Fistbump of the Day: Yes, We Are Still Fighting Gnosticism

The past several weeks I've head of a manuscript fragment that people are suggesting sheds light on the early history of Christianity. It's just a scrap of papyrus written in coptic but what is putting the world up in arms is one of the phrases written on it:

Jesus said to them, my wife,

This is basically making people remember that some people believe that Jesus was married. Before people tried to use the gnostic text "Gospel of Thomas" to substantiate the claim but the text itself does not explicitly say that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene people infer it. The interesting thing is that neither this scrap of papyrus or the Gospel of Thomas have either the historical evidence or validity of the four canonical gospels Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. There are people who don't see the Gospels as historical true or that there is historic and identifiable Christianity and they seem to want to give alternate gospels and texts equal weight.

[Dr Karen] King said that it was not until around 200 A.D. that claims started to surface, via the theologian known as Clement of Alexandria, that Jesus did not marry.

"This fragment suggests that other Christians of that period were claiming that he was married" but does not provide actual evidence of a marriage, she said.

"Christian tradition preserved only those voices that claimed Jesus never married. The 'Gospel of Jesus's Wife' now shows that some Christians thought otherwise." [Source]

Dr King and others are clear in telling that this does not prove that Jesus did indeed have a wife. However they think that there were Christians [the Gnostics] who did think that Jesus had wife and the reason why traditional Christianity does not is because the poor Gnostics were silenced. It's amazing to me that people would even try to make Gnostics Christians. The Mormons have more in common with historic traditional Christianity than the Gnostics did!  I mean really. The only way you could really think that the Gnostics would have been recognized as Christians by Peter, James, John, Paul, and the other first century Christians is if you don't know what the Bible teaches and/or what the many Gnostic flavors taught.

Added to this Dr Dan Wallace has posted the following piece of information:

Dan Wallace just posted this:

“News flash: Harvard Theological Review has decided not to publish Karen King¹s paper on the Coptic papyrus fragment on the grounds that the fragment is probably a fake.” This from an email Dr. Craig Evans, the Payzant Distinguished Professor of New Testament at Acadia University and Divinity College, sent to me earlier today. He said that Helmut Koester (Harvard University), Bentley Layton (Yale University), Stephen Emmel (University of Münster), and Gesine Robinson (Claremont Graduate School)–all first-rate scholars in Coptic studies–have weighed in and have found the fragment wanting. No doubt Francis Watson’s comprehensive work showing the fragment’s dependence on the Gospel of Thomas was a contributing factor for this judgment, as well as the rather odd look of the Coptic that already raised several questions as to its authenticity.

It's a forgery. 

What I find interesting is that while we have people trying to water down Christianity and say things about Jesus that they cannot prove over a forgery and no Christian killing over the situation, we have three countries protesting and killing over a movie on YouTube  that insult Muhammad based on Islamic sources! God is straight up showing us a difference between those who follow Christ and those who follow Muhammad.

It's nothing but the hand of God. The best thing is that God has called up brothers in Christ in every generation for when this kind of crap gets raised up. Here is a list of links regarding the way Dr James White, Mariano Grinbank, and Matthew Dowling have addressed this issue. Fistbumps to them all.

The Gospel of Jesus' Wife and Update: The Gospel of Jesus' Wife by Matthew Dowling

Was Jesus married? Manuscript says yes by Mariano Grinbank

Check these out by Dr James White
Get Ready for A Wave of Gnostic Looniness Once Again
A Note to the Secular World: Do Your History
Calling the MSM---Anyone Home?

@MartijnLinssen: Global Warming, IT and Christianity - the Law of Infallibility

I've been talking to a MartijnLinssen on Twitter and he posted the following blog entry. My comments are in red.

On Twitter, I do talk a lot. About anything. My monthly tweets have exponentially grown to currently over 1,200 a month, and that now is my baseline it seems.
I talk a bit with fundamental Christians at times, but that's at night time usually, somehow.
I talk mostly with IT people during the day, as I work in IT and usually operate as an Enterprise Architect who started off writing BASIC at age 11 and COBOL at career start - been there, done that.
And every now and then I do read and / or say something about Global Warming as that has become part of our everyday life

I find it easy to talk to him although we don't agree on the Bible. It's obvious why now I know that he is in IT.

When having conversation with Christians, I usually run into strict believers who have a good share of quotes and take the Bible literally or at least believe it contains absolute Truth. I challenge them on the crucifixion and say that the Bible should be taken figuratively, not literally, that Jesus' death is just a spiritual death (I believe Jesus' true words, meanings and life are according to the Gospel of Thomas) which is met with fierce resistance that it is all the Word of God, and True, and that it should be taken literally. The Bible is infallible, they say.
Then I ask them what they think of Luke 17:21, where Jesus tells the Pharisees that "the Kingdom of God is inside you". The answers always are alike "Jesus didn't mean that when he said such", "You have to place it into the context", "No that needs to be translated among, not inside or within" - much like this lengthy commentary
And before you know it, the True Word of God is being bent and interpreted right in front of you - by Christians themselves

He and I had a similar exchange. He commits two mistakes. The first is that he should try to prove that the rest of the Gospels should be read in light of  the Gospel of Thomas. It conflicts with the Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The other  problem is that he misinterprets Luke 17:21 because he thinks he can take Gospel of  Thoms equal or more weight.  In the NIV, Luke 17:21 says

nor will people say, 'Here it is,' or 'There it is,' because the kingdom of God is within [oR among or with] you."

He wants to interpret this verse as saying that the Kingdom of God is inside everyone including Jesus' enemies. We know that this interpretation is incorrect because inconflicts with other scriptures. His argument leads to Jesus' enemies - those who hate and work against him -  going to heaven. This makes no sense

²²Then came the Feast of Dedication at Jerusalem. It was winter, ²³and Jesus was in the temple area walking in Solomon's Colonnade. ²⁴The Jews gathered around him, saying, "How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly."

 ²⁵Jesus answered, "I did tell you, but you do not believe. The miracles I do in my Father's name speak for me, ²⁶but you do not believe because you are not my sheep. ²⁷My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. ²⁸I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. ²⁹My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand. ³⁰I and the Father are one." - John 10:22-29

The rest of  the post talks about infallibility and expresses that if something is infallible it must also falsifiable - able to be proven false. This is one of the characteristics of Christianity from the beginning. Either Jesus was crucified or he wasn't. Jesus rose from the dead or he didn't. You can't duck it. You can't call it spiritual or metaphor. The apostles claimed to be eyewitnesses to the resurrection and they pointed to evidences like the empty tomb (look at Acts 2).

[The picture is showing the 'Christian percentage by country' - although that just is counting quantity of course, not measuring quality]

@MartijnLinssen: Global Warming, IT and Christianity - the Law of Infallibility