“Gospel of Jesus’ Wife” Considered Real, A Retrospective View At The Artifact

Most of the Christian faith believes Jesus was a great man who died for all of our sins, and didn’t mind doing so. Despite being human, he was known for making miracles happen. Whether it was healing the blind or turning water into wine, he truly was seen as the Son of God. He was hated during his time by several major officials, which were all controlled by the church at the time. For centuries the church had the power, and even the King or Queen had to answer to it at times.

Centuries later, in the time of King Henry VIII, Henry had to split the church so he could get a divorce. So imagine how hard it was to get by in this day and age when you walked around like Jesus did. Despite the following he might have had, he made the church afraid. They realized power was gone if Jesus had his way, and if you check history you will see that Jesus did not mind walking up to people and telling them how it was.

The debate over Jesus being alive is pretty much over as Historians and Anthropologists alike are willing to admit such. Not all are willing to admit he did the things he did, but they all believe he existed. There are more documents and proof over Jesus existing than Alexander the Great, who according to history, came before Jesus’ time. Only 5 sources or so for Alex versus several more for Jesus, yet for years people debated over Jesus and not Alex. Seems a bit weird.

Jesus was known for being able to handle delicate situations, and even bringing the dead back to life. He was also known for being close to his mother, Mary. Another Mary, Mary Magdalene, was considered by evidence we have today as Jesus’ female apostle. This was not considered to be possible back in Jesus’ time as, during that time and for centuries onwards, women could have no role in the church itself other than prayer.

Some apostles were jealous of the relationship Jesus had with Mary Magdalene. Today, the Catholic Church considerably praises her name and she is a major part of their church while in other forms of Christian churches she is beloved… but not quite to the extent seen in Catholicism.

It has been speculated that Jesus had a wife, but no one could really say this for sure. Most thought that Jesus had no need for one. However, back in the time of Jesus, having a wife was not out of the ordinary for a man. Jesus could have potentially married a woman so he could take her with him to various places to give a female perspective to the people Jesus and his Disciples would visit.

An artifact was found in 2012, referring to Jesus having a wife, and it shocked the Christian historical community. Again, many felt that Jesus did not have a need for such a thing as… a wife. However, it is now being confirmed as authentic.

The document contains the words: “Jesus said to them, my wife,” is written in Coptic and said to have come from Egypt.

This has now been confirmed to be an authentic document dating from A.D. 659 to 859. This would be perfect timing for such an artifact, and now that it is has been verified as being real, we can begin to proclaim a lot of interesting things about Jesus.

Karen King, Hollis Professor of Divinity at Harvard Divinity School who helped lead the investigation on proving if the artifact was real, found that it appeared to be with her team but wanted to clear things up a bit.

King says the fragment does not mean Jesus had a wife. This does not make sense in some ways, but does in a sense that Jesus could refer to someone as his wife for acceptance into communities.

King says it is an affirmation that:

“that women who are mothers and wives can be disciples of Jesus — a topic that was hotly debated in early Christianity as celibate virginity increasingly became highly valued.”

King is correct; the Bible even proves that there was an issue in accepting females into the church as a leader of any time. There is a verse 1 Corinthians where it says that:

Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says.

The problem with this verse is that Paul, the writer of Corinthians, never said these words. In fact, it goes against other things he would say in other parts of the bible. This verse was added in the second century. Not believing people would take their word for it, the church at the time decided to put this in as Paul’s words so that everyone would believe it was true (not everyone had a copy of the Bible then as we do today). For centuries, it worked. Now, however, we have the original text versus the current. The original has no mention of such wording.

That being said, you can see how a female apostle or wife of Jesus would be highly debated and almost considered blasphemous by the church. Today it can easily be believed, knowing what we do about Mary Magdalene and many other females. Was Jesus referring to Mary as his wife? There is debate over this, but many have concluded such.

Many Christian scholars as well as churches claim that Jesus would have never had a wife. The issue with this is that while Jesus may have not had a “need” for the earthly use of wife, he would have used someone to have a female perspective that he, nor his other male Apostles could provide. So Jesus being said to have a wife is not only possible, but very believable.