Study Claims Papyrus That Says Jesus Had a Wife is Real

[K12]

If it's the message of the Bible that's important to you then this doesn't really matter and if it's the factual nature of it then you've got much better sources of evidence to explain away.

Still, this is interesting.

 

[VondeVon]

"Why is it that people had such an incredible reaction to this?"

Maybe because anyone who has built their lives, faith and industry around certain things being absolutely true, is going to lash out when any part of that, no matter how apparently insignificant, is threatened. To prove one 'truth' wrong would open the door to challenge others. Or that's what I think.

 

[Dragonbums]

Even if it's real it's still hundreds of years after Jesus supposedly died so its historical relevance on Jesus itself is small to none. It may have relevance as a historical document of its time and the state of religion at its time, but this isn't proof of anything directly relating to Jesus and whether he even actually existed.

Not going after what you said specifically- just making a general statement here:

Honestly that can be said about practically anything in the bible involving Jesus. The man died 200 years ago when the bible was first written. A lot- if not almost everything about the man can be pure speculation.

The only thing that probably had definite truth to it was his execution by the Roman capital. And even so the Romans (and their subsequent citizens) did not make that big of a fucking deal about it.

 

[F'Angus]

The papyrus itself may be real. But what's written on it may not be the truth. I mean look at all the Lies Pliny and Herodotus wrote in their 'hostories'.

I does however open up some serious thoughts, the Bible was edited greatly so who knows what was put in or taken out.

 

[Muspelheim]

Well, he was a charismatic cult leader, after all. They do tend to make a few friends and relations along the way, I'd be more surprised if there weren't any bastards of his somewhere.

 

[TheTygre]

Right. So it's real.

Now we can throw it on the pile with The Gospel of Judas, The Gospel of Magdalene, The Gospel of Thomas, The Apocalypse of Peter, and all the other unofficial New Testament documents.

 

[mrdude2010]

It could very well be the equivalent of fan fiction, but I don't really see it changing much. The church does a good job of hiding anything it suspects makes it look bad.

 

[Programmed_For_Damage]

'Why does Jesus being married, or not, even matter? Why is it that people had such an incredible reaction to this?'

To me, it doesn't. In fact it would make more sense to me. If Jesus is God incarnate and took on earthly form to experience life as his creation, why not get married? Isn't that a big part, especially back then, of the human experience?

The "first pope" Peter was married, yet somehow the Catholic Church decided it wasn't o.k for the clergy to marry. I studied Biblical history for a couple of years and the amount of revisions the Bible has been through is "thought provoking" to say the least. Some gospels got edited out because they were clearly inconsistent with everything else, in style and tone. Others got pushed out because they were irrelevant. This is probably something that got left on the cutting room floor of one of the council meetings when they were debating points of the Bible.

 

[fenrizz]

The papyrus itself may be real. But what's written on it may not be the truth.

Indeed.
Do not trust a document merely because it is old.
Besides, the text deosn't really tell us much, it's just random snippets of original text.

Well, he was a charismatic cult leader, after all. They do tend to make a few friends and relations along the way, I'd be more surprised if there weren't any bastards of his somewhere.

True that.

 

[Beffudled Sheep_v1legacy]

And just to be clear, I'm skeptical that Jesus even existed since there's no historical record of him other than the Bible and writings from hundreds of years after he supposedly died, even though several prominent historians were alive concurrently.

There is a mention of a "Christus" by Tacitus in The Annals.
Its quick and not much detail is given but it is a non-Bible, non-Christian reference to early Christians and Christ.
Bolded the relevant bit.

Spoiler: The specific passage if you're interested

Such indeed were the precautions of human wisdom. The next thing was to seek means of propitiating the gods, and recourse was had to the Sibylline books, by the direction of which prayers were offered to Vulcanus, Ceres, and Proserpina. Juno, too, was entreated by the matrons, first, in the Capitol, then on the nearest part of the coast, whence water was procured to sprinkle the fane and image of the goddess. And there were sacred banquets and nightly vigils celebrated by married women. But all human efforts, all the lavish gifts of the emperor, and the propitiations of the gods, did not banish the sinister belief that the conflagration was the result of an order. Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired. Nero offered his gardens for the spectacle, and was exhibiting a show in the circus, while he mingled with the people in the dress of a charioteer or stood aloft on a car. Hence, even for criminals who deserved extreme and exemplary punishment, there arose a feeling of compassion; for it was not, as it seemed, for the public good, but to glut one man's cruelty, that they were being destroyed.

This was written after Jesus' death but not centuries after.
At the very least it is interesting.

 

[elvor0]

-snipetty-

And just to be clear, I'm skeptical that Jesus even existed since there's no historical record of him other than the Bible and writings from hundreds of years after he supposedly died, even though several prominent historians were alive concurrently.

eh I dunno, I'm a strong athiest myself, but I'm inclined to believe he did exist, but not as the bible portrays him; myths are born out of fact after all. Basically I like to think he was a Roman era John Lennon, the first recorded major celebrity, if you will. The 12 deciples were real, they were his fans, but they wern't the guys who wrote the disciple gospels. Judas may have been in on it though, selling Jesus out and all.

Basically after Jesus did all this nice stuff and got a bit of a following, did a few major tours, etc etc, Judas got a bit jealous, sold him out, the Romans crucified him, and then eventually what would become the christian church organisation (not Jesus' fanbase though), presumably born out of a sect of radical Romans and "Jews" (for the love of god don't take that the wrong way) used him as a martyr to implement their own beliefs rather than what Jesus actually preached.

 

[KingDragonlord]

Its funny the woman who released this finding seems to be contradicting herself a bit in her quotes but I could be missing some context. I was under the impression that the real issue here was female disciples, not Jesus having a wife (which, if the papyrus proves anything, it proves the former.)

The impact of that could be more denominations accepting women as actual clergy, deacons, priests. But it won't amount to anything.

Put yourselves in our shoes. Lets say you're a Christian but you're also really open to the idea of Jesus having a wife and women being clergy. Even if that was the case, I'd still be really skeptical to change course based on something this small. If you believe, then this stuff is crucial. A piece of paper with a few sentence fragments is not enough to go on and I think God would be more willing to forgive sticking with all the documentation and tradition of the faith as opposed to taking the leap to embrace this scrap of paper (or papyrus, whatever).

 

[Sight Unseen]

Snip

This is an interesting quote and something I was not aware existed and appears to be considered genuine after I briefly researched it so thank you for bringing it to my attention. Learned something new today

There's still a few problems though. Tacitus was born ~20 years after Jesus died and this writing must have been 60-70 years after Jesus died. Tacitus also lived in Rome so he wasn't actually around where Christianity originated, so he'd likely only be hearing the hearsay and rumours of travellers and immigrants 1-2 generations removed from Jesus himself. Rumours spread quickly and once they're out they're hard to separate from fact.

I still find it really really strange that no writer outside of the Bible ever commented on the fact that Jesus supposedly performed miracles. I mean, if there was some guy wandering around curing uncurable diseases and creating food out of nothing and walking on water, don't you think that would attract a lot of attention and eventually catch the interest of SOMEONE who could write about it?

-snipetty-

And just to be clear, I'm skeptical that Jesus even existed since there's no historical record of him other than the Bible and writings from hundreds of years after he supposedly died, even though several prominent historians were alive concurrently.

eh I dunno, I'm a strong athiest myself, but I'm inclined to believe he did exist, but not as the bible portrays him; myths are born out of fact after all. Basically I like to think he was a Roman era John Lennon, the first recorded major celebrity, if you will. The 12 deciples were real, they were his fans, but they wern't the guys who wrote the disciple gospels. Judas may have been in on it though, selling Jesus out and all.

Basically after Jesus did all this nice stuff and got a bit of a following, did a few major tours, etc etc, Judas got a bit jealous, sold him out, the Romans crucified him, and then eventually what would become the christian church organisation (not Jesus' fanbase though), presumably born out of a sect of radical Romans and "Jews" (for the love of god don't take that the wrong way) used him as a martyr to implement their own beliefs rather than what Jesus actually preached.

I'm just imagining Jesus as a bronze age rock star now, so thank you for that

 

[Nieroshai]

Even if it's real it's still hundreds of years after Jesus supposedly died so its historical relevance on Jesus itself is small to none. It may have relevance as a historical document of its time and the state of religion at its time, but this isn't proof of anything directly relating to Jesus and whether he even actually existed.

EDIT: A lot of people seem to be misunderstanding what I meant so Im going to repost my reply to someone else where I tried to clarify.

Since I am an atheist, I think you may have misunderstood my point . I was saying that this document being legitimate may make it a real historical artifact for its time ( which was well after the time frame where Jesus may have actually lived) as a piece of writing. But it's historical merit for saying anything concrete about Jesus is nonexistant since a) it's way more recent than Jesus so anything it says about him is most likely inaccurate and been passed through dozens of generations of verbal transfer and b) (as far as I know) we dont even know who wrote this or if the person had any authority or real knowledge on the matter so it can't be used as a credible source.

And just to be clear, I'm skeptical that Jesus even existed since there's no historical record of him other than the Bible and writings from hundreds of years after he supposedly died, even though several prominent historians were alive concurrently.

So this papyrus may be a neat artifact that may be a window into the time when it was written, but it says nothing at all about Jesus.

Sorry for the misunderstanding.

Josephus, for starters, and other non-believer scholars of the day. He saw Jesus as a rabble-rouser and possibly a charlatan.

 

[Sight Unseen]

Even if it's real it's still hundreds of years after Jesus supposedly died so its historical relevance on Jesus itself is small to none. It may have relevance as a historical document of its time and the state of religion at its time, but this isn't proof of anything directly relating to Jesus and whether he even actually existed.

EDIT: A lot of people seem to be misunderstanding what I meant so Im going to repost my reply to someone else where I tried to clarify.

Since I am an atheist, I think you may have misunderstood my point . I was saying that this document being legitimate may make it a real historical artifact for its time ( which was well after the time frame where Jesus may have actually lived) as a piece of writing. But it's historical merit for saying anything concrete about Jesus is nonexistant since a) it's way more recent than Jesus so anything it says about him is most likely inaccurate and been passed through dozens of generations of verbal transfer and b) (as far as I know) we dont even know who wrote this or if the person had any authority or real knowledge on the matter so it can't be used as a credible source.

And just to be clear, I'm skeptical that Jesus even existed since there's no historical record of him other than the Bible and writings from hundreds of years after he supposedly died, even though several prominent historians were alive concurrently.

So this papyrus may be a neat artifact that may be a window into the time when it was written, but it says nothing at all about Jesus.

Sorry for the misunderstanding.

Josephus, for starters, and other non-believer scholars of the day. He saw Jesus as a rabble-rouser and possibly a charlatan.

All of the sources I've read regarding Josephus point to his writings about Jesus being fake.

 

[Nieroshai]

Uhm little fact. if the name is actually Jesus: it's a fake. Jesus is not a hebrew name.

Or perhaps the translator is just using Jesus in place of the more correct Joshua because most people in the world recognize him by his Greek name?

No 'expert' would willingly perpetuate an error.

Piltdown Man, Haeckel's Illustration, The Turk Automaton, and even Nietzsche's authoritative works on Race were all believed by experts of their time to be authentic or legitimate research. Some still think Haeckel's Illustration is legitimate, and it still sees printing in biology textbooks.

 

[Nieroshai]

From what I learned in my most recent theology class, a lot of the early Christian church had an emphasis on the power of women, but most of it was thrown out by the time anything got organized. I don't see why Jesus wouldn't have a wife, and I certainly don't see how it goes against anything else in the Bible.

That said, though, we have texts predating this one that said Jesus rose from the dead, and also did many of his most famous acts the exact same way at two completely different times in his career. I'm not sure we can count these things as 100% reliable.

Where it really complicates things is if he had children, and why there are no gospels about them, and what being "the son of the Son of God" would entail. France claimed that its royal line was as such. What would it mean for the religion as a whole if there were descendants of Jesus walking around?

 

[Nieroshai]

Even if it's real it's still hundreds of years after Jesus supposedly died so its historical relevance on Jesus itself is small to none. It may have relevance as a historical document of its time and the state of religion at its time, but this isn't proof of anything directly relating to Jesus and whether he even actually existed.

EDIT: A lot of people seem to be misunderstanding what I meant so Im going to repost my reply to someone else where I tried to clarify.

Since I am an atheist, I think you may have misunderstood my point . I was saying that this document being legitimate may make it a real historical artifact for its time ( which was well after the time frame where Jesus may have actually lived) as a piece of writing. But it's historical merit for saying anything concrete about Jesus is nonexistant since a) it's way more recent than Jesus so anything it says about him is most likely inaccurate and been passed through dozens of generations of verbal transfer and b) (as far as I know) we dont even know who wrote this or if the person had any authority or real knowledge on the matter so it can't be used as a credible source.

And just to be clear, I'm skeptical that Jesus even existed since there's no historical record of him other than the Bible and writings from hundreds of years after he supposedly died, even though several prominent historians were alive concurrently.

So this papyrus may be a neat artifact that may be a window into the time when it was written, but it says nothing at all about Jesus.

Sorry for the misunderstanding.

Josephus, for starters, and other non-believer scholars of the day. He saw Jesus as a rabble-rouser and possibly a charlatan.

All of the sources I've read regarding Josephus point to his writings about Jesus being fake.

All of the sources I was given up until High School insisted that Columbus discovered the New World. Even if it was some other author, or even if "Paul" was multiple people, or even if Plato didn't write half of the things ascribed to him, those documents are at the very least dated back to those periods and regions, and at the very least were far more intact than this highly redacted paragraph that could easily be yet another parable. That being said, I feel many who immediately discredit secular accounts of Jesus are those who do not want him to have existed, let alone be legitimate. Science at its finest.

4 Love is [...] envy, [...] it is [...] proud. 5 It does [...] dishonor others, it is [...] self-seeking, it is [...] easily angered, it keeps [...] record of wrongs. 6 Love does [...] delight in evil [...] where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they [...] will pass away.

Doesn't at all say what it originally meant to, does it? Imagine if I put that on an ancient piece of cloth.

 

[Something Amyss]

That being said, I feel many who immediately discredit secular accounts of Jesus are those who do not want him to have existed, let alone be legitimate.

Yes, that's far more likely than being unconvinced by a lack of contemporary accounts. We should instead believe he existed because....Ponies?

Science at its finest.

Well, that statement was dishonesty at its finest.

Some still think Haeckel's Illustration is legitimate, and it still sees printing in biology textbooks.

[citation needed]

Of course, one of the issues is the case against Haeckel isn't as strong as people claim it is and the contemporary cases of fraud are largely unvalidated. All it took was for me to google "Haeckel's Illustration" to find that out.

Is this another one of those creationist perpetuations?