What’s All the Fuss About Jesus’ Wife?

Why the Conservative Reaction to the Newly Discovered Gospel of Jesus’ Wife Doesn’t Make Sense

Everybody and his mother in theology land are commenting on the papyrus fragment find of the year. Considered to be Coptic in origin, this small piece, being called “The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife,” by the scholar who brought it to light, Dr. Carol King, consists of seven lines that given the size and lack of context make it impossible to interpret with any real clarity. The pivotal words causing the stir “my wife…” appear to come from the lips of Jesus in the fragment but cannot be fleshed out any further.

So was Jesus married? Conservatives have dogmatically said no. Liberals say it is possible but not on the basis of this fragment alone. What at best might be said is that because scholars agree that it is representative of Coptic Christianity, and most likely to be in the tradition of Gnostic Christianity, the person of Mary has played an interesting role, lending to the notion that she enjoyed some elevated status among the disciples as a prophetess, enlightened one, oracle, etc.  Dr. James McGrath has made the point that in the Nag Hammadi library, Mary is represented as Jesus’ mother, sister, and sometimes companion.

If you don’t accept the legitimacy of the Gnostic gospels, you will not be convinced by this new find. Still most respected scholars recognize Gnosticism as a legitimate early strain of Christianity that eventually succumbed during the time of the Ecumenical Councils and the politicalization of different

bishoprics that exercised control over the churches in their region.

Strangely, it is worth noting that the overblown reaction by some conservative Christian talking heads seems to suggest the defensive attitude with which they operate.

Conservative religious and political commentator, Eric Metaxas, for example, writes in a Facebook post:

 “According to a document in my possession (it’s in book form and has been thoroughly authenticated by thousands of scholars). Jesus actually DID have a wife, and still has one. It refers to her as his Bride. She’s been far from perfect, but He’s utterly committed to her and has vowed never to leave her nor forsake her…His love for her brings tears to my eyes.”

Reading this post brings tears to my eyes, but for different reasons that should be obvious, and I won’t mentioned Eric’s complete inability to understand where and how this text fits into his Christianity or why it is important.

But I find there is absolutely no reason to fuss over this, but for extremely different reasons than someone like Eric.  We’re not going to prove empirically that Jesus was married from a fourth-century fragment. I agree with conservatives on this one. But on the other hand, we’re also not going to prove empirically that Jesus has ONE story to tell. In fact, we can empirically prove that he had MORE than one story to tell! Or at least, to be told about him! We only need to look at the four accepted gospels to show us this. Of course, another problem remains with regard to how much time is needed to tell anyone’s story before the details start drifting into the interpretative reality of the community or scribe that oversees the text. My ability to record accurately will obviously be affected if I am transcribing rather than counting on my recall. The question of whether the Holy Spirit “inspired” as in a word-for-word mimeograph is not a question that can be assessed by history. What we can see however is that, if this is the case, than the Holy Spirit has no problem giving four different accounts of the action.

So while conservatives are relieved that this small fragment falls flat on the grounds of what they suspect is a significant space of hundreds of years between Christ and the words of the papyri, we have to be careful that we don’t create a separate standard for the Biblical witness, in which the Bible itself is somehow more than a popular interpretation that survived the test of time and gained ascendancy. The question of whether the story that has been canonized and told in our Bible is a question of truth that cannot be deduced on the grounds of historical research. That is a matter of faith.