How would you address Jesus' wife? Mrs. Christ? Mrs. Of Nazareth?

[No Elephants]

A fragment of parchment says "Then, Jesus said, 'my wife'...."

The rest of the sentence is missing, but the fragment contains the words, also attributed to Jesus, "Mary is worthy."

It's in Coptic.


Karen King (heh heh), the Harvard Divinity professor who made the announcement said that the fragment is in a private collection. Also that the owner first contacted her in 2010, but she did not look at the fragment until recently--and then only because of the owner's persistence.



Really? She had no intellectual curiosity about what the owner claimed to have?

If I had gotten a call like that, I would have at least asked for a photo.



The fragment is thought to date to the second century. I believe that "second century" is also how they refer to the age of the first written gospels found.


We are now in the 21st century C.E., there never having been a zero year C.E. or a zero century C.E. So I have no idea if they mean a year between 1 C.E. and 99 C.E., or a year between 101 C.E. and 199 C.E., but I guess it's close enough for folk music. Or folk hymns. Or parchment dating.



Theories that Jesus and Mary Magdalene (as opposed to Mary, the "Holy Mother") were a couple of some sort have been around a long time. Even among these theorists, the nature of the relationship was controversial, either romantic love that never became physical, or lovers or a "married" couple (whatever constituted "marriage" back in that time).


When the Da Vinci Code first came out, a Catholic priest was being interviewed on TV.

Interviewer: "Would it make any difference if we were to find out that Jesus had been married?"

Catholic Priest; "Nah. Not at all."


Really? Original sin doesn't matter?



Stay tuned for discovery of the next parchment fragment, friends.

And now, a word from our sponsor, Ivory Soap. Sure, Ivory only 99.9% pure (whatever that means), but that's as good as it gets, outside the Holy Family, of course!

I kid.

[Enthusiast]

1. Dang!

All those errant parchments were supposed to have been destroyed by the Council of Nicea.