{"id":1142,"date":"2012-10-31T14:13:09","date_gmt":"2012-10-31T18:13:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/?p=1142"},"modified":"2012-11-01T19:06:14","modified_gmt":"2012-11-01T23:06:14","slug":"the-jesus-wife-fragment-worth-a-response","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/2012\/10\/the-jesus-wife-fragment-worth-a-response\/","title":{"rendered":"The Jesus’ Wife Fragment: Worth a Response?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I have been tracking (although not very closely)\u00a0 the discussions about the “Jesus’ Wife Fragment.”\u00a0 It seems that a lot of the initial luster of the announcement has worn off, at least among the scholars.\u00a0 Even initial supporters seem to be backing off the PR hype that occasioned the announcement.\u00a0 I will not go into analytic detail here.\u00a0 Others have done that admirably.\u00a0 I am sure books will soon emerge or journal articles which will deal with the technicalities involved.\u00a0 What I do want to do is mention a few questions that have emerged in my mind as I have looked at that issue.<\/p>\n

First, I wondered right away about the timing of the raising of this issue.\u00a0 Usually the so-called “Jesus issues” like the Da Vinci Code, the Gospel of Judas, etc., seem to be published between Christmas and Easter when interest in Jesus is at a peak in Western culture.\u00a0 In this case, however, there is no book release.\u00a0 It was a scholar’s paper issued at a conference.\u00a0 This probably explains the difference in timing.\u00a0 The scholar was putting it out there for other scholars to look at.\u00a0 This is the normal process of scholarly research. In that sense, there was no PR hype to the same level as the other examples I’ve raised.\u00a0 This may also explain why the issue died down quicker than the others since scholars of all theological positions have questioned the genuineness of this fragment.<\/p>\n

Second, the smallness of the fragment seems to be problematic.\u00a0 While small fragments of other manuscript materials have proved helpful, the smallness of this fragment lends itself to potential misinterpretation.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Jesus does have a wife according to Scripture — the bride of Christ which is the Church.\u00a0 Many church fathers allude to this.\u00a0 It would not be suprising to find a quick mention of this.\u00a0 The entire context of the fragment would be needed to resolve the question.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Third, in light of such realities, one wonders if a conservative Bible-believing Christian really needs to respond at all.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Is it worthy of a response?\u00a0 My initial thought is that such things do need to be explained so that the public or the Church does not get led astray.\u00a0 In essence, it would be a matter of apologetics.\u00a0 On the other hand, it seems to me that in the large scheme of things, this is one of the “lesser lights” as far as issues go.\u00a0 We need to make sure to spend our valuable God-given time accordingly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have been tracking (although not very closely)\u00a0 the discussions about the “Jesus’ Wife Fragment.”\u00a0 It seems that a lot of the initial luster of the announcement has worn off, at least among the scholars.\u00a0 Even initial supporters seem to be backing off the PR hype that occasioned the announcement.\u00a0 I will not go into […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[51],"tags":[52],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1142"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1142"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1142\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1151,"href":"https:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1142\/revisions\/1151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}