That last post was fun. But in all seriousness, these articles about "The Gospel of Jesus' Wife" are pretty sensationalist. So I'm going to nitpick D'Antonio's article from Huffington Post.
The ancient Coptic document includes the phrase "Jesus said to them, my wife" using a term that undoubtedly references a woman who was his spouse and not some metaphorical partner.
While I'm sure Mr. D'Antonio knows his Coptic very well, I personally would love to know what this term is since he mentioned it.
... latter half of the Second Century
This alone should stop Christians from being too worried about their beliefs regarding Jesus' celibacy. The canonical gospels are all late first century, written by folks who at the very least were not very many degrees separated from Jesus and the original Apostles. During the second century, there was not yet a consensus on the books of scripture, and there were certainly no "Bibles." So if someone was trying to fill in the gaps of Jesus' life (and this happened more than a few times), it shouldn't be a surprise that some stuff like this slipped through the cracks.
"Christian tradition has long held that Jesus was not married, even though no reliable historical evidence exists to support that claim"
Professor King here isn't really proposing much. There's also no reliable historical evidence to support the claim that Jesus didn't invent the fist bump, or the claim that Jesus and the Twelve weren't actually a traveling dance group. Seriously?
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.
Oh, boy. I don't even know where to begin. I don't know about this "main" spiritual argument for male-only clergy and clerical celibacy is, but I'm pretty sure that the author here doesn't, either.
First, male-only clergy exists on one hand because Jesus came to earth as a man, but on the other hand because Jesus (as portrayed in the canonical gospels) didn't actually ordain any women to do his work! Find me a passage in which a woman lays on hands to impart the Holy Spirit, and we'll talk.
Second, clerical celibacy is not a Catholic dogma. Yes, (most, but not all) Roman Catholic priests may not marry. However, Eastern Catholic priests as well as certain exceptions in the Roman Church are allowed to be married before they become priests. Clerical celibacy is a discipline that may change if the Church allows. Dogma, however, is unchanging.
Third, talking about priests abandoning sex makes it sound like it was okay for them to have sex in the first place. Catholics might seem to have a lot of 'sex rules,' but the gist of it is this: not married, no sex. That's for everyone, not just priests.
Fourth, this whole "special status" and "supernaturally closer to God" business is just outright not so. Priests are people like the rest of us. They have the ability to administer sacraments and such, but these are people who make basically no money and exist to serve God and the community. If they're closer to God it's because they've chosen to do God's Will, not because they have some "special status." I have never heard a priest claim to be "closer to God," and I've heard several claim to be no better than their congregants.
... the fragment points to time when the church "had no real organization."
It may not have been like today, but honestly? Historically speaking, there were bishops who oversaw local churches in the absolute earliest days of Christianity. There's a book not six feet from me filled with quotes from early Christian leaders from the first and second centuries. All the other stuff in this paragraph of the article is pretty extreme but is without much evidence (except, of course, for the testimony of an "expert in celibacy..." Kind of a funny epithet, heh).
There's more I could pick at, but I'm getting a migraine just thinking about all the other sensationalist articles about this codex that came out today. I apologize for the poor structure, I just wanted to say my piece.
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