By now, assuming you're one who keeps up with current events, you've heard about how the Jesus wife fragment is not fake:
A team of scientists has concluded that a controversial scrap of papyrus that purportedly quotes Jesus referring to "my wife," is not a fake, according to theHarvard Theological Review.
"A wide range of scientific testing indicates that a papyrus fragment containing the words, 'Jesus said to them, my wife' is an ancient document, dating between the sixth to ninth centuries CE," Harvard Divinity School said in a statement.
Scientists tested the papyrus and the carbon ink, and analyzed the handwriting and grammar, according to Harvard.
Radiocarbon tests conducted at Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology produced an origination date for the papyrus of 659-859 CE, according to Harvard. MIT also studied the chemical composition of the papyrus and patterns of oxidation.
Other scholars studied the carbon character of the ink and found that it matched samples of papyri from the first to eight century CE, according to Harvard.
"None of the testing has produced any evidence that the fragment is a modern fabrication or forgery," the divinity school said.
Shaun McAfee with a response the faithful should find worthwhile:
Among the writings of Irenaeus, Origen, Eusebeus, and Ephiphanaeus, four Christians who wrote extensively about texts which they were either familiar with or had heard of, and their general contents, this ‘Gospel of Jesus’ Wife’ is not among them. Also, to mark a document from the 7th or 8th century as “early”, is a stretch. By then, the canon was formed, the chaff was long separated from the wheat,
and early Christian history was largely sealed and encapsulated in many harmonious writings.
This aside, throughout the long history of Christianity many “disciples of Christ” have written some bizarre things about Jesus. One only needs to take a 30 second swim in The Apocryphon of John, an early Gnostic text, to see the sort of buffoonery that was working its way into the Christian world. Today we have “christian” sects who tell their adherents that Jesus was born on a different planet, and others who deny the authority he gave to Peter, and still others who have resurrected heresies like the Jehovah’s Witnesses have done with denying the Divinity of Christ, akin to Arianism.
What needs to be kept in mind during all of this is what the findings mean about this fragment, and what they don’t mean. ”Authentic” is not synonymous with “Orthodox”. Simply because a fragment was found and dates to the early periods of Christianity does not prove in any way that its contents are fact.
Additionally, fragments purporting something innovative about Jesus or Christianity is really nothing new. In 1945 entire libraries of early popular “christian” literature were discovered at Nag Hammadi, Egypt. Gnostic and otherwise orthodox and canonical texts were found in the heaps. Codices and scrolls that were mentioned by Irenaeus, Origen, Justin, and Epiphenaeus were discovered which were thought to be lost. Writings like the Odes of Solomon, likely the earliest Christian hymnbook, were found along with copies of Mark’s gospel, next to a massive codex of Gnostic and Montanistic texts. Some were found to be copies, others have been determined to be forgeries, and many were found to have been altered from earlier forms, such as the Acts of Pilate (Gospel of Nicodemus).
However numerous or ancient a manuscript or fragment is found to be doesn’t change anything. Just because one fragment has Jesus saying “my wife”, doesn’t give Him a wife, and even if it did say, “I am Jesus, I have a wife”, it doesn’t make said fragment orthodox. Said fragment would still be considered apocrypha, and we have plenty of those.
But, Jesus did have a wife. That spouse is still alive and will be forever unto perpetuity. We know her as his Church – you and me, joined in this mystical body. And to this spouse was given a special gift of protection. In sickness and in health, in times of good and times of bad, He promises to us that he will keep his bride from the gates of Hades (Matthew 16:18). The Church has been given the commission to make disciples, to teach, and to baptize (Matthew 28:19-20). If any of those is broken, then Jesus has unchained the gates of hell and poisoned our bodies. That would make Jesus a liar.
Thankfully, Jesus is God and God cannot lie.
Mr. McAfee will become a regular read.
