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Ancient Text Refers to Wife of Jesus
Ancient Text Refers to Wife of Jesus
TRANSCRIPT
HARI SREENIVASAN:
Experts at Columbia, MIT and Harvard have concluded that a small
papyrus fragment made public two years ago is from ancient times, not a
forgery. But its contents continue to provoke controversy. That’s
because it quotes Jesus making references to “my wife,” and also
includes the words “she will be able to be my disciple.” For more about
this we’re joined by Michael Peppard, he’s a professor of theology at
Fordham University and author of the book “The Son of God in the Roman
World.” Alright, so first of all, what’s the scientific finding confirm
and why does it matter?
MICHAEL PEPPARD: Right, well when this
came to light about a year and a half ago, there was a lot of uproar
about “why wasn’t this tested” “how do we know it’s not a forgery.”
Typically with ancient papyri, they’re not tested by science, they’re
tested by paleography — meaning the study of handwriting. And yet
because there was such a bombshell finding here in this phrase “my
wife.” It was sent out and professor Karen King commissioned this from
Harvard to be sent out for testing. Now the truth about this scientific
testing is that it cannot authenticate something as much as it can prove
that it’s not fake. So what I’m saying is that–
HARI SREENIVASAN: There’s a difference…
MICHAEL PEPPARD: Yeah, there’s a
difference, the testing did not falsify anything. So that kind of tilts
the scale a little bit back towards authenticity, right? But I would say
that the community of scholars that study early Christianity, like
myself, are still kind of in this middle ground of mysteriousness about
the text. That being said, some of the critics on the forgery side argue
that there is bad grammar, that there are other indicators, bad
penmanship and that kind of stuff. But papyrologists — that is nerds
like us that study ancient papyri — we see bad handwriting all the time.
The apostle Paul himself in the new testament
talks about his bad handwriting. So handwriting it’s a techne in Greek,
it’s a skill, it’s acquired. And so we might think of typing, right?
Typing doesn’t mean you’re smart or something like that.
HARI SREENIVASAN: So to a non-Christian scholar, what are the religious ramifications if Jesus did have a wife? Why does that matter so much?
MICHAEL PEPPARD: Right, so what we have
here is probably a 7th or 8th century papyrus, which if authentic
preserves possibly an earlier text, which doesn’t really tell us
anything about the first century; so we have layers of history here. I
would say most scholars do not think Jesus was married and I don’t think
that’s a pious answer, I think it’s an answer about historically
plausibility. I think Jesus was an itinerant, apocalyptic teacher, he
says very controversial things critical of biological and domestic
family life, already there in the canonical scriptures. And so I think
that most scholars and most Christians will say “well we don’t think
Jesus was married, and we think that is a later discussion about the
roles of women as disciples, and the role of kind of sex and family
life.” But now that is interesting, for a different reason, I think to
most scholars. And that is that this papyrus gives us another window
into what were some live debates in early Christianity. Debates such as:
is procreation a vehicle for holiness or is celibacy — voluntary
celibacy– a vehicle for holiness. A second debate that it clearly was
engaging was the worthiness of women as disciples, especially Mary the
mother and Mary Magdalen, two of the main figures that were discussed.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Some of these debates
we’re still having a couple thousand years down the line. Alright,
Michael Peppard from Fordham University. Thanks so much.
Via:pbs
Ancient Text Refers to Wife of Jesus
TRANSCRIPT
HARI SREENIVASAN:
Experts at Columbia, MIT and Harvard have concluded that a small
papyrus fragment made public two years ago is from ancient times, not a
forgery. But its contents continue to provoke controversy. That’s
because it quotes Jesus making references to “my wife,” and also
includes the words “she will be able to be my disciple.” For more about
this we’re joined by Michael Peppard, he’s a professor of theology at
Fordham University and author of the book “The Son of God in the Roman
World.” Alright, so first of all, what’s the scientific finding confirm
and why does it matter?
MICHAEL PEPPARD: Right, well when this
came to light about a year and a half ago, there was a lot of uproar
about “why wasn’t this tested” “how do we know it’s not a forgery.”
Typically with ancient papyri, they’re not tested by science, they’re
tested by paleography — meaning the study of handwriting. And yet
because there was such a bombshell finding here in this phrase “my
wife.” It was sent out and professor Karen King commissioned this from
Harvard to be sent out for testing. Now the truth about this scientific
testing is that it cannot authenticate something as much as it can prove
that it’s not fake. So what I’m saying is that–
HARI SREENIVASAN: There’s a difference…
MICHAEL PEPPARD: Yeah, there’s a
difference, the testing did not falsify anything. So that kind of tilts
the scale a little bit back towards authenticity, right? But I would say
that the community of scholars that study early Christianity, like
myself, are still kind of in this middle ground of mysteriousness about
the text. That being said, some of the critics on the forgery side argue
that there is bad grammar, that there are other indicators, bad
penmanship and that kind of stuff. But papyrologists — that is nerds
like us that study ancient papyri — we see bad handwriting all the time.
The apostle Paul himself in the new testament
talks about his bad handwriting. So handwriting it’s a techne in Greek,
it’s a skill, it’s acquired. And so we might think of typing, right?
Typing doesn’t mean you’re smart or something like that.
HARI SREENIVASAN: So to a non-Christian scholar, what are the religious ramifications if Jesus did have a wife? Why does that matter so much?
MICHAEL PEPPARD: Right, so what we have
here is probably a 7th or 8th century papyrus, which if authentic
preserves possibly an earlier text, which doesn’t really tell us
anything about the first century; so we have layers of history here. I
would say most scholars do not think Jesus was married and I don’t think
that’s a pious answer, I think it’s an answer about historically
plausibility. I think Jesus was an itinerant, apocalyptic teacher, he
says very controversial things critical of biological and domestic
family life, already there in the canonical scriptures. And so I think
that most scholars and most Christians will say “well we don’t think
Jesus was married, and we think that is a later discussion about the
roles of women as disciples, and the role of kind of sex and family
life.” But now that is interesting, for a different reason, I think to
most scholars. And that is that this papyrus gives us another window
into what were some live debates in early Christianity. Debates such as:
is procreation a vehicle for holiness or is celibacy — voluntary
celibacy– a vehicle for holiness. A second debate that it clearly was
engaging was the worthiness of women as disciples, especially Mary the
mother and Mary Magdalen, two of the main figures that were discussed.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Some of these debates
we’re still having a couple thousand years down the line. Alright,
Michael Peppard from Fordham University. Thanks so much.
Via:pbs
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