Mrs. of Nazareth

I am not going to wade deeply into the newest media releases on a Fourth Century Coptic text fragment, that may or may not be authentic, and is reputed to state that Jesus was married.  Others have done so already, and I will not repeat their work.  Hey, why reinvent the wheel on a regular basis?  If you are interested, I would recommend this article from catholicity and covenant.

What intrigues me is the subtext of articles that assumes Christianity is a religion rooted in history.  It is almost as if there are some waiting expectantly for the one thing that will prove the real historical Jesus was nothing like the Jesus of the Scriptures, and thus will pull down the edifice of Christianity as we know it.  Of course, if that happened many would celebrate, others mourn, and yet others continue to redefine the argument.

It is interesting that those in the camp waiting, dare I say hoping, for the “one thing” understand that it must come out of history.  They are undeniably correct.  Christianity is not rooted in philosophy.  It is not a mere ethical system.  Christianity is rooted in an historical, and historic, claim, the resurrection of Jesus.   This is the central claim, Jesus is alive, and the tomb is empty. The question that must be answered by each one of us is, “What happened on that Sunday morning in Jerusalem?”   Everything else in Christianity derives from this central event.

Therefore, I am not that worked up, either way, by a late text, most likely Gnostic, which states Jesus had a wife. 

If you wish to read a concise study of the “Quest for the Historical Jesus”, I recommend N.T. Wright’s, Who was Jesus?