A Wife or a Disciple, or Both?

So I’m guessing that if Jesus did in fact have a wife, she would have had to do a lot of moving around; so much, in fact, that she probably was late with a blog entry once in a while, too.

OK, so she probably didn’t have quite as much stuff to pack up each time as we do now, what with Jesus always reminding his followers to leave their bags and just bring a staff.  (Funny how I don’t tend to make a beeline for the staff on most days).

Just as we were trying to absorb the terrible news about the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Libya — apparently prompted by a ridiculous and hate-filled video made by an extremist Coptic Christian in California – we learned that a scrap of writing, which may or may not have its source in 4^th century Coptic Christian culture, seems to suggest that Jesus had a wife.  As my mother might have said, “It all makes the head spin.”

Don’t think for a minute that I’m going to plunge into the debate about whether or not this fragment of papyrus (that was our equivalent of paper, way back when) is legitimate.  I’ll leave that to the theologians and the historians and the….I can’t wait to say this word…”papyrologists.”  You’ve just got to love the fact that there are pockets of people, whole national associations with annual meetings and everything, who are experts in every possible field you can imagine.  This is the richness of life.

Only trouble is, when I start trying to think about “papyrologists” and what they do, I get a little mixed up and start thinking about David Ortiz or “Big Papi.” instead.  Poor slugger, he and all of his teammates have had a tough season.  He’s not even sure where he’ll be playing next year. But it’s pretty certain that he won’t sign any new contract on papyrus.

Getting back to Jesus and his possible wife.  The scholar, Karen King, who brought forth the fragment is careful to say that – if it’s real at all – it likely gives evidence not that Jesus was definitely married but just that people a few centuries after his death were interested to talk about whether he might have been married.  The whole topic mattered to them, created a buzz, but the facts remain elusive.  She’s being careful, all right, isn’t she?  On the other hand, it’s pretty bold to call the thing, already, the “Gospel of Jesus’s Wife” when, I think I have my facts right here, there are already some other “gospels” floating around that have not been given the complete thumbs up.

The discussion process, in which people really share their views and consider different points of view, would also be different than a passing along of news process.  If it were the latter, it could have been like the middle school game of “telephone.”  Somebody starts by saying something, but then as it goes from person to person, it transforms itself into something else. “What, did you just see him with her a lot or do you know for sure that they’re, like, together for real?”

And what does it matter, anyway, if he was married?  Would our understanding of him and his ministry change in any significant way?  Would his essential identity, or at least how we have chosen to see him, and his tremendous impact on millions of people throughout history shift at all?

Probably not.  On the one hand, it’s bound to be a little challenging making room for a particular woman by his side in our mind’s eye, since he’s always been depicted going solo or, more precisely, bringing about amazing transformations amidst groups of people.  On the other hand, why wouldn’t it be normal for him to be married?  Having a spouse could be another feature in his human-ness; it could even increase our sense of connectedness with him.

Scholars will no doubt continue to disagree about the authenticity of the papyrus; fortunately, soon the ink will be tested. (Let’s hope not by the same chemist who was recently disgraced for faking results in a Massachusetts drug lab.) Maybe then we’ll know more, but probably not a whole lot more.  It’s not as if the woman’s identity – was she Mary Magdalene? –  will come clear the way that one of those magic pictures emerges when painted over with water.

This isn’t the first time that the whole idea of a Jesus having a family has surfaced, of course.  Dan Brown’s blockbuster The Da Vinci Code — a book I avoided –is partly about the “bloodline” (what a word) of Jesus and Mary Magdalene being traced through the Merovingian kings in France.   Even people who enjoyed the book, however, certainly can’t claim that it’s something other than a gripping work of fiction.

And then a certain bishop I know reminds me how, at various places in the Bible, the Church is referred to as the “Bride of Christ.”  In that I’m just getting used to seeing my husband wear a wedding ring on one hand and another, much larger, ring on the other hand, the metaphor would not seem far-fetched to me.

All in all, though, I’m guessing that most of us, religious or not, would react with something like “I’m fine with that” to the possibility of a married Jesus.  I do admit to being a little startled by the section of the papyrus that has been translated as, “She will be able to be my disciple.”  With all due respect, wouldn’t it be sufficient for her to be completely and fully a wife — lifelong companion, source of comfort and support and even humor, perhaps mother of children -– without also needing to be a disciple too?  Where I get confused is by the order of things:  was she a disciple first and then (maybe) became a wife later on, or was it the other way around?  Just wondering. What do you think?