I don’t typically write about religious topics, but over the last couple of days, this seems to be a theme. I read about today’s topic in this morning’s newspaper and found it interesting enough to comment on.
It has come to light recently that Harvard Professor of Divinity Karen L. King has studied and translated an ancient piece of papyrus from an apparent Gospel. On this papyrus appears the phrase “…Jesus said to them, my wife…” Other parts of the text indicate that Jesus states she can be a disciple, and it mentions her name as Mary.
Making any kind of proclamation based on this text would be premature and reckless, as even the word wife could have more than one meaning. Nevertheless, the ramifications of this are potentially enormous, although anyone with a stake in the outcome will almost certainly disregard the evidence. I mean, if Jesus had a mate, then Catholic priests have been living in chastity for no reason for two thousand years! If this were verified today, the Catholic Church might relent in, say, another eight or nine hundred years. After all, they did admit their error on Galileo after several hundred years of scientific evidence to support the man.
Understand, there is a lot of controversy over this evidence, some of it stinking of self-interest and forgery.
Still, it does provide food for thought. If He indeed had taken a wife named Mary, could this be Mary Magdalene? She certainly hung around a lot, became one of His closest friends, and stayed with Him at the end. She would seem to be the most likely candidate, and it would explain their close friendship.
If found to be true, it certainly would shake things up at the Vatican. It is interesting to note how many Gospels were omitted from the Holy Bible. You can find a long list of them here, although what is now being called the Gospel of Jesus Wife” is not listed.
It is important to remember that when the Holy Bible was assembled, there was still a Caesar to appease. Much of early Christianity was reportedly centered around not being killed for their faith. I’m certainly no Biblical scholar, but the Roman Emperors were obviously influential enough to use scripture to their own ends.
In fact, through the course paging through a few quick Google searches pertaining to this blog post, I discovered a guy named Joseph Atwill, who believes the entirety of Christianity was an invention of Flavius Caesar’s Imperial court. (Watch the 64-second video clip to get the gist of his assertation. It’s a sales pitch but I’m not advocating his product.)
I won’t finish this post with a conclusion, but I do find it interesting how all of the canonical dogma backed by Rome comes into conflict with much of the archeological and other evidence. But, I leave conclusions for you to judge for yourself.
