Could an ancient scrap of papyrus rock the foundations of Christianity as we know it?Professor Karen L. King, Historian of Early Christianity at Harvard Divinity School, has identified a 4th century, Coptic language papyrus fragment that contains a phrase never before seen in the scriptures:
Jesus said to them, “My wife . . .”
Elsewhere in the faded script, still more provocative words could be found:
She will be able to be my disciple.
While King cautions that this papyrus can’t be taken as proof that the historical Jesus was married, it suggests that some early Christians had a tradition that Jesus was married and that he had female disciples.
Both these themes prove highly contentious today. Particularly in the Roman Catholic Church, the belief that Jesus was chaste and chose only male apostles set the template for an exclusively male, celibate priesthood.
While expert papyrologists, including Dr. Roger Bagnall, Director of the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World in New York, have examined the fragment and judged it to be genuine, other international experts have expressed doubts about the fragment’s authenticity.
More here-
http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2012/09/23/jesus-had-a-wife-christianitys-best-kept-secret/
No comments:
Post a Comment