DID JESUS HAVE A WIFE?

WAS JESUS MARRIED?

Such a fuss is being made over a piece of papyrus about the size of a post it note.  It made the national news last night.  If you missed it, you can Google it and find out all about it, even see a photo of the fragment of papyrus with the words that are causing the stir.

According to the scholars the words can be translated as follows:

NOT TO ME, MY MOTHER GAVE ME LIFE

THE DISCIPLES SAID TO JESUS

DENY.  MARY IS WORTHY OF IT

JESUS SAID TO THEM, MY WIFE

SHE WILL BE ABLE TO BE MY DISCIPLE

LET WICKED PEOPLE SWELL UP

AS FOR ME I DWELL WITH HER IN ORDER TO

AN IMAGE

Now, keep in mind that this is a piece.  Not the whole page.  It would be as if you took out a business card and cut out a piece of the daily newspaper that size, RIGHT FROM THE MIDDLE OF THE PAGE, and then threw away the remainder.  So you got rid of what was all around it, and only kept what was left. 

I tried that with a fragment that goes like this:

AND THEN HE TOOK IT AND

WHEN HE HAD DONE THAT HE PUNCHED

IT WAS SO PAINFUL AND SO DIFFICULT

CAME AND TOOK IT AWAY AND HE

WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO DO THAT

FELT SO MUCH

Remember, we are reading a fragment of an article out of context.  You may be able to fill in the rest of the story and get it right, or you might find that you are way off base in your conclusions.  First draw your conclusions.

Do you have your ideas formulated?

Okay, now we will expand the fragment, reading the entire section of the article, which goes like this:

Before making the wrist band the craftsman went to the leather dealer to find

the best leather that he could AND THEN HE TOOK IT AND cut a piece from the finest section.

That would be the band.   WHEN HE HAD DONE THAT HE PUNCHED holes for the buckle.

He was growing old.  IT WAS SO PAINFUL AND SO DIFFICULT a task that it took hours.

When it was done a merchant CAME AND TOOK IT AWAY AND HE felt both pride and sadness.

He looked at his hands.  I WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO DO THAT again, I am getting too old.

He remembered all he had done and FELT SO MUCH better, knowing that his skill

Was appreciated and what he made down the years was useful.

Now, we see that we can draw silly conclusions from a piece of an article.  Conclusions that are so off base that when we see what was actually written, we can laugh at ourselves for reading the wrong information into what little we had to go on. 

The same is true of the fragment of papyrus that is getting all the news just now.  Here’s an example that follows along the line of the exercise we just finished.  Start with the bit that the scholar has, and try to draw a conclusion from it…

NOT TO ME, MY MOTHER GAVE ME LIFE

THE DISCIPLES SAID TO JESUS

DENY.  MARY IS WORTHY OF IT

JESUS SAID TO THEM, MY WIFE

SHE WILL BE ABLE TO BE MY DISCIPLE

LET WICKED PEOPLE SWELL UP

AS FOR ME I DWELL WITH HER IN ORDER TO

AN IMAGE

Do you have your ideas formulated?

Okay, now we will expand the fragment with words above, alongside and below it.

The words of the papyrus may follow along the lines that we have come to know from many other passages of scripture in which the church is “the bride of Christ”.  This is the most likely possibility, far more likely than what the scholar who revealed it is suggesting about this fragment of papyrus that is about the size of a modern day business card.  The fragments from the papyrus are in all caps…

Jesus looked upon his disciples and said to them:

Mary’s future is given to John, NOT TO ME.  MY MOTHER GAVE ME LIFE as I give life to the church.

As he was still speaking, THE DISCIPLES SAID TO JESUS, Who can be saved? Jesus said,

all who believe, I will not DENY.  MARY IS WORTHY OF IT because she has from the beginning

believed what God told her.  JESUS SAID TO THEM, MY WIFE is the church that I establish among all who believe. She is my bride, SHE WILL BE ABLE TO BE MY DISCIPLE for; I love her as a husband

loves his wife.  So, LET WICKED PEOPLE SWELL UP, they will not prevail, for I will

always be with her.  AS FOR ME I DWELL WITH HER IN ORDER TO give her life and strength.

As she grows she will become AN IMAGE of the one she loves, a living

memorial to me, beginning here and now, and unto every land and time.

I will admit that the additional words I added are speculation.  But here’s the thing.

So are any additional words that any scholar anywhere, no matter how learned and gifted, would add.  Or any person in the street.  They are only speculation. 

You could add to the fragment in many other ways, for example…

“Do you have a thought on the matter?”, they asked him.  He answered:

“They’re writing songs of love but NOT TO ME, MY MOTHER GAVE ME LIFE and fed me.”

“We’ve never done it that way,” THE DISCIPLES SAID TO JESUS, “and we don’t plan to start."

You’re a jolly good fellow nobody can DENY.  MARY IS WORTHY OF IT, diamonds, we mean.”

“Diamonds are a girl’s best friend,” JESUS SAID TO THEM.  “MY WIFE wants me to go home,”

Said Peter, “And if you think SHE WILL BE ABLE TO BE MY DISCIPLE you’re mistaken.”

“Come what may, LET WICKED PEOPLE SWELL UP like a blister,” Thomas said, “I like Ike!”

“I like Mamie,” James added, AS FOR ME I DWELL WITH HER IN ORDER TO trim her bangs.

Well, said Judas, “That is quite an AN IMAGE to try to get out of my head.”

Etc!!!!

Implausible?  Yes.  Possible?  Of course.

So I would caution anyone who thinks that this fragment is some kind of bombshell, and say, probably, it is not.  Probably it is in keeping with what we already know about Jesus and his teaching.

Another way of saying it is this:  “Don’t believe everything you read INTO the papyrus.”