Religion
Related: About this forum
‘Gospel of Jesus’ Wife’ Fragment Is a Fake, Vatican Says
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - An ancient papyrus fragment which a Harvard scholar says contains the first recorded mention that Jesus may have had a wife is a fake, the Vatican said on Friday.
"Substantial reasons would lead one to conclude that the papyrus is indeed a clumsy forgery," the Vatican's newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, said in an editorial by its editor, Gian Maria Vian. "In any case, it's a fake."
Joining a highly charged academic debate over the authenticity of the text, written in ancient Egyptian Coptic, the newspaper published a lengthy analysis by expert Alberto Camplani of Rome's La Sapienza university, outlining doubts about the manuscript and urging extreme caution.
The fragment, which reads "Jesus said to them, my wife" was unveiled by Harvard Professor Karen King as a text from the 4th century at a congress of Coptic Studies in Rome last week.
more
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2012/09/28/world/middleeast/28reuters-religion-jesuswife.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight:
NoneDon't highlight anything
5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
Raster
(20,998 posts)Because you have the original manuscript of the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, wife of the mortal man, Jesus Christ, tucked safely away under lock, key and bulletproof glass in the Secret Vatican Archives.
Starboard Tack
(11,181 posts)Christ is a title, meaning messiah, that others attribute to him, not his name. Otherwise, I agree with you.
gateley
(62,683 posts)
no_hypocrisy
(46,075 posts)
cbayer
(146,218 posts)
Shadowflash
(1,536 posts)Evolution, global warming and priests that fondle children are fake, too.
Just sayin'.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)okasha
(11,573 posts)N/T
stopbush
(24,395 posts)Why would this be any different?
Oregonian
(209 posts)A document that's completely full of shit? You don't say!
Marrah_G
(28,581 posts)But then again, this is a tax-free corporation that has thrived on lies and manipulation since it's inception.
Kookaburra
(2,649 posts)Because we know they never say anything that isn't true.
BlueStreak
(8,377 posts)Starboard Tack
(11,181 posts)They did co-opt the legend though.
MineralMan
(146,284 posts)that fragment is supposed to have been created. They molded Christianity to become a European religion, and created the canon for the New Testament. The RCC had a great deal to do with establishing the mythology of Christianity. A great deal, indeed.
BlueStreak
(8,377 posts)That which we now know as "the story of Jesus" was formalized some 500 years after Jesus lived (or is said to have lived, if one believes the character is totally mythical.) Part of that legend was based on texts written nearer to Jesus' time, but none of them were contemporaneous. All of the gospels were written decades later and amended heavily in the negotiation of the RCC dogma. FWIW, Jesus evidently wrote nothing in his entire life -- or if he did write anything, the RCC didn't find it useful to include in their "Word of God".
The RCC should count their blessings. At least this new text doesn't show that Jesus had gay relations with the disciples. That could make for an interesting twist. I'd like to hear Rick Santorum try to 'splain his way out of that one.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)being displayed in this thread is pretty striking.
MineralMan
(146,284 posts)There was one post that said some things that weren't true. The rest are making statements that have been made many times, many of which can be supported with evidence. Sorry, but criticizing the Catholic Church isn't hard to do, really. There's plenty to criticize.
I would not take their statement about this fragment any more seriously that anyone else's who hadn't examined the fragment on a scientific basis. I'm sure they don't want it to be authentic, and it doesn't really matter if it is. It's from the 4th century, after all. Written, at best, at about the time the Catholic Church in Rome was assembling what we now call the New Testament, picking and choosing what went in there and doing some interesting editing along the way.
There's one post that is worthy of criticism in this thread for its inaccuracy. You replied directly to that one. The rest are raising issues that are not new at all, and that can be argued from evidence.
BlueStreak
(8,377 posts)I'm just say as a hypothetical, what if they had reason to believe that Jesus was formally married (whatever that meant in the 1st century) or otherwise had relations with Mary M as if they were married? This causes some problems.
1) Mary was presented elsewhere in their dogma as a prostitute. That certainly would be an issue to deal with.
2) If Jesus was actually the "son of God", what does that make Mary? Does she get superpowers or does he leave her behind? Either way that's a problem. They were all about subjugating women, so you really couldn't have a woman with superpowers. But if Jesus is married and then decides to get himself crucified and ascended, that means he is abandoning his marriage, and that's not so good.
3) Then there's this little problem of offspring. If there were any in the Jesus blood line, then they could potentially be more powerful than the RCC, and we couldn't have that.
So it would be much cleaner to just say he wasn't married.
I'm not saying it came down this way, but you see the problems?
cbayer
(146,218 posts)BlueStreak
(8,377 posts)But that has its own set of plot problems. The RCC had no interest in celebrating women. Not just the RCC. In those centuries, nobody had any interest in seeing any women empowered. Some people have evolved since then (thankfully) and some have not.
In many way's today's Muslim fundamentalists (the most extreme ones) are a time capsule preserved for 2000 years, at least in terms of their attitudes about women. It is interesting that in earlier mythologies, woman-figures were gods. But that couldn't have happened in the Jewish world of the first few centuries.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)As to your concerns about children and the general attitude towards women, I can see that they might not want to *celebrate* this, if it were true.
tama
(9,137 posts)"Pistis Sophia, possibly dating as early as the 2nd century, is the best surviving of the Gnostic writings.[32] Pistis Sophia presents a long dialog with Jesus in the form of his answers to questions from his disciples. Of the 64 questions, 39 are presented by a woman who is referred to as Mary or Mary Magdalene. Jesus says of Mary:
"Mary, thou blessed one, whom I will perfect in all mysteries of those of the height, discourse in openness, thou, whose heart is raised to the kingdom of heaven more than all thy brethren."[32]"
From the point of view of comparative religious study, the gnostic textual evidence points towards relationship of Jesus and Mary Magdalene being understood as the hieros gamos mystical union of masculine and feminine aspects and disappearance of duality.
Gnostic texts have also several mentions of rift between Peter and Mary Magdalene, Peter being jealous because Mary was closest to Jesus. As we know RCC is the church of Peter, and it has not been happy about hidden Nag Hammadi gnostic library found in 1945 after all the efforts of hierarchic and patriarchal Church Fathers of antiquity to burn and eradicate all gnostic scriptures and murder all those not accepting the authority and orthodoxy of Church of Peter.
BlueStreak
(8,377 posts)Why do you?
Leontius
(2,270 posts)
On the Road
(20,783 posts)was officially set by the Council of Rome in 380AD.
Leontius
(2,270 posts)The Incpit Concilium Vrbis Romae sub Damaso Papa de Explanation Fidei (Damasene List) was not written until the early fifth century.
moobu2
(4,822 posts)as if they were real.
rug
(82,333 posts)"Manuscript experts who heard King's presentation quickly took to their blogs to express doubts, noting that the letters were clumsy, perhaps the script of someone unused to writing Coptic."
The usual Catholic bigotry aside, you'd be hard pressed to finf another institution close to it in expertise on ancient and scriptural documents.
BlueStreak
(8,377 posts)It should be very easy to determine if the document was created 1500 years ago or a year ago.
Let's say that it is determined that the document is roughly 1500-2000 years old. If it is inauthentic, well that's a whole lot different from it being a modern forgery. And given that it seemed to mention Jesus' wife in passing, not as a primary purpose of the document, one wonders what the motive for deception would have been.
CthulhusEvilCousin
(209 posts)That's a bit of a contradiction. Elsewhere people were writing that the New Testament itself was largely written or at least forged 500 years after Christ. So we are supposed to believe another document that is dated to the 4th century instead of the 5,000+ manuscripts of the New Testament with dates ranging as far back as the Apostles? And that's not including the Old Testament, which has pesky little prophecies like these:
Isa 53:1-12 Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed? (2) For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. (3) He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. (4) Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. (5) But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. (6) All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. (7) He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. (8) He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken. (9) And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth. (10) Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand. (11) He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities. (12) Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.
I can understand the hate of the Catholic Church. I despise them too. And I can understand the other motivations to hate Christianity, namely because of the pitiful condition of many of its so called believers, who lately have turned to pimping Mormonism when before they claimed to hold so tightly to their principles. However, that is entirely different from hating Jesus Christ, whose historicity is far more established than many of you, unfortunately, would be comfortable to admit.
tama
(9,137 posts)The gnostic library buried in Nag Hammadi found in 1945 date back to 3rd and 4th century: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nag_Hammadi_library
See also Gospel of Mary Magdalene: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Mary_Magdalene
The interpretation based on above textual evidence that Jesus was married to Mary is not new.
BlueStreak
(8,377 posts)They have a business to run. If I need their product, I buy it. But I understand they have a marketing department, so it is best for me to think for myself rather than automatically accepting everything the marketing guys push at me.
dimbear
(6,271 posts)They've got the high tech side covered very well, and as long as you're not interested in any American documents, they're very good.
tama
(9,137 posts)All the Scholars referred were represented the theological faculty, not professional papyrologists. My ex is professional papyrologist - one of the very few in world - and I've done bit of that work also myself, and I can tell you that professional philological papyrologists don't have very high opinions of the papyrological expertise of the "manuscript experts" from theology departments. Even I can tell you that "clumsy letters" and "unused writing Coptic" are not in any way arguments for forgery and suggestion that they should be thus interpreted speaks of ideological reasons, not of scholarly philological arguments.
rug
(82,333 posts)I have never gotten into an argument with a papyrologist over Coptic handwriting.
tama
(9,137 posts)especially the source of the papyrus and the "unknown private collector", who might run into trouble also with Egyptian authorities if he came public, but the black market is a fact that academic scholars just have to live with.
NYT article gives a much better picture about the professional discussion than Vatican:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/19/us/historian-says-piece-of-papyrus-refers-to-jesus-wife.html?smid=tw-share&_rmoc.semityn.www
BlueStreak
(8,377 posts)I'm no expert, of course, but the article makes it sound like the experts largely agree.
That business of sloppy handwriting sounds like bullcrap to me. Look at that photo. The whole document is smaller than a business card. Those characters are extraordinarily small. How much prettier could one expect the handwriting to be? That makes me completely distrust anybody who is making that argument -- i.e. the RCC.
tama
(9,137 posts)but obviously not yet for strong academic consensus - which does not require consent of Catholic etc. biblical scholars.
cleanhippie
(19,705 posts)To the observer, would such an argument be wildly fascinating or incredibly boring?
rug
(82,333 posts)My face would glaze over the same way if I ran into people arguing the arcana of subatomic particles.
"It's a muon, you ass!"
"You can't tell your ass from your nuon, you oozing piece of shit!"
Warpy
(111,237 posts)Anything that contradicts doctrine will be decried as a fake. Anything that supports it but is an obvious fake (shroud of Turin, I'm looking at you) will be adopted as part of the canon.
Historic NY
(37,449 posts)Writely Wrong
(22 posts)Probably more truth in them tablets than in the Vatican's propaganda.
Hear the one about the Catholic priest trying to get into the Mormon's magic underwear?
dimbear
(6,271 posts)competent papyrologists have examined the piece and so asserted. Ms. King has been kind enough to publish a preprint copy of her paper, you can find a link to it at PaleoJudaica. I cannot make the link work from here, apologies.
The way it stands now is that a preponderance of opinion is against the papyrus, but the case is by no means settled. Ms. King is being treated shabbily by the evangelicals on the grounds of sexual politics. We will surely give her a fair hearing just on the facts of the case here.
xchrom
(108,903 posts)dimbear
(6,271 posts)Scroll down to Robert Mathiesen's first post...........
