Did Jesus Have a Wife?

So your skeptical friend just heard about something called, “The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife.” But unlike the fiction Dan Brown created in the Da Vinci Code, this wasn’t in a movie or a novel. She just caught another sensational segment on the evening news talking about how controversial this new find is. And the media is jumping all over it.

But this really isn’t rocking anyone’s world. Especially in the academic community.

In fact, Karen L. King, the Harvard Professor who actually presented this at the Tenth International Congress of Coptic Studies said:

…this new discovery does not prove that the historical Jesus was married. This gospel (is)…too late, historically speaking, to provide any evidence as to whether the historical Jesus was married or not

In this post, I’ll share a simple way to respond to this fragment. Because we’ve really only got two real options here. But first, here’s what scholars are saying about the fragment itself.

Scholars are Skeptical

I got an e-mail about this from Dr. Dan Wallace as soon as this his hit the nightly news. Later, he expanded on his initial thoughts on his blog, saying:

Does this fragment prove that Jesus was married? The answer is an emphatic no…But it says nothing about true history, about Jesus of Nazareth.

He says that if this thing wasn’t faked (which a lot of scholars think it is), one possibility is that it’s a Gnostic source (basically a totally different religion) which meant something other than real marriage here (since they weren’t big into physical stuff being good). Another possibility is that it’s talking about the church as Jesus’ wife, kind of like John does in the book of Revelation.

Other scholars like Dr. Darrell Bock (also at DTS) and Dr. Gary Habermas (Liberty University) agree, saying there just isn’t an awful lot of context here to even figure out what the author was trying to say.

How I Answer, “Did Jesus Have a Wife?”

So what can you say to a skeptical friend who asks you, “Did Jesus have a wife?” Seems like I’ve been hearing this question off and on for a while now. Sometimes, it comes in the form of a possibility: “Isn’t it possible that Jesus had a wife?” I usually agree, which sometimes surprises people and grabs their attention.

I say, “Sure. Anything’s possible. But the question is, are there any good reasons to believe that the historical Jesus of Nazareth really had a wife?” If you want to be confident in conversations about this fragment, here’s what I suggest.

Get the Facts

Blow past the headlines and get the hard facts. There are a whole bunch of Web sites covering The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife, but this short post on Talbot School of Theology’s The Good Book Blog will give you the skinny on this fragment (which despite it’s sensationalized name, really isn’t a gospel) that’s basically the size of business card.

Keep it in Perspective

Dr. Darrell Bock was recently quoted by CNN as saying:

“It’s a small text with very little context…It’s a historical curiosity but doesn’t really tell us who Jesus was…It’s one small speck of a text in a mountain of texts about Jesus.”

Indeed, even if this fragment turns out to be real, there are over 5,000 New Testament manuscripts and other ancient sources outside the Bible that talk about Jesus. None of these sources indicate that Jesus ever had a wife.

And if you’re really interested in the historical Jesus, you know that the four traditional gospels–Matthew, Mark, Luke and John–were recognized as the most accurate biographies of Jesus by A.D. 125. It’s really these ancient documents that give us the very best picture of Jesus’ life and his teachings.

How History Answers, “Did Jesus Have a Wife?”

So did Jesus have a wife? The best ancient, documentary evidence for the historical Jesus says “no.” As historian Dr. Mike Licona observes:

The most powerful evidence that Jesus was single comes from a deafening silence. In 1 Corinthians 9:5 Paul writes, “Do we [i.e., Paul and Barnabas] not have a right to take along a believing wife, as do the rest of the apostles, the brothers of the Lord, and Peter?” It appears that all of Jesus’ disciples, all of his blood brothers, and even the lead apostle, Peter, were married. If Jesus had been married to Mary, we certainly would expect for Paul to have mentioned it here, since it would have provided the ultimate example for his point.

Still, most people who hear about this aren’t going to care about the scholarly stuff. They just want to know if this fragment they saw on the evening news is legit. How soon can we find out if this thing is even real?

According to Dr. Bock, if authenticating this fragment was like a football game, you could say we’re still in the second quarter. In other words, we’ve still got a ways to go in terms of studying this thing. Maybe the papyrus is from the 4th century, but we’ve still got to test the ink before scholars are ready to seriously consider it’s authenticity. Stay tuned for the results. I know I will.

A Simple Response You Can Use

Let me share a simple response to The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife. You don’t have to be a historian or a scholar to say this. It’s easy to remember and something you can use today.

Tell your skeptical friend that when it comes to this little fragment, we’ve really only got two real options here:

Option 1: It’s a fake fragment that tells us nothing about the historical Jesus.
Option 2: It’s a real fragment that tells us nothing about the historical Jesus.

As Christians, it’s important that we’re able to honestly look at something like this fragment without it messing with our faith. After all, if it’s fake, no one should care. If it’s a real, 4th century fragment, it could help us learn more about the kinds of things some Egyptian Gnostics were writing in Coptic hundreds of years after any of the actual eyewitnesses of Jesus’ life and teachings.

How to Respond to the Gospel of Jesus' Wife