Jesus Had A Wife?
By James Donahue
The
discovery of an ancient Egyptian papyrus text that refers to Jesus’ wife is shaking the Christian world these days.
In spite of attempts to write off the text as a hoax, careful study and carbon dating has more-or-less rated the papyrus as
an authentic document.
Such will
be the findings of Harvard Professor Karen L. King in an article published this month in the Harvard Theological Review.
The discovery is troublesome to the Christians who have spent the
last 2,000 years building a case against sexual freedoms. The Roman Catholic Church has banned marriage for its priests and
nuns, insisting that they follow in the footsteps of a god-man who was born of a virgin.
What makes this discovery somewhat ironic is that the New Testament stories make it clear that Mary Magdalene,
a practicing prostitute before she met Jesus, became closely associated with Jesus during his ministry. If there was a woman
in his life, it may well have been Mary Magdalene. She was at his feet on the day he was crucified, and was one of the women
who discovered his empty tomb.
The other problem with this revelation,
especially for Christians, is that if Jesus and Mary were married, they may also have had children together. And this suggests
there may be descendants of Mary and Jesus walking among us today. In fact, if we could trace our DNA origins over the past
2,000 years, most humans on the planet might trace their blood line back to Jesus.
But if Jesus was God, in human form living among us, how was it possible that he dared to lower himself to marry
and enjoy the company of a wife and leave a blood line among children born to Mary? It appears more likely that Jesus was
a spiritual teacher, but a normal man who left a very large footprint because of what he said and did among the Hebrew people
during his brief time on Earth.
There
should be yet another comforting thought among the hardline Christian believers who frown against homosexual behavior. That
Jesus traveled extensively with 12 male disciples during his three-year ministry has always sounded a bit suspicious. If Mary
Magdalene and other women weren’t traveling with them, we have to wonder what was going on in those tents each night.
