
The contested papyrus “The Gospel of Jesus’s Wife” - panic
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/07/the-unbelievable-tale-of-jesus-wife/485573/?single_page=true
======
33degrees
Worth noting that, after reading the article, the researcher now thinks the
papyrus is probably a fake:
[http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/06/karen-
ki...](http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/06/karen-king-
responds-to-the-unbelievable-tale-of-jesus-wife/487484/)

~~~
cpncrunch
More info:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Jesus%27_Wife](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Jesus%27_Wife)

It certainly sounds like it's a fake.

------
openasocket
The article said the papyrus is from the 8th century, which is rather recent
compared to other apocryphal texts, I think. I thought the various Churches
had consolidated around the canonical bible centuries before then?

If this isn't some kind of hoax (very big if), I'd be curious to know who was
writing/copying what would have been considered very heretical at the time.

~~~
lotharbot
> _" I thought the various Churches had consolidated around the canonical
> bible centuries before then?"_

The Bible canon was at least semi-established in around the 2nd century, and
by the end of the 4th century the canon was very stable. There were still
ongoing disagreements between branches of the church, but never over whether a
"new" writing should be included, always over writings from the first or
possibly early second centuries, or older Jewish writings. An 8th century
writing would not have warranted much attention.

IMO the non-canonical "gospels" from after ~150 AD are uninteresting. The
interesting stuff, outside of the canon, are the really old writings (
[http://earlychristianwritings.com/](http://earlychristianwritings.com/) ) and
the commentary/teachings of early church leaders
([http://www.ccel.org/fathers.html](http://www.ccel.org/fathers.html) ).

~~~
sgt101
A lack of printing presses surely means that while it might have been
"written" in 800AD it may have been authored well before?

~~~
lotharbot
sure, it _could_ have been. There are a lot of other markers scholars look for
determine whether it _actually was_.

The wikipedia page for this particular manuscript gives a brief description of
the reasons this is considered a forgery:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Jesus%27_Wife](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Jesus%27_Wife)

------
sireat
This was a great piece of investigative reporting.

If you register an appropriate domain 3 weeks before the news go public, that
is very suspicious indeed.

~~~
vintermann
Yeah, never mind the theology, this story gives a scary view of how an
experienced scammer/conman can work. The part at the end, where he implicitly
admits that he's been found out, but tries to tempt the journalist with
getting in on the scam -- wow.

------
ZanyProgrammer
It's fascinating, but dates from hundreds of years after Christ and falls
nicely in the genre of Apocryphal Gospels, of which some indeed strike modern
fancies as bizarre.

~~~
nzealand
Where do you draw the line?

The canonical gospel fragments also date from hundreds of years after Christ,
and some of the later fragments seem also increasingly bizarre.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
I think your data is out of date. I quick glance at Wikipedia says that there
are at least two copies from the 2nd century, and 38 from the 3rd or earlier.

It also says, "The New Testament books appear to have been completed within
the 1st century." This is on the basis of comparing manuscripts and tracking
changes (textual criticism).

~~~
nzealand
I was deliberately vague, because it has been a while since I read about this,
and because nothing is entirely certain. The earliest fragments are tiny e.g.
P52 and they don't have a precise date.

There is also heated debate about when the gospels were written, the order in
which they were written in, and if they were added to at a later date.

~~~
lotharbot
Generally speaking, the debate among scholars isn't "heated", and they're not
very far apart in their conclusions.

For example, the Gospel of John is usually dated to within 90-110 AD for
authorship. That's not a wide range. Luke is usually dated to 80-90 AD but a
few scholars argue a date as late as 110 AD. That's about as extreme as the
disagreement gets among serious scholars discussing canonical writings.

There also aren't substantial scholarly disagreements about the gospels being
added to or modified -- there are passages that are widely agreed upon as
additions, which will be marked in basically any Bible from the last 5 decades
or so. It's a common lay theory that there were major rewrites in the 4th
century (Constantine), but I'm not aware of any serious scholars of textual
criticism who believe it, because the manuscript evidence we have is actually
strong in establishing tight authorship dates and clear indications as to what
has and hasn't been edited.

The actual disputes are over subtleties, like Matthew 5:22 talking about being
angry with a brother [without cause]. The phrase in brackets is in most
manuscripts but missing from many of the oldest well-preserved manuscripts,
and there is disagreement over whether it was added as a helpful clarification
or accidentally skipped because it starts with the same letter as the next
word (in textual criticism, skipping a word in this way is called
"homoioarcton". This is a well-established field with its own technical
vocabulary.)

My comments in other subthreads detail why I don't treat the gospels of Judas
or Mary as significant -- based on their later authorship dates, clear non-
Jewishness in style and substance, and even their lack of names of people and
places pointing toward them being written by non-eyewitnesses.

~~~
nzealand
I agree the debates largely aren't about the dating & inconsistencies in the
various transcripts we have today (although that is debated.)

The debates are regarding the underlying source documents that were used to
assemble the gospels. E.g. Was there a Q? What was in Q? When was Q written?
Who wrote Q? Why do the gospel stories have apparent contradictions? Who wrote
those stories? Why? When? Based on what? How did they decide what to include
and what to exclude? Do we even know what the original disciples thought of
these stories?

There is so much we don't know about that first 100 years. At some point
certain collected writings were deemed more authoritative, and there was a
systematic purging of any disagreeable texts.

If you accept that parts of the gospel were written later in the first century
based on stories that had been communicated verbally over long periods of time
between different cities, cultures and languages... then the difference
between the canon and the apocrypha becomes a little more blurry.

E.g. The Infancy Gospel of Thomas also date from the second century, and
clearly shows wild stories were circulating verbally then being written down
and accepted as canon by certain remote churches.

To paraphrase Ehrman & Fredriksen, you can argue that the stories in the
gospels evolved and were selected largely to make certain theological points,
or to counter the prevalent arguments against the religious movement.

------
aruggirello
> On August 26, 2012—more than three weeks before King announced her discovery
> to the world, when only her inner circle knew of the papyrus and her name
> for it—Walter Fritz registered the domain name www.gospelofjesuswife.com.

This. He should've registered www.howtoforge.com too, just in case :-)

------
adwf
If you think about it logically for the era, it's incredibly unlikely that
Jesus was actually unmarried. The typical age for marriage all the way up
until the 20th century was somewhere between puberty and 20. Jesus didn't
start his ministry until he was 30. It's really very possible that he was
married, maybe even a widower. The fact that no gospel mentions it, could be
the exact same reason women get ignored throughout the rest of history.

~~~
forkandwait
I agree that Jesus was probably married...

.. But your statement about the age at marriage is wrong, at least for Western
Europe since about 1400, which has had late marriage and uniquely high
proportions never married. If you haven't fact checked your demography
assumptions, you are probably wrong.

The story that Jesus was unmarried was probably promulgated by the Roman
Catholic Church, with it's uniquely weird attachment to celibacy. Which, of
course, has affected Western European demography in many complicated ways.

~~~
dragonwriter
> The story that Jesus was unmarried was probably promulgated by the Roman
> Catholic Church, with it's uniquely weird attachment to celibacy.

The discipline of clerical celibacy in the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic
Church (at least one non-Latin Rite Church in union with Rome existed at the
time, and there are more now) was a explicitly a adopted in response to
repeated scandal, not theological necessity (which is why it is a discipline
of the Latin Rite and not a universal law of the Church.)

The widespread Christian acceptance of the belief that Jesus was never married
long predates this.

~~~
ubertaco
> The discipline of clerical celibacy in the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic
> Church (at least one non-Latin Rite Church in union with Rome existed at the
> time, and there are more now) was a explicitly a adopted in response to
> repeated scandal, not theological necessity (which is why it is a discipline
> of the Latin Rite and not a universal law of the Church.)

Oh, well there we go. As a protestant (second time noting that in this thread)
I've always wondered about why the Pope at least had to be celibate when Peter
himself was married.

This explanation makes much more sense -- it wasn't a doctrinal requirement,
but a sort of external job requirement.

------
akkartik
The repeated mentions of Da Vinci Code notwithstanding, the book this most
reminded me of was a trashy novel from an earlier generation:
[https://www.amazon.com/Word-Novel-Irving-
Wallace/dp/06712115...](https://www.amazon.com/Word-Novel-Irving-
Wallace/dp/0671211536)

------
teekert
If you are interested in this kind of thing, you will like this book:
[http://www.asecretoftheuniverse.com/](http://www.asecretoftheuniverse.com/)

It goes into the existence of Jesus but through the story of a pilot with an
interest in philosophy. The author released the entire audio book as a podcast
but is was only available for a limited time. I listened to it as it came out.
Very nice, the book, although it is fiction contains real existing characters
and a lot of foot notes to build arguments. I will not spoil the end, but the
theory it builds is quite interesting.

------
riffraff
> Jesus’s bachelorhood helps form the basis for priestly celibacy, and his
> all-male cast of apostles has long been cited to justify limits on women’s
> religious leadership

is the second part (male apostles -> no female priests) an actual tenet of
christian churches?

AFAIR in the roman catholic tradition the reason for male-only priesthood had
to do with some "fatherly" attributes that a priest must have, which is also
why gay priests are not allowed. And I know that some protestant churches
allow women priests so I am curious about _who_ cites the male apostles
thingy.

~~~
michaelsbradley
Quick and authoritative summary of the Catholic position:

 _Ordinatio sacerdotalis_ , 22 May 1994, Pope John Paull II

[https://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-
ii/en/apost_letters/...](https://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-
ii/en/apost_letters/1994/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_19940522_ordinatio-
sacerdotalis.html)

~~~
riffraff
thanks!

------
huxley
Reminded me quite a bit of the stories in Orson Welles' "F is for Fake" (1973)

------
AdmiralAsshat
_King has been particularly interested in noncanonical, or Gnostic, texts that
assign Mary Magdalene a prominent role as Jesus’s confidante and disciple._

Blargh. Not every apocryphal text is Gnostic. Gnosticism was just one of many
"flavors" that developed in Christianity's infancy.

~~~
ZanyProgrammer
I think that was just sloppy reporting, not King's quote.

~~~
chimeracoder
It looks like sloppy editing. The following have four slightly different
meanings:

> interested in noncanonical Gnostic texts

> interested in noncanonical, Gnostic texts

> interested in noncanonical or Gnostic texts

> interested in noncanonical, or Gnostic, texts

~~~
drewbug
What's the difference between the first two?

~~~
ashark
The first strongly implies that there are canonical Gnostic texts and that the
interest is in only the non-canonical variety.

The second indicates texts that are both non-canonical and Gnostic. Doesn't
rule out all misinterpretations but at least doesn't imply them. Probably the
best version of this that can be accomplished with small changes.

Third states that the interest is in texts that are _either_ non-canonical
_or_ gnostic without a requirement that they be both of those things (a little
similar to the first but without drawing as much attention to the implication
of canonical gnostic texts)

The fourth defines Gnostic texts as synonymous with non-canonical texts.

------
honua
Who cares about his wife if we still can't get what he looked like right. He
wasn't European.. let's stop drawing him that way.

~~~
lotharbot
The failure of mostly renaissance-era artists to properly represent Jesus'
ethnicity in no way reflects on the validity of this particular "contested"
manuscript. It is kind of goofy and likely contributes to the conflation of
American nationalism and Christianity, but this isn't really the thread for
it.

~~~
honua
Right, but the cover image of the manuscript uses of those style of images.
Kind of goofy is a strange way to say racist.

------
gnaritas
Religion isn't a search for truth, it's a search for answers, even bad ones.
If they wanted truth, there wouldn't be any religion.

~~~
dang
Litigating the truth-or-falsehood-of-all-religion is a classic ( _the_
classic) religious flamewar topic, and as you know that is not allowed here.

We detached this comment from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11918569](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11918569)
and marked it off-topic.

------
maranatha84
@trbooks"This belongs on HN why?" Exactly!

It is a bit arduous to comprehend why HN is so eager to distribute such news
which are a bit irritating for believer members like me. It is sad that it is
always one sided.

~~~
virmundi
I have no idea why it's here except for an interesting topic with research
involved.

As to it being irritating to believers, I don't understand why. Jesus was a
rabbi. In this story he married a believer. Rabbis traditionally married
devout women. But what do I know? I'm just a believer that is also a de-
aproned freemasons currently researching the rosicrucians.

~~~
lotharbot
> _" As to it being irritating to believers, I don't understand why."_

Two key ideas:

1) Jesus is "married to" the church, as a whole, in traditional Christian
doctrine. Being married to a woman would slightly complicate that theory.

2) Theories about Jesus marrying some particular woman are usually not _only_
about that, but come with other baggage attached -- like accusations of
suppression of knowledge, or suggested massive rewrites of Christian ideas.
And they're typically based on a lot of speculation tied to things written
centuries after the fact, not based on careful historical study.

------
tbrooks
This belongs on HN why?

~~~
dang
Anything intellectually interesting belongs on HN. Please see
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).

~~~
erichocean
At best, that standard is applied VERY selectively.

Yesterday, an article by an Ars Technica founder about a technology that few
people on HN have any experience with described an "open-source, modular
weapons platform"—the AR-15 rifle—in a way that techies can understand.[0]

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11912665](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11912665)

Guess what? It was [flagged]. This was my response to that article being
flagged (on that thread):

> _This article is absolutely appropriate for HN, had an active, engaged, and
> non-hostile comment section, and SHOULD NOT have been banned /flagged as
> inappropriate. We are all worse off because it was._

> _I strongly suspect that those hitting the "flag" button did so on
> ideological grounds, in order to shut down discussion they did not approve
> of._

~~~
dang
There's a long tradition on HN of users flagging stories on highly politicized
topics, because such discussions typically become ideological and uncivil, two
qualities that we seek to avoid in discussion here. That's what happened to
that AR-15 story: [flagged] means users flagged it.

We've learned that such flags are an important community signal and it's a bad
idea to override them unless there's a clear reason to. I didn't see a clear
reason, because (a) the article was deliberately provocative, (b) its timing
was particularly provocative, to the point of trolling, and (c) the discussion
(though not as bad as it could have been) was close to flames, and likely
would have become a full-out war if we had intervened to turn off the flags.
Flags are a pressure valve for the functioning of the site.

On HN, a situation like that is complicated and involves multiple factors
other than intellectual curiosity, which indeed are stronger than intellectual
curiosity and tend to drown it out. In your description of the article above
you highlight only the intellectual aspect (clear description of a little-
understood technology) and omit the problematic ones, but the latter nearly
always overpower the former. By contrast, stories about contested 8th century
papyri are clearly on-topic and not particularly likely to violate the values
of the site (marginal religious skirmishes aside).

If you were particularly interested in the AR-15 story, I can understand the
frustration of seeing others flag it. Most HN users have the same frustration,
but we all have it about different things. Other people complained yesterday
that the AR-15 story was (in their opinion) being featured on HN while the
latest post about Jacob Appelbaum was (in their opinion) being suppressed. In
fact it was the same factor—user flags—working the same way in both cases, and
the application of HN's standards wasn't selective. It just seemed like it
was, because we notice it more in any case we dislike.

------
justifier
> Never before had an ancient manuscript alluded to Jesus’s being married.

yeah, because the church tried to suppress the gospels: thomas, mary, judas,
and 30+ others; that contained contrarian views to their goals

one goal being the subordinate status of women

the gospel of mary sits blatantly in the face christian doctrine:

Chapter 9(o)

1) When Mary had said this, she fell silent, since it was to this point that
the Savior had spoken with her.

2) But Andrew answered and said to the brethren, Say what you wish to say
about what she has said. I at least do not believe that the Savior said this.
For certainly these teachings are strange ideas.

3) Peter answered and spoke concerning these same things.

4) He questioned them about the Savior: Did He really speak privately with a
woman and not openly to us? Are we to turn about and all listen to her? Did He
prefer her to us?

5) Then Mary wept and said to Peter, My brother Peter, what do you think? Do
you think that I have thought this up myself in my heart, or that I am lying
about the Savior?

6) Levi answered and said to Peter, Peter you have always been hot tempered.

7) Now I see you contending against the woman like the adversaries.

8) But if the Savior made her worthy, who are you indeed to reject her? Surely
the Savior knows her very well.

9) That is why He loved her more than us. Rather let us be ashamed and put on
the perfect Man, and separate as He commanded us and preach the gospel, not
laying down any other rule or other law beyond what the Savior said.

10) And when they heard this they began to go forth to proclaim and to preach.

(o)
[http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/gospelmary.html](http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/gospelmary.html)

~~~
hyperpape
> Never before had an ancient manuscript alluded to Jesus’s being married.
> yeah, because the church tried to smother the gospels: thomas, mary, judas,
> and 30+ others; that contained contrarian views to their goals

That's not really relevant here. There are a tremendous number of records of
beliefs/gospels which the modern church considers heretical, including ones
which pertain to the status of women.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acts_of_Paul_and_Thecla](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acts_of_Paul_and_Thecla)

The claim is not "this isn't church doctrine", it's "there's no other
historical record of people telling this story". It would be surprising,
though not strictly impossible, for this to have been a major gospel in
ancient history without some record of it being found by now.

~~~
carterehsmith
Your post is super confusing and contradicts itself.

1) "There are a tremendous number of records of beliefs/gospels which the
modern church considers heretical, including ones which pertain to the status
of women"

2) "there's no other historical record of people telling this story"

So which one is it? Is there a "tremendous number" of them, or is there "no
other historical record"?

You can't have both. Either there is, or there is not.

~~~
hyperpape
"This story" meant the story that Jesus was married. Other apocryphal gospels
say things about women that sometimes contradict the orthodox opinion, but
they do not say that Jesus was married.

To reiterate what I am saying: there are plenty of historical records of the
church attacking heresies in the ancient world, supported by both the writings
of the church fathers and the writings of the heretics themselves. What this
article points out is that we do not have any other ancient writings that
allude to anyone believing that Jesus was married. It is, as far as we can
tell, not something that was ever in dispute.

