'The Gospel Of Jesus' Wife,' New Early Christian Text, Indicates Jesus May Have Been Married

A discovery by a Harvard researcher may shed light on a controversial aspect of the life of Jesus Christ.

Harvard Divinity School professor Karen L. King says she has found an ancient papyrus fragment from the fourth century that, when translated, appears to indicate that Jesus was married.

The text is being dubbed "The Gospel of Jesus' Wife." The part of it that's drawing attention says, "Jesus said to them, 'my wife'" in the Coptic language. The text, which is printed on papyrus the size of a business card, has not been scientifically tested to verify its dating, but King and other scholars have said they are confident it is a genuine artifact.

"Christian tradition has long held that Jesus was not married, even though no reliable historical evidence exists to support that claim," King said at a conference in Rome on Tuesday. "This new gospel doesn’t prove that Jesus was married, but it tells us that the whole question only came up as part of vociferous debates about sexuality and marriage. From the very beginning, Christians disagreed about whether it was better not to marry, but it was over a century after Jesus’s death before they began appealing to Jesus’ marital status to support their positions."

King, who focuses on Coptic literature, Gnosticism and women in the Bible, has published on the Gospel of Judas and the Gospel of Mary of Magdala. She presented her research Tuesday evening in Rome, where scholars are gathered for the International Congress of Coptic Studies.

The idea that Jesus was unmarried and chaste is largely accepted by Christian denominations and a reason for the practice of celibacy among Roman Catholic priests.

"Beyond internal Catholic Church politics, a married Jesus invites a reconsideration of orthodox teachings about gender and sex," said journalist and author Michael D'Antonio, who writes about the Catholic Church, in a blog on The Huffington Post. "If Jesus had a wife, then there is nothing extra Christian about male privilege, nothing spiritually dangerous about the sexuality of women, and no reason for anyone to deny himself or herself a sexual identity." 

The quote about Jesus' wife is part of a description of a conversation between Jesus and his disciples. In the conversation, Jesus talks about his mother twice and speaks once about his wife. One of them is identified as "Mary." His disciples discuss whether Mary is worthy of being part of their community, to which Jesus replies, “she will able to be my disciple.”

The fragment has eight incomplete lines of writing on one side and is badly damaged on the other side, with only three faded words and a few letters of ink that are visible, even with the use of infrared photography and computer-aided enhancement. 

The private owner of the papyrus first approached King in 2010. King said she didn't believe the document was authentic, but the owner persisted. She then asked the owner to bring the papyrus to Harvard, where she became convinced it was a genuine early Christian text fragment. Along with Princeton University professor Anne Marie Luijendijk and Roger Bagnall, director of the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, King claims to have confirmed the document is real. The document's owner has not been named and King said he does not want to be identified.

It's unclear when the text was initially discovered. The owner who showed it to King found it in 1997 in a collection of papyri that he acquired from the previous owner, who was German. The papyri included a handwritten German description that had the name of a now-deceased professor of Egyptology in Berlin who called the fragment a "sole example" of a document that claims Jesus was married.

The scholars believe the text is from Egyptian Christians before the year 400, as it is written in the language used at that time. Since writing appears on both sides of the fragment, scholars believe it came from a codex, a kind of book, and not a scroll. The scholars also believe the document is a translation of an earlier one that was likely written in Greek.

King notes in her research that the idea of Jesus' celibacy hasn't always existed, and that early Christians debated whether they should marry or practice celibacy. It was not until around the year 200 that Christian followers began to say Jesus was unmarried, according to a record King cites from Clement of Alexandria. In his writing, Clement -- an early theologian -- said that marriage was a fornication put in place by the devil, and that people should emulate Jesus by not marrying.

One or two decades later, Tertullian of Carthage in North Africa declared that Jesus was "entirely unmarried" and told Christians to remain single. But Tertullian did not come out against sex altogether and allowed couples to get married one time, denouncing divorce and remarriage as overindulgent. A century earlier, the First Epistle of Paul to Timothy said in the New Testament that people who forbid marriage are going by the "doctrines of demons," but did not include anything about Jesus being married in order to make the point.

The point of view that ultimately became dominant was that celibacy is preferred as a high sexual virtue among Christians, but that marriage is needed for the sake of reproduction.

"The discovery of this new gospel," King said, "offers an occasion to rethink what we thought we knew by asking what role claims about Jesus' marital status played historically in early Christian controversies over marriage, celibacy, and family. Christian tradition preserved only those voices that claimed Jesus never married. The Gospel of Jesus's Wife now shows that some Christians thought otherwise."

The life of historical Jesus is often a matter of controversy, and this is not the first time it's been proposed that Jesus was married. Most recently, Dan Brown's novel "The Da Vinci Code" depicted Jesus as being married to Mary Magdalene. The book was published as fiction, but nonetheless attracted loud criticism from Vatican officials.

Front of fragment with translation

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Back of fragment with translation

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UPDATE: 4:28 p.m. -- Speaking on a conference call Tuesday from Rome, King said that some people who have read about the discovery have asked if the papyrus fragment was describing Jesus as being married to the Christian faith, not to a woman.

"One cannot overrule that it might be him saying 'my wife as a church,' but in the context where he's talking about 'my mother' and 'my wife' and talking about 'my disciple,' the one thing you would not say is that the church would be 'my disciple.'"

Even before King's discovery, there has been speculation that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene. "I do not think Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene," King clarified Tuesday, adding, "whether he was or was not married ... I really think the tradition is silent and we don't know."

King also said that a professor who saw her report asked her if the text on the papyrus could have been a homily and not a gospel, an idea she said she had not considered.

King added that she hopes the discovery will diminish the view outside of academic circles that the debate over marriage and sexuality in the early church is "fixed and over." In current church debates over issues such as same-sex marriage and marriage among Catholic priests, "having more voices from the early church and a better, more accurate version of early Christianity is more helpful," she said.

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Secret £14million Bible in which 'Jesus predicts coming of Prophet Muhammad' unearthed in Turkey

A secret Bible in which Jesus is believed to predict the coming of the Prophet Muhammad to Earth has sparked serious interest from the Vatican.

Pope Benedict XVI is claimed to want to see the 1,500-year-old book, which many say is the Gospel of Barnabas, that has been hidden by the Turkish state for the last 12 years.

The £14million handwritten gold lettered tome, penned in Jesus' native Aramaic language, is said to contain his early teachings and a prediction of the Prophet's coming.

The leather-bound text, written on animal hide, was discovered by Turkish police during an anti-smuggling operation in 2000.

It was closely guarded until 2010, when it was finally handed over to the Ankara Ethnography Museum, and will soon be put back on public display following a minor restoration.

A photocopy of a single page from the handwritten ancient manuscript is thought to be worth £1.5million.

Turkish culture and tourism minister Ertugrul Gunay said the book could be an authentic version of the Gospel, which was suppressed by the Christian Church for its strong parallels with the Islamic view of Jesus.

He also said the Vatican had made an official request to see the scripture - a controversial text which Muslims claim is an addition to the original gospels of Mark, Matthew, Luke and John.

In line with Islamic belief, the Gospel treats Jesus as a human being and not a God.

It rejects the ideas of the Holy Trinity and the Crucifixion and reveals that Jesus predicted the coming of the Prophet Muhammad.

In one version of the gospel, he is said to have told a priest: 'How shall the Messiah be called? Muhammad is his blessed name'.

And in another Jesus denied being the Messiah, claiming that he or she would be Ishmaelite, the term used for an Arab.

Despite the interest in the newly re-discovered book, some believe it is a fake and only dates back to the 16th century.

The oldest copies of the book date back to that time, and are written in Spanish and Italian.

Protestant pastor İhsan Özbek said it was unlikely to be authentic.

This is because St Barnabas lived in the first century and was one of the Apostles of Jesus, in contrast to this version which is said to come from the fifth or sixth century.

He told the Today Zaman newspaper: 'The copy in Ankara might have been written by one of the followers of St Barnabas.

'Since there is around 500 years in between St Barnabas and the writing of the Bible copy, Muslims may be disappointed to see that this copy does not include things they would like to see.

'It might have no relation with the content of the Gospel of Barnabas.'
Theology professor Ömer Faruk Harman said a scientific scan of the bible may be the only way to reveal how old it really is.

WHO WAS ST BARNABAS?

Born in Cyprus as Joseph, Barnabas was an Early Christian later named an apostle.
His story appears in the Acts of the Apostles, and Paul mentions him in some of his epistles.


The date, place, and circumstances of his death are historically unverifiable.
But Christian tradition states that he was martyred at Salamis, Cyprus.
He is traditionally identified as the founder of the Cypriot Church, with his feast day on June 11.

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Keith Barry "DECEPTION"

Keith Barry :

Early and personal life :

Born in County Waterford, Ireland, Barry's interest in magic began at the age of fourteen when he purchased a book entitled Magic for the Complete Klutz.

Barry's grandfather, 82, was attacked in his home in Waterford by burglars in 2009, later dying of his wounds.Barry and his father launched a high-profile campaign to stamp out abuse against the elderly in their homes, said the government was “insulting” the elderly and said he would “bring the country to a halt” until the Government responded. Pundits referred to the incident in discussions of laws about the actions people can legally take to defend themselves in their homes.

Career :

 

Barry’s television career began with a series entitled Close Encounters with Keith Barry, which ran from 2003-2005. The show originally aired in Europe and has since aired in 28 countries worldwide.

In 2004, Barry performed in a MTV television special entitled Brainwashed. 2005 ended with Barry performing a live Christmas special in Europe. Keith Barry Live With Friends featured various celebrities such as magician Billy McComb, Jim Corr of The Corrs, and The Conway Sisters.

Despite never achieving the success of his British counterpart Derren Brown, and widely regarded as the inferior performer of the two, Barry's success throughout Europe coupled with his MTV special led to a four year multi-special deal with CBS. His first special with CBS debuted on 12 May 2006 and was entitled Keith Barry: Extraordinary. The special later aired on New Year's Eve 2006 on The CW and on New Year’s Day 2007 on TV3 in New Zealand and the Arena channel in Australia.

In the Keith Barry: Extraordinary special, he performed various pieces of illusion and interesting mental feats. In one trick, which he referred to as "Black Ops Hypnosis", he made a host from Entertainment Tonight forget that he had torn a specific page from a book and sealed it in an envelope in the span of roughly five minutes. In another, he made a blindfolded man lift his arm when he thought others stopped touching him.



Barry first used suggestion to make the man "concentrate" and lied that he was touching the man. The man imagined the touch and lifted his arm, but Barry and another member of the audience only moved their hand afar.

Following a successful Irish tour along with a week in Dublin's Vicar Street, Keith and his longtime manager Eamonn Maguire were badly injured in a horrific car crash on the Belfast to Newry road on 1 March 2007.

Keith suffered severe trauma to his left leg and only returned to the stage later the same year at Vicar Street.

As an actor, he performed in the "Open Water" episode of CSI: Miami.

Keith's prestigious TED Talk on www.TED.com is in the top 15 Most Viewed TED Talks of all time and follows from his first ever live stage performance which was at TED in Monterey, California in 2004.



He returned to TED in 2005 and was the special guest performer then on the opening night.

On 29 December 2007 Keith performed in a live Saturday night primetime special on ITV in the UK titled Keith Barry - The Escape Live. The finale of the show featured an escape from a shed rigged with explosives.


Keith was tied to a chair with thick ropes by two members of the audience. One of these was Glen Gathard, noted for hoping that Keith Barry would not make it out of the explosion. Participants lit a fuse, started a two minute countdown, and carried the chair into the shed. Workmen hammered additional wood to cover the door and windows from the outside, then left the scene when one minute remained on the countdown. After the countdown was complete, the shed exploded, then the camera changed to reveal Keith safely on top of a gantry some distance away.

Keith has performed live on The Ellen Degeneres Show four times and The Paul O'Grady Show four times.

In 2009 on TV3 Ireland Keith hosted the Irish version of Deal or No Deal.

In February 2010, Keith finished a pilot for a new series on The Discovery Channel in the US. The show is called Deception with Keith Barry and the pilot aired in July 2010. The show was picked up for a season and premiered on 31 May 2011 with 4 one hour shows, Black Ops, Used Car Salesman, Cops and Robbers, and Daring and Dating. The show premiers on Oct 6th 2011 in Taiwan, Nov 1st in Japan, Nov 3rd on Quest in the UK, on Dec 7th in Southeast Asia and Hong Kong, Dec 13th in Australia and New Zealand and in India in the 1st Quarter of 2012.

Also in 2010 and 2011, Keith toured extensively with his live show “The Asylum” which finished its run in May 2011. On this tour, Keith set the record as the most successful solo act ever to play The Olympia Theatre in Dublin. On 13 July 2011, Keith's new live show “Keith Barry - 8 Deadly Sins” opened to critical acclaim and a standing ovation at the Olympia Theatre in Dublin and ran for 5 weeks setting new box office records during the run. A National "8 DEADLY SINS" Irish tour is planned for Jan/Feb 2012 playing in Killarney, Letterkenny, Castlebar, Donegal, Galway, Wexford, Clonmel, Waterford, Cork, Arklow, Drogheda, Kilkenny, Carrick on Shannon, Limerick, Portlaoise, Mullingar, Ennis, Athlone, Castleblayney, and Navan.

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Australia Veil Law Targets Muslim Women

Muslim women would have to remove veils and show their faces to police on request or risk a prison sentence under proposed new laws in Australia's most populous state that have drawn criticism as culturally insensitive.

A vigorous debate that the proposal has triggered reflects the cultural clashes being ignited by the growing influx of Muslim immigrants and the unease that visible symbols of Islam are causing in predominantly white Christian Australia since 1973 when the government relaxed its immigration policy. Under the law proposed by the government of New South Wales, which includes Sydney, a woman who defies police by refusing to remove her face veil could be sentenced to a year in prison and fined 5,500 Australian dollars ($5,900).The bill – to be voted on by the state parliament in August – has been condemned by civil libertarians and many Muslims as an overreaction to a traffic offense case involving a Muslim woman driver in a "niqab," or a veil that reveals only the eyes. The government says the law would require motorists and criminal suspects to remove any head coverings so that police can identify them.

Critics say the bill smacks of anti-Muslim bias given how few women in Australia wear burqas. In a population of 23 million, only about 400,000 Australians are Muslim. Community advocates estimate that fewer than 2,000 women wear face veils, and it is likely that even a smaller percentage drives. "It does seem to be very heavy handed, and there doesn't seem to be a need," said Australian Council for Civil Liberties spokesman David Bernie. "It shows some cultural insensitivity."

The controversy over the veils is similar to the debate in other Western countries over whether Muslim women should be allowed to wear garments that hide their faces in public. France and Belgium have banned face-covering veils in public. Typical arguments are that there is a need to prevent women from being forced into wearing veils by their families or that public security requires people to be identifiable. Bernie noted that while a bandit disguised with a veil and sunglasses robbed a Sydney convenience store last year, there were no Australian crime trends involving Muslim women's clothing.

"It is a religious issue here," said Mouna Unnjinal, a mother of five who has been driving in Sydney in a niqab for 18 years and has never been booked for a traffic offense.

"We're going to feel very intimidated and our privacy is being invaded," she added.

Unnjinal said she would not hesitate to show her face to a policewoman. But she fears male police officers might misuse the law to deliberately intimidate Muslim women.

"If I'm pulled over by a policeman, I might say I want to see a female police lady and he says, 'No, I want to see your face,'" Unnjinal said. "Where does that leave me? Do I get penalized 5,000 dollars and sent to jail for 12 months because I wouldn't?"

Sydney's best-selling The Daily Telegraph newspaper declared the proposal "the world's toughest burqa laws." In France, wearing a burqa – the all-covering garment that hides the entire body except eyes and hands – in public is punishable by a 150 euro ($217) fine only.

The New South Wales state Cabinet decided to create the law on July 4 in response to Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione's call for greater police powers. Other states including Victoria and Western Australia are considering similar legislation.

"I don't care whether a person is wearing a motorcycle helmet, a burqa, niqab, face veil or anything else – the police should be allowed to require those people to make their identification clear," State Premier Barry O'Farrell said in a statement.

The laws were motivated by the bungled prosecution of Carnita Matthews, a 47-year-old Muslim mother of seven who was booked by a highway patrolman for a minor traffic violation in Sydney in June last year. An official complaint was made in Matthews' name against Senior Constable Paul Fogarty, the policeman who gave her the ticket. The complaint accused Fogarty of racism and of attempting to tear off her veil during their roadside encounter.

Unknown to Matthews, the encounter was recorded by a camera inside Fogarty's squad car. The video footage showed her aggressively berating a restrained Fogarty and did not support her claim that he tried to grab her veil before she reluctantly and angrily lifted it to show her face. Matthews was sentenced in November to six months in jail for making a deliberately false statement to police. But that conviction and sentence were quashed on appeal last month without her serving any time in jail because a judge was not convinced that it was Matthews who signed the false statutory declaration. The woman who signed the document had worn a burqa and a justice of the peace who witnessed the signing had not looked beneath the veil to confirm her identity.

Bernie, the civil libertarian, said the proposed law panders to public anger against Muslims that the case generated on talk radio and in tabloid newspapers, which itself is a symptom of the suspicion with which immigrants are viewed. Muslims are among the fastest-growing minorities in Australia and mostly live in the two largest cities, Sydney and Melbourne. There are many examples to suggest they are not entirely welcome.

Muslim and non-Muslim youths rioted for days at Sydney's Cronulla beach in 2005, drawing international attention to surging ethnic tensions. Proposals to build Islamic schools are resisted by local protest groups. The convictions of a Sydney gang of Lebanese Muslims who raped several non-Muslim women were likened by a judge to war atrocities and condemned in the media. In 2006, then-Prime Minister John Howard published a book in which he said Muslims were Australia's first wave of immigrants to fail to assimilate with the mainstream. Government leaders have also condemned some Muslim clerics who said husbands are entitled to smack disobedient wives, force them to have sex and for suggesting that women who don't hide their faces behind veils invite rape.

"I wouldn't like to go and say this is Muslim bashing," said Ikebal Patel, president of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils, of the proposed New South Wales laws.

"But I think that the timing of this was really bad for Muslims," he said.

Lamas At Loggerheads

Three articles look at China and religion. First, a war of attrition over Tibet; next, China v the Vatican; third, a Chinese project at the Buddha’s birthplace.

 

IT WAS never going to be easy. Installing the Chinese Communist Party’s chosen man as Tibet’s second-highest ranking religious leader has been an uphill struggle since 1995, when it declared him, at the ripe old age of six, to be the new Panchen Lama. But a recent attempt to introduce him to monastic life suggests that Tibetan resistance to China’s choice is still strong. Loyalty to the young man is brittle.

For China, this matters hugely. Tibetan Buddhism has a religious hierarchy with the Dalai Lama at the top, followed by the Panchen Lama. The Dalai Lama is traditionally involved in recognising the Panchen Lama, and the Panchen Lama is part of the process by which each new Dalai Lama is chosen. China has its eyes on a complex struggle that will play out after the death of the current 76-year-old Dalai Lama, who lives in exile in India. With the endorsement of its own Panchen Lama, China wants to choose a successor to the current Dalai Lama and seek to control him. Hence it is believed to be keeping another young man, who was the Dalai Lama’s choice as Panchen Lama 16 years ago, incommunicado in an unknown location. China fears that Tibetan exiles will appoint their own Dalai Lama and it does not want any authoritative Tibetan figure to show him support. Both China and the exiles have recently been stepping up preparations for a coming dispute.

On China’s side, this has involved an effort to burnish its Panchen Lama’s credentials by getting him some monastic training. Gyaltsen Norbu, as he is named, has spent most of his 21 years in Beijing. His outings have been few and secretive. Across Tibet, images of the Dalai Lama’s choice of Panchen Lama, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, can sometimes be seen on furtive display in monasteries, his face frozen in time as a little boy. Chinese officials probably hoped that installing Gyaltsen Norbu in a big-name monastery might win him more supporters. With some parts of Tibet roiled by unrest—a protesting monk burned himself to death on August 15th in Daofu, a Tibetan-dominated county of Sichuan Province—this was always bound to be tricky.

The monastery they chose was Labrang in southern Gansu province, on the edge of the Tibetan plateau. It is not clear why. Historically, the Panchen Lama’s seat was Tashilhunpo Monastery in Shigatse in central Tibet.

Robert Barnett of Columbia University in New York says it is possible that even at Tashilhunpo some lamas do not accept China’s choice. In 1997, Tashilhunpo’s then abbot, Chadrel Rinpoche, was sentenced to six years in prison (he has not resurfaced since) for helping the Dalai Lama make his choice of Panchen Lama. In 1998, Chinese officials tried to give their Panchen Lama a monastic start at Kumbum in Qinghai Province, a monastery that has usually acquiesced to Chinese rule. Its abbot, Arjia Rinpoche, fled to America to avoid the duty.

Labrang has no reputation for tameness. Its monks joined a wave of protests that swept Tibet and neighbouring Tibetan regions in 2008 after an outbreak of rioting in Lhasa, Tibet’s capital. In recent days, Labrang has again proved stubborn. Locals gave China’s Panchen Lama, who arrived on August 11th, nothing like the rapturous reception his predecessor, the tenth Panchen Lama, received during visits to Tibetan areas. Large numbers of police prevented any protests, and foreigners were ushered out of town. Tibetan exile groups quoted sources at Labrang saying that Gyaltsen Norbu was expected to stay for weeks or months. A local official, however, says he left on August 16th. His cool welcome, it seems, hastened him on his way.

In Dharamsala in India’s Himalayan foothills, Tibet’s government-in-exile has been busy manoeuvring, too. On August 8th it swore in a new prime minister, Lobsang Sangay. This is touted by the exiles as an historic event, with the new man taking over all the Dalai Lama’s political functions. Mr Sangay, who has never been to Tibet, struck an ambiguous tone in his inaugural speech, referring to Tibet as “occupied” but also expressing his wish for “genuine autonomy” under Chinese rule.

The Dalai Lama’s decision to give up his political role appears aimed at bolstering the post of prime minister before his death. A new Dalai Lama chosen by the exiles is likely to be a small boy who will need many years of tutelage before taking up his duties. It also presents a challenge to China, which has always refused to recognise the Dalai Lama’s political mantle. Now that he no longer has it, China has a face-saving opportunity to engage with him properly. Chinese officials have held several rounds of talks with the Dalai Lama’s representatives in recent years, the latest in January 2010, but have not moved beyond finger-wagging.

Few see any sign of change. The man likely to become China’s next president, Xi Jinping, visited Lhasa in July for official celebrations of the Communist Party’s takeover of the territory 60 years ago. He praised the fight against “separatist and sabotage activities staged by the Dalai group and foreign hostile forces”. But there have been some positive signals, too. A meeting between President Barack Obama and the Dalai Lama at the White House in July elicited the usual sharp criticism from China. But it did not derail subsequent exchanges between China and America, including a visit to Beijing this week by the vice-president, Joe Biden.

On August 13th the Dalai Lama told reporters in France that he would discuss the issue of his reincarnation at a meeting of Tibetan religious heads in September. He said that unlike China, he is in no hurry to make arrangements.