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A papyrus dubbed “the Gospel of Jesus’ wife” appears to have been of ancient origin, testing has revealed.
Harvard University biblical scholar Karen King, who first revealed the papyrus, hopes questions over whether it is a modern fake will now fade.
It consists of just eight lines and 33 words of an interrupted conversation, which were probably part of a larger papyrus.
Jesus speaks of his mother, his wife and a female disciple, one of whom may be identified as “Mary”.
A broken conversation between Jesus and his disciples seems to be on the papyrus.
“Jesus said to them, my wife . . . ,” one line states.
Another line continues: ” . . . she will be able to be my disciple”, while the line before the “wife” quote has Jesus saying “Mary is worthy of it” and line 7 says, “As for me, I dwell with her in order to . . . .”
King has stressed that the fragment does not prove that Jesus was married.
“The main topic of the fragment is to affirm that women who are mothers and wives can be disciples of Jesus — a topic that was hotly debated in early Christianity as celibate virginity increasingly became highly valued,” she said.
Jesuit priest and author Fr James Martin wrote on the America magazine website that his own faith does not require that Jesus be unmarried.
“But my reason tells me that he was,” Fr Martin said.
It would be odd for much more ancient accounts of his life not to mention a wife if he had one, the priest said.
Leo Depuyt, an Egyptologist at Brown University, wrote that the Coptic language in the papyrus contains grammatical errors that render it “patently fake”.
Other critics say testing could date the document as late as 800AD.
Jesus could have been speaking metaphorically and be referring to the Church as his bride, others say.
The owner of the papyrus told King that he bought it and five other papyri in 1999 from a collector who said he acquired them in East Germany in 1963.
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