Papyrus Referring to Jesus’s Wife Likely Authentic

A fragment of papyrus, known as the “Gospel of Jesus’s Wife”

New history discoveries and science continue to show themselves to be worst enemies of the supposedly "inerrant" Bible.  The human genome project has shown that Adam and Eve never existed as historical individuals, archeology work has raised questions about the true nature of King David's kingdom, the Flood myth predates the Old Testament and comes from ancient Sumer, and an ancient piece of papyrus is again raising questions about Jesus' marital status.  All of this leads to the conclusion that the authors of the Bible - and we have no idea who they really were - massaged and manipulated the story line to fit their own purposes and agenda.  The New York Times has a follow up piece on the papyrus first unveiled in 2012 that would indicate that Jesus was married - so much for the claim that his bride was "the Church."  Here are highlights:

A faded fragment of papyrus known as the “Gospel of Jesus’s Wife,” which caused an uproar when unveiled by a Harvard Divinity School historian in 2012, has been tested by scientists who conclude in a journal published on Thursday that the ink and papyrus are very likely ancient, and not a modern forgery.

Skepticism about the tiny scrap of papyrus has been fierce because it contained a phrase never before seen in any piece of Scripture: “Jesus said to them, ‘My wife...’ ” Too convenient for some, it also contained the words “she will be able to be my disciple,” a clause that inflamed the debate in some churches over whether women should be allowed to be priests.

The papyrus fragment has now been analyzed by professors of electrical engineering, chemistry and biology at Columbia University, Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who reported that it resembles other ancient papyri from the fourth to the eighth centuries. (Scientists at the University of Arizona, who dated the fragment to centuries before the birth of Jesus, concluded that their results were unreliable.)

The test results do not prove that Jesus had a wife or disciples who were women, only that the fragment is more likely a snippet from an ancient manuscript than a fake, the scholars agree. Karen L. King, the historian at Harvard Divinity School who gave the papyrus its name and fame, has said all along that it should not be regarded as evidence that Jesus married, only that early Christians were actively discussing celibacy, sex, marriage and discipleship.

Dr. King presented the fragment with fanfare at a conference in Rome in September 2012, but was besieged by criticism because the content was controversial, the lettering was suspiciously splotchy, the grammar was poor, its provenance was uncertain, its owner insisted on anonymity and its ink had not been tested.

An editorial in the Vatican’s newspaper also declared it a fake.

The “Jesus’s Wife” papyrus was analyzed at Columbia University using micro-Raman spectroscopy to determine the chemical composition of the ink. James T. Yardley, a professor of electrical engineering, said in an interview that the carbon black ink on this fragment was “perfectly consistent with another 35 or 40 manuscripts that we’ve looked at,” that date from 400 B.C. to A.D. 700 or 800.

[T]he scientists say that modern carbon black ink looks very different under their instruments. And Dr. King said that her “big disappointment” is that so far, the story of the fragment has focused on forgery, not on history.

I continue to believe that the fundamentalists will be the death of Christianity.  Already they are driving some one-third of the Millennial generation from religion.  Clinging to a literally interpretation of Old Testament writings of ignorant, unknown authors is nothing but suicidal in the long run.  The same holds true to the New Testament which was cobbled together by early church leaders who had their own agenda and who systematically sought to eliminate anything that contradicted their agenda.