Mr. and Mrs. Jesus Christ

The evidence is literally a piece of papyrus not much bigger than a dollar bill, but the message is priceless if it’s authentic.

It’s a fragment of an ancient Coptic Christian manuscript purporting to quote Jesus Christ, and it contains two legible quotations.

One says, “Jesus said to them, ‘My wife …'” and the other says, “She will be able to be my disciple.”

The clear implication being that Jesus was married, and that women could be disciples.

This leads us to wonder: is this going to shake up Christianity’s tendency toward male dominance?

Andrew Davis is a scripture scholar at the School of Theology and Ministry at Seattle University, and he points out that the Bible itself is silent on Jesus marital status. However, there clearly were female disciples.

“Even in the New Testament, there’s great evidence of women having a prominent role; they were the first ones at the tomb,” says Davis, “Certainly the broader implications of this fragment would be exactly in that direction.”

But it would take a lot more than this fragment to change Jesus traditional bachelor status.

“I don’t think we’re quite ready to rewrite what we know about historical Jesus based on this fragment,” says Davis. “What we’re seeing is a big debate going on between these early Christians.”

So could it have been a case of a scribe putting words in Jesus’ mouth, rather than a first-hand account?

“Sure,” Davis says. “It wasn’t just some off-hand scribe just doodling one day, but it was part of a larger tradition that this is representative of.”