{"id":11849,"date":"2012-10-05T17:46:02","date_gmt":"2012-10-05T21:46:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/?p=11849"},"modified":"2012-10-05T19:59:17","modified_gmt":"2012-10-05T23:59:17","slug":"11849","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2012\/10\/11849","title":{"rendered":"Have they proved Jesus had a wife?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Does a tiny, recently unveiled scrap of papyrus prove that Jesus Christ had a wife? If so, it would contradict the Gospels and throw the entire New Testament and Christianity itself into doubt.<\/p>\n<p>However, the fragment itself is increasingly in doubt with the Smithsonian Channel postponing indefinitely the airing of an hour-long documentary on the document \u2013 and reports that a prominent academic journal scheduled to publish findings on the fragment has decided to hold off.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_11850\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-11850\" style=\"width: 480px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/140\/2012\/10\/scripture-1x.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11850\" title=\"scripture-1x\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/140\/2012\/10\/scripture-1x.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"480\" height=\"253\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-11850\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The papyrus fragment<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The first announcements about the discovery came from a professor at Harvard University Divinity School, Professor Karen L. King, a historian of early Christianity, who announced that an anonymous German collector had provided her with the fragment of ancient Coptic text \u2013 but could provide no details of when or where it was unearthed or by whom.<\/p>\n<p>On the fragment, Jesus is quoted as using the words \u201cmy wife.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Amid the flash of cameras and hubbub of a dazzled news media, Dr. King picked her words carefully and stopped short of endorsing the authenticity of the fragment. She declared she was making the finding public \u201cdespite many unresolved questions\u201d \u2013 so that her academic colleagues could weigh in, according to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2012\/09\/21\/us\/papyrus-fragment-that-refers-to-jesus-wife-stirs-debate.html?_r=0\">Laurie Goodstein reporting in the<em> New York Times.<\/em><\/a><em> <\/em><\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd weigh in, they have,\u201d noted Goodstein. \u201cA few said that the papyrus must be a forgery. Others have questioned Dr. King\u2019s interpretation of its meaning. Some have faulted her for publishing a paper on an item of unknown provenance. And many have criticized her decision to give the scrap of papyrus the attention-getting title \u2018The Gospel of Jesus\u2019s Wife,\u2019 as if it had equal weight to other, lengthier texts.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In Rome, the Vatican called the piece \u201cproblematic\u201d and falsified, according\u00a0 to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2012\/09\/29\/world\/europe\/vatican-says-papyrus-referring-to-jesus-wife-is-probably-fake.html\">Elisabetto Povoledo, also reporting in the <em>Times<\/em>.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The Smithsonian Channel was the first to back away from the fragment \u2013 postponing the broadcast of a quickly thrown-together <a href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/Faiths\/Home-Page-News-and-Views\/Have-they-proved-Jesus-was-married.aspx?p=2\"><em><strong>Continued on Page 2<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Does a tiny, recently unveiled scrap of papyrus prove that Jesus Christ had a wife? If so, it would contradict the Gospels and throw the entire New Testament and Christianity itself into doubt. However, the fragment itself is increasingly in doubt with the Smithsonian Channel postponing indefinitely the airing of an hour-long documentary on the&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":270,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[32,100,102],"tags":[391,2139,2137,2138],"class_list":["post-11849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christian","category-commentary","category-feature","tag-archeology","tag-forgery","tag-jesus-wife","tag-st-james-ossuary"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Have they proved Jesus had a wife?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2012\/10\/11849\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Have they proved Jesus had a wife?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Does a tiny, recently unveiled scrap of papyrus prove that Jesus Christ had a wife? 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If so, it would contradict the Gospels and throw the entire New Testament and Christianity itself into doubt. 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