Jesus said to them, ‘My wife’ (October 1 2012) Jesus said to them, ‘My wife’ (October 1 2012)

Karen Leigh King the 58 year old American Professor of Ecclesiastical History working in the field of early Christianity and Gnosticism has revealed a 1,600-year-old text fragment that suggest some early Christians believed Jesus was married—possibly to Mary Magdalene. The ancient papyrus fragment has a phrase, “Jesus said to them, ‘My wife.’” The text also mentions “Mary,” arguably a reference to Mary Magdalene. In a Smithsonian Magazine article by Ariel Sabar states “The fragment was a shade smaller than an ATM card, honey-hued and densely inked on both sides with faded black script. …in the ancient Egyptian language of Coptic, into which many early Christian texts were translated in the third and fourth centuries, when Alexandria vied with Rome as an incubator of Christian thought. …The fragment’s 33 words, scattered across 14 incomplete lines, leave a good deal to interpretation. But in King’s analysis, and as she argues in a forthcoming article in the Harvard Theological Review, the “wife” Jesus refers to is probably Mary Magdalene, and Jesus appears to be defending her against someone, perhaps one of the male disciples. “She will be able to be my disciple,” Jesus replies. Then, two lines later, he says: “I dwell with her.” …The question the discovery raises, King told me, is, “Why is it that only the literature that said he was celibate survived? And all of the texts that showed he had an intimate relationship with Magdalene or is married didn’t survive? Is that 100 percent happenstance? Or is it because of the fact that celibacy becomes the ideal for Christianity?”

 

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