Fresh Doubts Raised About Jesus’ Wife. Or at Least Its Orientation

Marquel, TPVs Times Gospel correspondent, read  The New York Times and saw this article:  Fresh Doubts Raised About Papyrus Scrap Known as ‘Gospel of Jesus’ Wife’. A relic has provoked fascination and fury since it was unveiled nearly two years ago by an eminent historian of early Christianity at Harvard Divinity School.

Harvard! Rah Rah! What could they know about Jesus’ sexuality? They can’t even figure out their own! Marquel went up to Cambridge and took a knowing and practiced look at the little scrap and its scribbling. It reminded him of something but he couldn’t figure out just what.

“I’d really like your best opinion about this,” I asked the department director, “how can it be so controversial, let alone evidence of Jesus‘ sexuality when it’s so tiny?”

“The mere mention of a wife and ‘she can be one of my disciples’ is rather profound evidence of facts that have been in dispute for two thousand years,” he said.

So you think that when they talk of a wife, that’s fairly convincing evidence that he had one?” I asked.

“I think that’s close to a no-brainer,” he said, “assuming the document is proved not a forgery.”

“But,” I asked, ” why would it say wife and then she,” I asked as I saw him staring intently and… well preening is the only word to describe it. The Director was making a pass at me!

“I don’t see,” he said, sensing my rejection, “how the two terms wife and she pose any problem. It confirms the belief of a small community, including some Coptics, that He was married.”

“But it makes no sense,” I said.

“If you take a look at the papyrus it almost looks like a shopping list, or even class notes. There’s nothing here,” he insisted, “that makes no sense. The only question is if the document is authentic.”

“But if Jesus had a wife,” I said, “which I personally believe, it would have been a he, not a she!” I exclaimed.

“Huh?” He grunted uncomfortably, and moved a bit away from me.

“Everybody knows Jesus was gay,” I said, “so how could a wife be female? Do you think we’re talking about a beard? So you think Jesus dishonestly tried to hide his sexuality?”

“This is sheer poppycock,” he said.

“Well cock of one sort or another,” I agreed.

“That’s enough of that!” protested the director.

We parted amicably. I hugged and kissed him a la the Europeans so he wouldn’t take my rejection personally. I wandered around the Yard. There were posters for several boring cinema series and another for an open mike comedy event. I took the bus back to New York and on the way it hit me. Class notes! Shopping lists! Comedy clubs! That papyrus reminded me of stand up comedians who keep a little list of jokes on a scrap of paper. That’s how they build their acts.

I went to my closest stand up friend, also my landlord, who had also studied ancient civilizations at Princeton, one of the worst universities I can think of. But they probably knew their ancient civilizations. I showed him a photocopy of the papyrus.

“What do you think?” I asked.

“It’s really small.” He said.

“Is that all?” I asked.

“Well,” he answered, “it’s written in old Coptic. Not difficult to read.”

“Good,” I said, “what do you make of this, ‘Jesus said, my wife’ ?”

He turned the paper around and his eyebrows rose.

“Hey, you know what” I looked up at him inquiringly. “This is a comedian’s cheat sheet, I’ll bet you a million. This is the earliest example of Rodney Dangerfield’s joke. What Jesus was saying was, ‘my wife, take my wife… Please!”

“Are you certain,” I asked, “how can you be sure?”

“It’s filled with jokes! Listen to this, ‘she can be one of my Disciples.’ That’s an old old reference to an old gay form of the Aristocrats. The Disciples were the gay equivalent. If the author were a standup, he was appearing before gay audiences.”

“And what kind of person would the author be?” I asked.

“I get what you’re saying,” he answered. He’d have to be gay. The gay circuit in those days was pretty insular. “

“There was a gay circuit?” I asked.

“Oh sure. Standup is the second oldest profession.” He asserted.

“Okay, so what we know and what we suspect is that Jesus was gay, he tried his hand, at least, at standup. He told Dangerfield type jokes but also really filthy ones like the Aristocrats. And he was out of the closet because he followed the gay circuit and had a live-in boyfriend whom he called his wife.”

“That’s all pretty obvious from this,” he said.

“That’s enough to start an entirely new religion, wouldn’t you say?” I asked. “What would you call it?”

“First of all, you have to exclude all claims that he was the son of God.” He said. “That must have been part of his schtick. I’ll bet he was hilarious. He must have killed. But if you made a religion out of it, it would also need to be comedic. How’s this, I’d call it Christianity.”

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TPV’s fascination with Jesus’ wife precedes Marquel.Both Dana and Calin gave it a try, but our expertise pales compared to Marquel’s.

We got it all wrong. This is our older translation:

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TPVs CORRESPONDENT

Fresh Doubts Raised about Jesus’ Wife. Or at Least Its Orientation