughts into God’s selected authors of His Word….one of the reasons God created the Jewish race was to give the world the Word of God, and to preserve it.-Jesus Christ, the Messiah of Israel, the Lamb of God, is the only possible salvation for humans. I believe it is best to take God’s Word for the truth and believe it and trust God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Scriptures from Genesis to Revelation clearly teach the trinity of God.