Was Jesus married? (Religion)

by dhw, Thursday, September 20, 2012, 18:29 (4229 days ago)

In today's Guardian there are no less than three articles about a scrap of papyrus in Coptic script, presumed to have originated in Egypt, and containing the words: "Jesus said to them, 'my wife'", which researchers think may refer to Mary Magdalen. The disciples discuss whether Mary is "worthy", and Jesus replies, "she can be my disciple."-Kerboum! Some experts question the authenticity of the text, some question the meaning of the word "wife", and the Vatican has studiously ignored the academic conference at which Professor Karen King of Harvard Divinity School revealed the supposedly fourth-century papyrus. She thinks it is a copy of a second-century Greek gospel, and herself advises a cautious approach.-I would not wish to offend our Christian friends, but one can see very clearly why this sensational coverage engenders the utmost cynicism among the unconverted. There are probably millions of people now genuinely concerned about the implications of the fragment (hence the coverage). The Church established the traditional view that Jesus was celibate, and you have vast swathes of Christianity humphing and harrumphing over the very concept not only of him having sex, but also of any godly person having sex. You have nuns and priests depriving themselves (or in some cases scandalously not depriving themselves) because they genuinely believe Jesus wants them to. Would it demean him if it were actually to be proven that he had intercourse with Mary? Muhammad is reputed to have had nine wives, but no-one would dare complain about that (if they value their lives). Why the heck did the Christian God invent sex as the method of creating new life if he thought it was such a terrible thing? -I have to say that from my position on the picket fence, the very idea of all these learned folk discussing, analysing, agonising over a scrap of ancient papyrus (genuine or not), and over the question of whether a man whose life story we cannot possibly trace with even the slightest degree of certainty did or did not have sex, makes me wonder if theology is not a form of collective madness.