Liberal Scholars Push Shotgun Wedding for Jesus

[montezumaz]

http://politicaloutcast.com/2012/09/...ing-for-jesus/

That the media and public at large know nothing about history in general and even less about biblical history in particular is proved yet again by a scholar’s claim of finding a piece of manuscript mentioning Jesus’ “wife.” Harvard University history professor Karen King announced the fragment of a “gospel” in which Jesus is depicted as referring to “my wife,” Mary. It’s far from the first time someone has suggested that Jesus had a wife. Usually the idea goes hand in hand with a theory about some sort of misogynistic conspiracy to hide Jesus’ alleged spouse from the world. Most of these tales, or “gospels” as university professors like to tout them, are writings inspired by third or fourth century mystery cults that flourished in the Roman Empire. The liberal scholar line in general is that there were many versions of Christianity until the early fourth century when four gospels were chosen from among dozens or even hundreds of so-called Gnostic Gospels, some of which were wildly bizarre.

Usually, this goes hand in hand with the theory that early Christians were so bigoted or insecure about their position on Jesus’ divinity that they deleted all references to Jesus’ wife and children. Probably the most famous illustration of this line of historical torture is the “DaVinci Code,” which ties the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD into the old saw about the Merovingian kings and their holy bloodline descending from Jesus. Part of the conspiracy theory is that the Emperor Constantine dictated that out of dozens of variants of Christianity only one version and its four gospels would be practiced in his empire. In reality, the four gospels were accepted Christian canon centuries before, and the Council of Nicaea dealt with the heresy of Arianism, and set a date for the celebration of Easter. - Tad Cronn

[jack404]

A papyrus fragment suggesting Jesus Christ of Nazareth was actually married is now being labeled by some experts as fraudulent as well.

“I would say it’s a forgery,” Alin Suciu, a papyrologist at the University of Hamburg, told the Associated Press while attending an international congress on Coptic studies in Rome.

“The script doesn’t look authentic” when compared to other samples of Coptic papyrus script dated to the 4th century, he said.

Another expert questioning the fragment’s authenticity is Stephen Emmel, a professor of Coptology at the University of Muenster who reviewed the 2006 discovery of the Gospel of Judas.

“There’s something about this fragment in its appearance and also in the grammar of the Coptic that strikes me as being not completely convincing somehow,” he said.

The papyrus made headlines across the world on Tuesday, including coverage by the New York Times that was linked by WND and the Drudge Report.

The papyrus reportedly contains the phrase, “Jesus said to them, ‘My wife …’”

The finding is being trumpeted by Karen King, a professor of early Christianity at Harvard Divinity School.

“This fragment suggests that some early Christians had a tradition that Jesus was married,” King told the Times. “There was, we already know, a controversy in the second century over whether Jesus was married, caught up with a debate about whether Christians should marry and have sex.”

The faded papyrus fragment is only 1.5 inches by 3 inches, likened to the size of a business card or small cellphone.

It has eight lines on one side, in black ink legible under a magnifying glass.

Right under mention of Jesus having a wife, another clause reportedly says, “she will be able to be my disciple.”

King admitted Wednesday that answers still need to be found concerning the fragment, and she’s welcoming help from professional colleagues. She’s now looking to subject the document to ink tests to find out if its chemical components match those used in antiquity.

“We still have some work to do, testing the ink and so on and so forth, but what is exciting about this fragment is that it’s the first case we have of Christians claiming that Jesus had a wife,” she told AP.

The Bible itself never even hints Jesus was married, and King says the papyrus fragment, even if it’s determined to be authentic, does not provide evidence Jesus was married, but merely that hundreds of years after Jesus’ death and resurrection, some Christians believed He had a wife.

Wolf-Peter Funk, a Coptic linguist, also doubts the authenticity, calling its form “suspicious.”

He told AP there’s no way to evaluate the significance of the fragment because it has no context.

“There are thousands of scraps of papyrus where you find crazy things,” said Funk, co-director of a project editing the Nag Hammadi Coptic library at Laval University in Quebec. “It can be anything.”

Part of the mystery of the fragment is that no one seems to be sure of its origin and provenance, a history of where it has been. Plus, its owner has asked to remain anonymous.

Harvard Divinity School says the fragment most likely came from Egypt, and its earliest documentation is from the early 1980s indicating that a now-deceased professor in Germany thought it evidence that Jesus could have been married.

Hany Sadak, director general of the Coptic Museum in Cairo, said Egypt’s antiquities authorities had no idea of the existence of the fragment until it hit news reports this week.

“I personally think, as a researcher, that the paper is not authentic because it was, if it had been in Egypt before, we would have known of it and we would have heard of it before it left Egypt,” he told AP.

King says the owner wants to sell his collection to Harvard.

“There are all sorts of really dodgy things about this,” David Gill, professor of archaeological heritage at University Campus Suffolk and author of the Looting Matters blog, which closely follows the illicit trade in antiquities, told AP.

“This looks to me as if any sensible, responsible academic would keep their distance from it.”

The emergence of the fragment is causing plenty of talk in the blogosphere.

Michael D’Antonio, author of “Mortal Sins, Sex, Crime, and the Era of Catholic Scandal,” says: “The implications of professor King’s discovery are profound. If Jesus was married, the main spiritual argument for male-only clergy and the celibacy of Roman Catholic priests falls into question. (Priests wouldn’t need to abandon sex in order to imitate him.) But more importantly, if Jesus was a family man, then the claim to special status made by Catholic clergy, who regard themselves as supernaturally closer to God, loses much of its power.”

[jack404]

i'll cut to the basic facts

this is from a private collection from a private dig that has seen 17 items proven beyond all doubt to be fakes .. including the jesus in india scroll remember ?? ( he was secretly a hindu or something )

the real experts are all staying away because of who is involved ( shysters) and treasure hunter types , but not true historians , they are all saying its suspect and that the testing results given dont add up

the test sample does not look like it came from this segment of papyrus as there are no 3/4" straight cut marks from which the test sample was supposedly taken

folks the experts say it smells and little else , the money folks and lefties are all saying its true , without basis

you decide

me its just another blurr trying to distract us from whats real

we all know what and who the bride of Christ is ..

why worry ??

[ampaterry]

What a load.