The Pastor's Teaching - Pentecost+18 - 30 September 2012

This will be the first of my “Teaching Sundays.” With the council's permission, these will take place about every 4 to 6 weeks on Sunday's when Holy Communion is not celebrated. Issues and topics of current interest or of interest to the congregation will be discussed. {If you have suggestions or questions, I'd recommend you speak to me or better, give me a note or an e-mail.}

• The topic today is the recent announcement of the study of a document referred to as The Gospel of Jesus' Wife.
• This so-called Gospel is a small piece of papyrus about the size of a business card. Papyrus is a paper-like substance processed from a type of reed called the papyrus plant, found often in the Nile delta region of Egypt. It had been used for thousands of years in the region as what we'd call paper. On this small piece, the writing, in black ink, is in an ancient language called “Coptic”, a Middle Eastern language related to Aramaic, but using letters related to Greek. The document in question has 8 incomplete lines and a hint of a ninth. It appears to have been torn or cut from a larger page by persons unknown.
• The popular media have jumped on this because one of the incomplete lines contains the phrase, “Jesus said to them, 'my wife...'” Some have said this is evidence that Jesus was married. The scholar leading the study, Prof. Karen King of the Harvard Divinity School, has NOT made this claim and in fact has cautioned against reading too much into the document. This, of course, will not stop others from jumping to conclusions.
• First, what is a Gospel? A Gospel can be the early Christian message in literary form, hence the “Good News” which is the original meaning of “Gospel” in Greek. A Gospel can also be a certain type of literary document. We don't have terms to properly differentiate these two meanings at present.
• As a working title, this scrap is referred to as the Gospel of Jesus' Wife because it is an example of a portion of a Gospel-style writing and it deals with a reference to Jesus' wife within a conversation between Jesus and his disciples. There is no name attached to this scrap to identify the “author” such as Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
• According to those studying the scrap, it probably dates to the 4^th Century A.D., the era when Christianity first spread into Coptic-speaking southern Egypt. It is seen as having been copied from a 2^nd Century document. The verses on the papyrus are found in other early Christian writings, most from the apocryphal writing, the Gospel of Thomas and one from Matthew's Gospel. Thomas was an early Christian gospel that was not accepted by the Church as an authentic witness to the person and ministry of Jesus. {There are other “gospels” not accepted by the Christian Church, like Phillip, Mary, Secret Mark, Peter, or the Gospel to the Ebionites to name a few.}
• The issue of the discussion is family and discipleship. Who can be a disciple appears to be a concern here. There were concerns about marriage, family life and discipleship that were controversial and this papyrus says more about those concerned than about Jesus.
• Professor King has repeatedly stated that this papyrus is of little or no help is discovering the historical Jesus and is of more use in studying the controversies in the early Church. It shows that some Christians were supporting the value of marriage by holding that Jesus was married as a response to the rise of the institution of monasticism in Egypt and the church's glorification of asceticism and the celibate life. {Asceticism is a life-style of self-denial and austerity that characterizes the life of monastics in just about every religion. At this time in church history - the 4^th Century - many devout and serious Christians were going into the Egyptian desert to live the life of a hermit as a response to what they considered the laxness of Christians after the Church was legalized.}
• Other Christian documents of the time reflect this concern as well. Sermons by important bishops, the writing of major Christian theologians, and the documents of Church councils all show that there were numerous controversies throughout the Christian Church. What it meant to be a Christian, and how one was to act as a Christian were important issues. Our own time has it's own issues and they might make no sense to the next generation.
• So what does this mean to us? I'd venture to say not a tremendous amount, although it all might be of great interest to scripture scholars and historians.
• It does not challenge the canon of the Scriptures. Each document needs to be looked at as a whole and if the whole document does not show itself to be Good News, it can be left behind. This “document” is not whole; it is a scrap with a handful of incomplete lines.
• It does not tell us anything about Jesus. A single reference to “My wife...” on a scrap of papyrus tells us nothing. We don't know what came next in the document and we may never know. One of the best responses I've hear on this point comes from Jon Stewart of The Daily Show. Appearently he consulted his rabbi, who had been studying this papyrus. Since the line is incomplete, Stewart said may it really says "My wife... if I had one!"
• This find is not simply trash. It confirms that there were controversies over marriage, celibacy, and discipleship in the early Church and that those controversies were not just the arguments of bishops and theologians. But this is nothing altogether new to those who know church history.
• The document may well be authentic; there had been concerns that it was a modern forgery, but it appears to be a true 4^th Century document. The papyrus, the ink, and even the damage to the papyrus are proving that. It's antiquity makes it important, but not necessarily relevant to all. T
• he Gospel of Jesus' Wife uses passages from the Gospel of Thomas, a hard-to-understand book coming out of an unorthodox tradition within Christianity. As such, it should make any student of the Bible wonder about it's source and the motivation of the author. 
• So, we have to ask ourselves: would the knowledge that Jesus was married have any effect on our faith and our practise? Would a married Jesus change what we believe? Such a Christ might be seen as more accessible to the average person. Such a concept might also be troubling because it challenges so many other beliefs and what is held as scriptural truth. Let's leave aside any question of possible children for another day.
• At it's best, this Gospel of Jesus' Wife is a tiny portion of an ancient document that reflects the concerns of it's times and in that it is rather interesting to some. As it stands – incomplete, derived from other sources, and sensational because somebody says it is (but notably not the scholars studying it) – it might be taken as a historical and academic curiosity rather than an earth-shaking revelation. As it stands, it tells us nothing certain about Jesus Christ.