I leave it to Leroy Huizenga to give a more in-depth, scholarly reaction to Harvard professor Karen King’s newly discovered “fragment.” His analysis focuses on the newly-discovered document in the context of its time period, specifically its relationship to other Gnostic documents like the “Gospel of Thomas” and the lurking question of authority beneath authenticity. Popular media has, it seems, fixated on the latter while largely ignoring the former.
Eleanor Barkhorn makes another suggestion at the Atlantic, which brings up a point you might think would be obvious but obviously needs to be made: metaphor. Christ refers to the Church numerous times in spousal language:
Christ calls himself a bridegroom throughout the New Testament. [. . .] Later, as Jesus foretells the coming of God’s kingdom, he also refers to himself as a groom: “The kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom.” Again, Christ is the groom and his followers are the groom’s friends—there to celebrate the wedding with him.
In John 3, John the Baptist echoes this description of Christ as a groom . . .
And so on. As Barkhorn notes, there are later, even clearer uses of this imagery by disciples (see St. Paul’s epistles and the Book of Revelation).
Writing can, of course, be intended metaphorically and literally, which makes Huizenga’s points on authority and historical context highly pertinent. And in any event it’s worth noting, as Barkhorn admirably does, that whatever the answer, this discovery “probably doesn’t offer much help to people hoping [to] shift the debates over women in ministry or the definition of marriage.”
September 21st, 2012 | 9:29 am
Regarding Paul’s use of spousal imagery when describing Christ’s relationship to the church, those would be earlier, rather than “later” uses of this imagery, since it is widely accepted that the epistles pre-date the gospels. And since earlier, even more indication that this language was widespread in the first generation of Christians.
September 21st, 2012 | 11:02 am
Matthew, hold the phone, as it were — the thing might be a modern forgery after all. I’m working on a blog post on it.
September 21st, 2012 | 11:45 am
The epistles may pre-date the gospels, as Steve pointed out, but the gospels record the words of Christ before there were apostles writing epistles, so the use of spousal imagery (Christ’s own use of it) would be earlier, rather than later.
It is obvious that anybody who wants everyone to jump to the unwarranted conclusion that Jesus had a wife, and do so based only upon Karen King’s newly discovered “fragment,” has a personal agenda of their own. An objective, reasonable assessment of the evidence simply does not support drawing that conclusion.
If Jesus was married it is very likely that that fact would have been mentioned at least in passing, similar to the way Peter’s marital status is revealed in Matthew, Mark and Luke by the account of Jesus healing Peter’s wife’s mother. Yet Jesus being married isn’t mentioned in the gospels. It isn’t mentioned in the writings of the apostolic fathers, men who were taught by the apostles. It isn’t mentioned at all in the writings of any of the church fathers. It is not a part of the traditional belief of the Church.
Why keep Jesus’ marital status hidden? Had He had a wife and had children by her, their being the biological sons and daughters of the Son of God (Grandchildren of God?) would have been huge and would have been mentioned by somebody. If He had a wife at all that would still have been huge and mentioned by somebody — but it wasn’t, except in this fragment that, if it isn’t pure fiction like many ancient texts, can best be interpreted as a reference to the Church being the bride of Christ, not as explosive proof that Jesus had a wife, as though there were some conspiracy to keep that fact hidden that has now been exposed. Notions such as that are pure silliness.
September 27th, 2012 | 7:47 pm
http://www.gospels.net/gjw/ For the argument that the Gospel of Jesus’ wife apparently could have been compiled as a sort of “collage” of words and phrases from the Gospel of Thomas
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