A Faded Piece of Coptic Papyrus Refers to Jesus Wife.

                                                             Gospel of Mary  

A Faded Piece of Coptic Papyrus Refers to Jesus' Wife.(NYT).BY Laurie Goodstein.CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -
A historian of early Christianity at Harvard Divinity School has identified a scrap of papyrus that she says was written in Coptic in the fourth century and contains a phrase never seen in any piece of Scripture: "Jesus said to them, 'My wife …'" The faded papyrus fragment is smaller than a business card, with eight lines on one side, in black ink legible under a magnifying glass.
Just below the line about Jesus having a wife, the papyrus includes a second provocative clause that purportedly says, "she will be able to be my disciple."
The finding is being made public in Rome on Tuesday at an international meeting of Coptic scholars by the historian Karen L. King, who has published several books about new Gospel discoveries and is the first woman to hold the nation's oldest endowed chair, the Hollis professor of divinity. The provenance of the papyrus fragment is a mystery, and its owner has asked to remain anonymous.
Until Tuesday, Dr. King had shown the fragment to only a small circle of experts in papyrology and Coptic linguistics, who concluded that it is most likely not a forgery.
But she and her collaborators say they are eager for more scholars to weigh in and perhaps upend their conclusions. Even with many questions unsettled, the discovery could reignite the debate over whether Jesus was married, whether Mary Magdalene was his wife and whether he had a female disciple.
These debates date to the early centuries of Christianity, scholars say. But they are relevant today, when global Christianity is roiling over the place of women in ministry and the boundaries of marriage. The discussion is particularly animated in the Roman Catholic Church, where despite calls for change, the Vatican has reiterated the teaching that the priesthood cannot be opened to women and married men because of the model set by Jesus.She repeatedly cautioned that this fragment should not be taken as proof that Jesus, the historical person, was actually married.
The text was probably written centuries after Jesus lived, and all other early, historically reliable Christian literature is silent on the question, she said. But the discovery is exciting, Dr. King said, because it is the first known statement from antiquity that refers to Jesus speaking of a wife. It provides further evidence that there was an active discussion among early Christians about whether Jesus was celibate or married, and which path his followers should choose. 

"This fragment suggests that some early Christians had a tradition that Jesus was married," Dr. King said. "There was, we already know, a controversy in the second century over whether Jesus was married, caught up with a debate about whether Christians should marry and have sex." 

Dr. King first learned about what she calls "The Gospel of Jesus's Wife" when she received an e-mail in 2010 from a private collector who asked her to translate it. Dr. King, 58, specializes in Coptic literature, and has written books on the Gospel of Judas, the Gospel of Mary of Magdala, Gnosticism and women in antiquity. The owner, who has a collection of Greek, Coptic and Arabic papyri, is not willing to be identified by name, nationality or location, because, Dr. King said, "He doesn't want to be hounded by people who want to buy this." When, where or how the fragment was discovered is unknown. The collector acquired it in a batch of papyri in 1997 from the previous owner, a German. It came with a handwritten note in German that names a professor of Egyptology in Berlin, now deceased, and cited him calling the fragment "the sole example" of a text in which Jesus claims a wife.
They examined the scrap under sharp magnification. It was very small - only 4 by 8 centimeters. The lettering was splotchy and uneven, the hand of an amateur, but not unusual for the time period, when many Christians were poor and persecuted. It was written in Coptic, an Egyptian language that uses Greek characters - and more precisely, in Sahidic Coptic, a dialect from southern Egypt, Dr. Luijendijk said in an interview. Much of the context, therefore, is missing. But Dr. King was struck by phrases in the fragment like "My mother gave to me life," and "Mary is worthy of it," which resemble snippets from the Gospels of Thomas and Mary. Experts believe those were written in the late second century and translated into Coptic. She surmises that this fragment is also copied from a second century Greek text.
The meaning of the words, "my wife," is beyond question, Dr. King said. "These words can mean nothing else." The text beyond "my wife" is cut off.Read the full story here.

Hmmmmm...The Gospel of Philip has been cited for the theory that Jesus married Mary Magdalene. Much of the Gospel of Philip is dedicated to a discussion of marriage as a sacred mystery, and two passages directly refer to Mary Magdalene and her close relationship with Jesus: There were three who always walked with the Lord: Mary, his mother, and her sister, and Magdalene, the one who was called his companion. His sister and his mother and his companion were each a Mary. As for the Wisdom who is called 'the barren', she is the mother of the angels. And the companion of [the saviour was Mar]y Ma[gda]lene. [Christ loved] M[ary] more than [all] the disci[ples, and used to] kiss her [softly] on her [hand]. The rest of [the disciples were offended by it and expressed disapproval]. They said to him "Why do you love her more than all of us?" The Saviour answered and said to them, "Why do I not love you like her? When a blind man and one who sees are both together in darkness, they are no different from one another. When the light comes, then he who sees will see the light, and he who is blind will remain in darkness.