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Saturday, December 22, 2012
Theology 1.0: Did Jesus have a wife?
Oh no, were the Gnostics right?
Earlier thie year, a Bible scholar, Professor Karen King of Harvard University discovered an ancient manuscript that claimed that Jesus had a wife. This echos the view of the Gnostics (early Christian heretics) who also claimed the same thing.
But wait..
We have to give Professor King her due-- at no point did she say that the text proves that Jesus was married, or that the text was even geniune.
Nevertheless, we have to bear in mind the following.
1) The text could be a copy of the Gospel of Thomas, a Gnostic gospel. Gnostic gospels are not considered to be accurate historical accounts of Jesus as (amongst other reasons) they were written about two hundred years after the events in the cannonical Gospels.
2) If the text is an original, dated to be about 4th century (since Coptic, the language on the manuscript emerged as a written language in the 3rd century). This means that this script is written many years from events of Jesus's lifetime. Of this writing, the mauscript has yet to be subjected to carbon dating.
3) This authenticity of the manuscript has been doubted.
Nevertheless..
We should give credit to Professor King for discovering and working on an accurate translation of the manuscript. However, the question on the reliablity of the document is still in question.
Additional references
Bethinking
Textual criticism
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