Sunday 20th September 2020 Devotion
Scripture:- Matthew 19:3-12
Topic:- Did Jesus Have A Wife [1]
Text:- Revelation 21:9
- Of the authenticity of a fragment of the so-called “Gospel of Jesus’s Wife,” which was originally unveiled in 2012 by the Harvard Divinity School, Professor Karen L. King, are sure to cause a rash of news stories and opinion pieces on whether Jesus was married.
- New Testament Scholar believes that Jesus was unmarried. The Christian faith is not based on Jesus’s celibacy but on the Incarnation and the Resurrection.
- In short, a married man healing the sick, stilling storms and raising the dead is just as impressive as an unmarried man doing so.
- If a married man himself rises from the dead after being in a tomb for three days, I would be following him. Married or unmarried, Jesus is still the Son of God.
- The reasons Scholars believe that He was almost certainly single, I should point out that the manuscript in question was written long after the Canonical Gospels [Matthew; Mark; Luke; John] were written.
- The fragment is most likely from the fourth to the eighth Century. By contrast, the earliest Gospel, Mark, was written in AD 75, only 40 years after Jesus’s time on earth.
- The fragment in question, at its earliest, was written three hundred years after the Canonical Gospels.
- In general, it’s better to rely on sources closer to the actual events, particularly, as in the case of Mark, when there were people still alive who had known Jesus, and could presumably have corrected any inaccuracies in Mark’s text.
- Three hundred years later, people take many more liberties with the story. Overall, it’s more likely that Jesus was unmarried.
- In a new book: Jesus, A Pilgrimage. “Now, it is almost certain that Jesus was celibate. How do we know this? For one thing, the Gospels talk about Jesus’s mother and “brothers and sisters” several times, so if He had a wife it would be odd not to mention her.”
- In his magisterial book A Marginal Jew, John Meier, a professor of New Testament at Notre Dame, and Sholar of the “Historical Jesus,” suggests that being unmarried was seen as undesirable for most rabbis of the time.
- And even though Jesus is not technically a Rabbi, it would have been strange for the Gospel writers to concoct a story that He was celibate if he was in fact married. The Gospels’ silence about a wife and children likely means that Jesus had neither.
Prayer Point:- Oh Lord God, help me to understand You better and be intimate with You henceforth by fire, in the name of Jesus Christ.
Happy Lord’s Day!
