 by Dr. Jeffrey Lant Author's program note. When was the last time, you saw a major secular publication give a banner headline to the latest development in Biblical studies? You probably can't think of that time... which is why the front-page coverage in The Boston Globe of Wednesday, September 19, 2012 (and following) is so important, epochal, for on this day the possibility of a married Jesus made a quantum leap, moving beyond mere speculation (as in Dan Brown's 2003 run-away best seller "The Da Vinci Code") to something plausible, conceivable, even likely. "I ,Jesus, take thee...." Revolution on a scrap of fourth-century Egyptian papyrus. It's a tiny little thing, smaller than a business card but it packs the wallop of a punch to the solar plexus for the Bishop of Rome and his Catholic Church. Here are the exact words discovered and minutely scrutinized by Bible scholars under the leadership of Harvard University Professor Karen L. King, historian of the early Christian church. 1) "not (to) me. My mother gave to me life... 2) The disciples said to Jesus, 3) deny. Mary is worthy of it. 4) ... Jesus said to them, 'My wife... 5) ... she will be able to be my disciple... 6) As for me, I dwell with her in order to"... 7) (an image). "The Gospel of Jesus's wife." The text is crude, scrawled in a Coptic hand. King provocatively calls her potentially seismic find, a translation from a Greek text written two centuries earlier, "The Gospel of Jesus's wife." The most important woman in history. As King points out,"The entire question about whether Jesus was married or not first arose only 150 years after Jesus died in the context of Christians discussing... whether Christians should marry or remain celibate." In other words, this discussion, with the implication Jesus was married, took place as close to the actual events of Jesus's life as any of the major early Christian texts. This increases its importance and similarly the importance of the woman who would be, if proven, the most important woman in human history; the woman selected by the Son of God to be his lawfully wedded wife, Mrs. Jesus. This likely woman is known to history as Mary Magdalene or Mary of Magdala, and the reasonable likelihood is that she is the "Mary" referenced in the text as Jesus's wife. After all, she was one of Jesus's most celebrated disciples and the most important female disciple in Jesus's movement. He had cured her of a serious illness described as "seven demons". It is known she became one of his close friends. But was there more? Consider the ways in which this Mary is referred to in the Bible... Item: She remained at the cross of crucifixion alone after all the male disciples had fled. Is this the act of a dear friend, or loving spouse? Item: She was present at his burial. Is this the act of a dear friend, or loving spouse? Item: She was the first person to see Jesus after his Resurrection. Is this the act of a dear friend, or loving spouse? Conservatives, defenders of the status quo, must argue for friendship and loyalty; progressives, now bolstered by the suggestive new evidence, will argue for more, much more, thereby positioning Mary, possibly wife of Our Saviour, as the most important woman in human history, a woman we long to know better and in copious detail. An e-mail brought the Good News. A man unknown to Professor King wrote to her as an expert in the field. The man wanted to know whether she could help him translate the text. He told King he had an inkling that it might say something about Jesus being married. Perhaps the good professor could assist? King looked at the document and her heart beat faster. If it was authentic it would immediately rank with the most important early Christian texts, from the days when the verities of the gospel were being discussed and determined. "If"... The owner quizzed. Being a professor, investigator, researcher means emulating such great sleuths as Sherlock Holmes, Lord Peter Wimsey or Miss Jane Marple. Thus, Professor King. understanding how gleeful and smug her opponents would be if she erred, moved carefully. Check, recheck, check again. The man who brought this find to her attention was, it seems to me, of little help. He knew what its previous owner had told him about the text in question being about Jesus and his wife, but he knew (or would say) nothing more... except for one thing: he wanted to sell the document to Harvard as part of a collection of Greek, Coptic, and Arabic papyri. Recent worldwide publicity about this text could only increase its value and desirability. Harvard remains silent on the matter. King, wanting the informed opinion of her colleagues worldwide, systematically sought them out; starting with the doyan of such experts, Roger Bagnall, director of the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World and professor of ancient history at New York University, who helped King authenticate the papyrus. Most but not all thought this messy, inelegant text, written in thick, badly controlled strokes, by someone with a very poor pen, was authentic. Importantly, every single expert who actually saw the artifact deemed it real; the doubters only saw low-resolution images, murky and unclear. The experts who did not see and would not share: the Vatican library. King took her dog and pony show to Rome, to the Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum for the International Association for Coptic Studies' Coptic Conference. But though she and the document were at that moment just across the street from the Vatican library, its great doors were not open for Professor King. Yet where is the greatest number of such biblical texts likely to be found? These celibate guardians, in charge of access and more usually denial, will follow Professor King's researches with the greatest possible interest. But, as what she is about challenges the millennial usages of Rome, their enthusiastic and practical assistance especially if they know (as well they might) Professor King is on the right track, will never be forthcoming. Never. Probably not that Mary. Meanwhile, King and her adherents operate in an environment of enthusiasm and doubt, happiness and the greatest caution, even unto who "Mary" might be. Mary Magdalene, says Professor King, is unlikely to be the "Mary" identified in her text as the wife of Jesus. That would be another Mary, as yet unidentified. She has her reasons, but I suspect "Occam's razor" works here: "other things being equal, a simpler explanation is better than a more complex one." And so the wheels of academic research grind slowly, oh so slowly; the more slowly because the great doors of the Vatican's palatial library remain closed to anyone seeking anything even remotely inimical to the doctrine and practices of Mother Church, for whom truth is not always or even mainly its invariable objective; unlike Harvard, whose motto is "Veritas", Truth; its researchers have no special interests to protect or axes to grind. Thus I give you the music for this article, a tune for which the Vatican has most assuredly developed a penchant, "Give Me That Old Time Religion," written in 1873 and included in a list of Jubilee songs, perfect for camp meetings. Find it in any search engine and belt out one of its new lyrics, "If it was good for Pius XII, it's good enough for me..." |
