Jesus And the Wife

By Charles Pierce, Esquire

19 September 12

ack in the day, when I was in pursuit of the college degree that eluded (among other people) Scott Walker, I was required to take 12 class hours of theology as part of my core curriculum. I'd had a taste of all those lugubrious German dudes in high school and had no desire to spend dark Milwaukee winter afternoons reacquainting myself with them. However, I did find one guy, and I'm ashamed to say I don't remember his name, who taught Scripture history. The Dead Sea Scrolls. The Gnostic texts from Nag Hammadi. Some of the work of the various Coptic fathers. Now, this was cool. This was theology that was half-archaeology. I took every course the guy offered. Among other things, this resulted in my being insufferably blase when the whole DaVinci Code thing blew up. The Gospel of Thomas? Honky, please. I was on that bad boy back in '73.

I developed a lifelong sweet-tooth for this kind of thing, largely because citing the undeniable proof that early Christianity was anything but a stable orthodoxy — and that Christian orthodoxy was first established on the point of the Emperor Constantine's sword — can make all the right heads explode. Now, though, another text has come to light that is likely to set folks to birthing cows all over the place....

She repeatedly cautioned that this fragment should not be taken as proof that Jesus, the historical person, was actually married. The text was probably written centuries after Jesus lived, and all other early, historically reliable Christian literature is silent on the question, she said. But the discovery is exciting, Dr. King said, because it is the first known statement from antiquity that refers to Jesus speaking of a wife. It provides further evidence that there was an active discussion among early Christians about whether Jesus was celibate or married, and which path his followers should choose.

Karen King is a serious scholar and is clearly trying not to overstate what she has found here, saying only that early Christians may have argued about whether Jesus was married as much as they argued about practically everything else. It's also possible that this latest bit of documentation may allow us to trace back further how the essential misogyny of the Christian church first embedded itself.