Recent articles on new websites like CNN and Der Spiegel have commented on newly discovered (or translated, I forget which) ancient documents in which Jesus refers to his wife.

I'm not a Christian, so I don't really care either way, but I'm curious: do you (Christians) care if he was married?

Do you think that priests should be allowed to get married? Nuns? Ministers typically can. Rabbis can (I know, Judaism, but the point is there).

Link to this?
Id think it was contrary to his apparent purpose if he then decided to marry one of gods 'children.'
In technicality, that's also incest ( =p )
I think priests should be allowed. If nothing else it would end the rampant abuse of young boys...
It is also highly amusing that people forbidden to have sex are telling people how to go about it, that's clearly a great and flawless idea.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/18/living/fragment-suggests-jesus-was-married/index.html?iref=allsearch

Sorry, I should have posted at least one article when I asked.

I don't think Jesus was maried. What ever you got your information from is wrong. It doesn't say nowhere in the bible that jesus was married. Jesus never fell in love with nobody its something he can't do .

Jesus was not married.  I would know.  I read the bible almost daily and I have never heard of such an abomination as to where Jesus was married.  Rabbi means teacher.  

I agree. You can't believe everything you read.  There are a lot of crazy claims out there.  There are tons of people that will claim the bible is not scientific or historical, and yet there is plenty of evidence to show otherwise.  To say that Jesus was married is absolutely ridiculous.

Some people will claim that there is EVIDENCE that Jesus didn't even exist as a man.  They don't say it's an opinion...they state it as known facts based upon evidence.

Personally, there's too much out there which is fabricated.  I have to be very very careful about who or what I use as sources.

if it was writen in an ancient text its as plausable as the bible since neither can be proven. If it was true it wouldnt surprise me that it would be omited from the bible, that wouldnt aid there purpose

I know that the word "Rabbi" means teacher... but it's also a title used for a Jewish religious leader.

Whether it's in the bible or not doesn't mean it wasn't written. How is re-reading the bible going to give you information about a topic not mentioned in the bible? The article says it was an ancient Coptic text. Please click the link for details on where it was found.

I'm not an expert on the Coptics. I know it's a non-conventional branch of Christianity found mostly in Egypt, but that's it.

Mr. Keys, why do you believe that Jesus couldn't fall in love?

I tend to think that Jesus was real, but that much of what has been attributed to him is inaccurate or exaggerated. I'm not really bothered by this. As a martial artist, I've seen how "revering the master" can lead to similar effects. The person becomes a symbol and the symbol overtakes the person. I will say of Jesus what I say of any claim: the burden of proof lies with those who make the claim, not with those who challenge it.

If I said that hobbits were real (not being rude -- this time -- choosing a fictional character on purpose) the burden of proof would lie with me. I would have to support my claim. If you said that they weren't real, YOU would not have to prove it. YOU would be in the right to demand that I prove it. So, if Jesus is real, just find other documents of a non-religious (i.e. not the Bible) nature to cite as proof. Link them as evidence to support your claim. End of issue.

On to the second part of my question: what about nuns and priests? No one has addressed that.

This doesn't prove Jesus was married but it does prove that some early Christians believed he was. I find it amusing that the Vatican says it's a forgery despite what Harvard's (and other scholars) tests have shown.

Here's a picture of the papyrus fragment. It's only about the size of a credit card.

 

smotpoker86 :
Lol, what a surprise.
They wont allow carbon dating or testing of there letters/ artifacts yet somehow automaticaly know this is a fake?
Did they actualy say forgery? Because being wrong dosent mean a forgery, it would have to be pretending to be someone else. So they think someone has weathered a note they wrote in coptic and hidden it to be found(or the person who discovred it did).
How many people can write coptic, know of how papyrus was in those days, and how to correctly weather it.
Im sure simple tests could remedy that.
The vatican already showed there colours when the popes butler sold there documents. They are liars. They will lie to serve there own agenda. it would be hard for them to justify no mariage for priests if jesus had one.

I'm a little late into the discussion, but I think this whole thing is taken a little out of proportion. I think the part where people is saying that Jesus stated that she has a wife is the fact that Jesus said "my woman". So far, we don't know who wrote it and the discussion about it either being fake or real. Personally, I haven't had the time to look into it recently, but either way, I don't find it giving Christians (and God for that matter) any problems.

I not a christian, but are you sure that he is married. I read the article, but it doesn't make me believe it. Also why the heck they just get the information before?

The reason ancient documents are just appearing now is a valid point of discussion. As I understand it, there are multiple possibilities:

1) It was being kept as part of a private collection (by someone who may or may not have known the true significance).

2) It was being kept in a massive archive by people who stored it to keep it safe and never got around to cataloging (for fun, picture the last scene of "Indiana Jones and the Lost Ark" -- I said "for fun", stay calm, people).

3) There is always the possibility that the documents were stored somewhere remote and then forgotten. I think, but can't recall, that the Dead Sea Scrolls were in a cave?

4) It was suppressed as heretical and only recently surfaced (There were many gospels, and many were discarded for various reasons). Ask one of the bible scholars about the history -- I honestly only care about religion when it infringes on non-believers, so I've not dedicated a great deal of my time to religious history.

5) It's fake, and someone is deliberately deceiving people.

You should read "El Libro de Buen Amor" or "The Book of Good Love" in English.

The real reason for banning marriage in the past, was that much of the clergy came from wealthy families, and the church wanted their land when the priest died. A married priest would leave the land to the wife/children.

However, that doesn't explain the current practice.

Astynax27 : I'll keep that in mind. Thank You. If that is the reason (which is most likely not the only reason); then it seems a little silly that the Church would want
the lands of a priest when he died; more so today since the Catholic Church isn't as powerful as it once was.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110117180737AAoYd8K

I'm going to try to find primary sources for you, as I don't regard this as a great source. However, the explanation is given again and again... and one of the answers links bible study pages for more details, so this is a place for you to start.

"It seems a little silly that the Church would want the lands of a priest when he died" -- why? Many clergy members came from wealthy families and often joined the upper levels of the church for political reasons. When the "priest" is also the son of a Duke or Earl (and entitled to a great deal of land) -- WHY wouldn't the church want to increase it's wealth and holdings by getting the priest's inheritance?

I speak of the past, of course. Like I said, it's hardly an explanation for current practice.

I'll work on finding you better historical references that yahoo answers.

Here's my simple thought on the subject, if Jesus had time for a wife, she would have already been mentioned in the Bible quite a bit. Also, Jesus probably didn't have time to get married and support a wife. He was too busy loving everyone equally and doing some kick butt miracles.

I'm not a theist in any way, but I wanted to say a couple of things on this subject, as I've heard this news before.

1. The "there's no way this is true because it's not in the Bible and that automatically makes it wrong" reaction to this shows closed-minded ignorance. I'm not trying to insult anyone here, just trying to get people to think about some things. If you automatically reject something you disagree with, not even looking into the source or for other information, how does that look? This is why people often criticize those who are religious. There is a stereotype that religious people just blindly believe what they are told by other religious people and never seek out the truth themselves. Now I know first-hand that no all theists are like this... but you fall into that stereotype when you don't even entertain this topic for a moment.

2. The Bible was written in like... Hebrew? It was translated to English multiple times by multiple different people. Now, how sure are you that the translation you read is 100% accurate? It's not easy to translate ancient texts written in dead languages. Even if the original Bible was 100% true, you may not be getting an entirely accurate story when you read a modern English Bible. Also you have to bare in mind that King James had a re-translation of the Bible done that changes some of the information and perhaps contains misnomers. If your version of familiarity is the King James version... you may not want to take it as this infallible source of information.

3. The Bible is not all-encompassing. It doesn't record every single historical thing that happened ever. It's entirely possible that information was omitted. There are books written for the Bible at one point that have been dropped from modern versions from what I've heard. Who knows what was in that? Just because it's not there doesn't mean it never happened. Now if you said the Bible clearly contradicted a piece of information and explicitly stated that such and such didn't happen or wasn't true... then that's a legitimate argument. Just saying that you can't find mention of it doesn't really prove or disprove anything.

Now I have heard that Jesus was rather close with Mary Magdalene. Do I think he outright married her? Not really. I think they were really good friends. It's possible she even had feelings for him... but I think Jesus would have been more focused on his mission. These ancient texts aren't super clear and they can be interpreted any number of ways. It could be a mistranslation or taken out of context. It's hard to really understand what it means without the full context. Even the article says that it doesn't prove or disprove anything.

So for the time being, I'm going to say no, Jesus was not married. There isn't enough evidence to support this claim. He may have had something slightly resembling a relationship with Mary Magdalene, but I doubt there was actually an official marriage or anything beyond really close friends.

Crazy Li : Jesus never married and the one rue translation of the bible is the KJV. They even proved it with the Dead sea scrolls. KJV and dead sea scrolls have 3 differences and thats jus how the three words are spet. All the same other wise