Father Juan Chapa, a New Testament scholar at the University of Navarra in Spain, told Catholic News Service that the “Gospels don’t mention marriage, not because they wanted to hide something, but because it was clear that Jesus did not get married, and it’s consistent in the church’s tradition.”
He also noted that the gnostic gospel genre to which the fragment evidently belongs is one of stories about Jesus that mainly take place after the resurrection, using language that is heavily allegorical. Thus, he said, the fragment’s relevant words –“Jesus said to them, ‘My wife'” — were likely not meant as a literal assertion about the life of the historical Jesus.
Two thousand years from now some scholar will unearth a fragment of the Yellow Pages and conclude that the Cullligan man was a highly revered philanthropist who had significant influence over world economic affairs.
I doubt very much that this fragment has in fact “stirred the debate about the early church’s views on sex, marriage and procreation” because there is no such debate. When was the last time anyone saw a tweet about this before this announcement?
The implication, once again, is that the Church is guilty of conspiracy, of knowing the truth, but concealing it anyway and teaching tryannical, barbaric and repressive doctrines that stand in the way of human happiness and fulfillment, probably in order to trick us and take our money.
Even Ms. King admits that this fragment does not constitute proof that Jesus was married. The irony in this is that many people will believe an interpretation of a fragment of an ancient papyrus as long as it’s coming from a hip, contemporary, liberal, secular scholar. Holy Scripture, on the other hand — also written on ancient papyrus — is dismissed out of hand as laughable at best and generally held in contempt.
[blockquote] Two thousand years from now some scholar will unearth a fragment of the Yellow Pages and conclude that the Cullligan man was a highly revered philanthropist who had significant influence over world economic affairs. [/blockquote]
LOL! My variation on that theme is my hunch that archaeologists excavating our homes will conclude that our god of domestic life was Tyvek, whose name we pasted on our walls as a plea for health and happiness.
Then again, the Church is the Bride of Christ. So He [i] does [/i] have a wife!
Not to mention the ceramic ovoid altars, complete with a central passage for offering some form of oblation to the gods, several of which were found in most habitations, along with stavks of circular refractive signalling devices for communication with their gods.
I’m also reminded of the mysterious prehistoric holes found in Ireland and the rest of the British Isles, which folks had posited served some sort of religious purpose, or perhaps like Stonehenge were used to mark the passing of the seasons. Then one day some genius figured out they were used to make prehistoric beer.
I see the mainstream media is rounding up the usual suspects.