Well, considering that I don't believe in Jesus or God or Allah or any other religious deity, no. Asking me if Jesus had a wife is like asking me if Santa or the Easter bunny had/has a wife.
Last month, on a visit to NYC, I took in the Highlights Tour at the J. Pierpont Morgan Library and Museum. The tour was titled '5000 Years of Writing'.
I anticipated being given a glimpse of the papyrus fragments held in the Morgan collection. Unfortunately, we were unable to view them, as our guide explained, that they had to be kept under the strictest environmental, atmospheric and light controlled conditions or they would simply disintegrate.
Now, as I look at the photo in the cited article, showing a woman holding a papyrus fragment, encased in glass, as she sits in front of a sunlit window in what appears to be an ordinary office...it just makes no sense.
Of course Jesus had a wife; Mary Magdalene. She was with child and fleed, with Jesus's Mother Mary to the South of France after the Cruxifiction. She was the Holy Grail that was much sought after by the 12th Century Crusaders. The remenants of Jesus DNA survives today in the area of England under the surname Sinclair.
Well, it may be very significant to some. The entire nature of the Roman Catholic priesthood - males only - is founded on the belief that Jesus' celibacy was the model for the priesthood. My own church has settled the issue in favor of women's ordination some time ago, so perhaps a moot point with us.
The source for this story cautions against reading too much into this. However she is an academic expert in Coptic papyrus, so it is certainly worth examining more closely.
Reasons to be cautious:
(1) It's a TINY fragment, missing the top, bottom and sides, so there is not a complete quotation. But the fragment has a portion of a phrase from Jesus that begins "My wife ...". I suppose it could actually read "My wife? Hey I'm not married!" A fragment is just that, a fragment.
(2) This is a translation written a long time after Jesus. It may have been an oral tradition that floated around for 200 years before someone thought to write it down. And you know what happens with oral tradition - just think of the last time you heard some third-hand gossip!
(3) Or this is a translation of a translation. Jesus spoke Aramaic, a dialect of Hebrew. We know this because some of the stories in the Bible leave his Aramaic words intact. "Ephpatha", for one, and also the words the dying Jesus spoke on the Cross. Think of the difference between Latin and Italian. Hebrew was spoken on religious occasions, but in everyday speech people used Aramaic. However, the oldest papyrus fragments and scrolls that have been found are all written in Greek. And then this fragment is in southern Coptic, so yet another translation. Every layer of translation introduces the translators' conscious or unconscious biases. And then, of course, the modern English Bible is yet another translation. Anyone know, by the way, the date of the oldest complete New testament that has been found? I'll give you a hint, it wasn't the day after the resurrection! It was a long time after!
(4) There is also a lot of geographic distance between Israel and southern Egypt, coupled with the distance between languages, and the distance in years.
(5) There are LOTS of papyrus records of Jesus and his disciples, the majority of which were not included in the New Testament. Some of these are very interesting, some of them seem off the wall. Many of these scrolls refer to themselves as "Gospels". One that has especially intrigued scholars is the Gospel of Thomas that overlaps some of the known sayings of Jesus, but also introduces some distinctly Gnostic thinking. It appears that a lot of writings were produced in those early times, some of them aiming to be faithful to the oral tradition, some of them adding unconscious shifts, some of them deliberately shifting the story to meet the needs of the church in the author's time. It was a particular group of men who made the executive decision of what constituted a Gospel or Epistle admissable to the Canon. It may be that the least we can say about this fragment is that someone somewhere remembered a story of Jesus talking about his wife, or that someone was sure he must have had something to say about his wife in light of a contemporary controversy involving wives. .
(6) There were lots of people named "Jesus" back then, a form of "Joshua". There's even a burial box that has been discovered in recent years for a "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus". The Indiana Jones in me wants to say "aha, proof!", but maybe all three of these names were very common.
Reasons to consider this important:
(1) Experts have authenticated the paper fiber and ink, so this is not a modern forgery.
(2) Suggests that archaeological findings can add new information to what we thought we knew. And there may be more discoveries to come. As with all of these things it can take years and years to link various bits and pieces of the past to even begin to form a hypothesis.
(3) Maybe Dan Brown, author of the DaVinci Code is right that the role of women has been deliberately purged from early Christian history? This discovery might begin to shape a corrective view of women in the early church.
(4) Of interest to anyone discussing Biblical "inerrancy" (the belief that the Bible in its final form was dictated by God) is that the earliest scrolls exhibit a lot of variations in the text. The discovery of this fragment adds to that complexity. Some of these are obvious copying errors, but others suggest a strong editorial hand that wants to "fix" a problem in the narrative. So if God authored the Bible in a direct way, why are there so many variations of the story. For example, one of the earliest versions of Mark's Gospel ends with verse 8 in Chapter 16 but now nearly every Bible adds verses 9-20. Which version is from God? And who gets to make the decision? Me, you, the Pope, a council of academics, or some self-appointed guardians of the true faith?
It is a fascinating story, whether you reject it as hogwash, or a rare insight into the past.
Why is it that this question can be posed in our mainstream media with whimsical fancy, humorous anecdote, or even hostile disregard when the notion is patently offensive to MANY mainline fundamental Christians? There seems to be no worry that it may offend a large number of faithful followers of Jesus, yet to mention (with actual credible evidence) that Muhammad was betrothed to a 9 yr. old Aisha and consummated that marriage when he was in his 50's and she between 10 and 12 yrs. old is to wrongly inflame the delicate sensibilities of the worlds peaceful religion and therefore inexcusable to even consider.
Why would this offend you? ,A historical fragment that suggest Jesus had a wife, where the researcher clearly states comes from after the time of Christ and is more of what his followers believed, is found and shared.
How is asking the opinion of the populace if you think it could possibly happen the same as a person who openly hates Muslims making a film claiming their God was a pedophile?
First Phil , the notion of a married Jesus undermines the veracity of Scripture and therefore would reasonably be considered an affront to the faith. Second, it is not the film that is the source of Mohammed's sexual relations with a preteen, it is a credible, historical assertion that too many modern historians choose to ignore Third it is an absurd double standard that one can say ANYTHING about Christianity without fear of reprisal and under the guise of either art or free speech, but Islam is off limits to anything that might be construed as offensive.
I understand that the concept of Jesus having a wife would be considered an outrageous claim in some quarters of the Christian Church, especially if at this early stage in the investigation someone asserts the existence of a wife as an indisputable fact. Finding a scrap of papyrus with intriguing content is about 99% removed from any assertion of fact by anyone. Best leave that to Dan Brown for now. But the scrap of papyrus is what it is, assuming at this point it is not a forgery. It may be talking about the Jesus at the center of Christian faith, or some other Jesus; it may be talking about his wife, or perhaps the incomplete phrase has a different meaning entirely. But it can not set aside just because some find it's potential implications disturbing. It has been discovered. The question now is what to make of it. The question is no longer "should it be presented to the world?". That has now happened.
By the way, many have conjectured that Mary, the mother of Jesus was quite young at the time of Jesus' birth. It would have been common in those times for clan leaders to marry off daughters at a young age. The deal might have been struck when the girl was quite young (betrothal) and then the actual marriage would happen when the girl reached puberty. In the history of the entire world marriage for love rarely occurs - it is usually arranged in order to secure clan advantages. And the one person who has no say in the matter is the girl. Our own marriage ceremonies in the present day, when performed in a traditional way still reflect some of this, when the officiant asks the father to "give" the woman in marriage. Believe me, it is very unlikely that Joseph proposed to Mary with a ring after going out on a series of dates. It is more likely that a clan leader saw that a childless Joseph needed a wife, or more importantly a male heir, and a deal was made involving a dowry of goats or sheep. Joseph and Mary might not even have known each other.
It has been further conjectured that Joseph was old - though the chief evidence for this seems flimsy: - he wasn't around at the time when Jesus was an adult. But that could be explained by factors other than old age. Maybe he hit his thumb with a hammer, and then the infection killed him young?
All of what I have said about Mary and Joseph is mostly conjecture. But the practice of marriage in those times generally fits this model. Muhammad lived 600 years or so later, but I will go out on a limb and suggest that the traditions for marriage were roughly the same: clan leaders arranging marriages of young girls to secure clan advantage, and sometimes this involved older men.
Where does the Bible say that Jesus was unmarried? I'm not at all saying Jesus was married, but the Bible doesn't say he wasn't. So I'm not sure what Scripture veracity you are referring to. Jesus had twelve disciples and none of their wives are mentioned. Were they all unmarried too? One concession to Jeff's point is that Simon Peter's Mother-in-law is healed in one story, so Peter at least was married, but no mention of Peter's wife.
In the 19th century records of a church in our county it is very interesting to see how invisible women were. They are never appointed church leaders, of course, and when they are mentioned at all they are rarely mentioned by name, only as "Mrs. John Smith", or "Mr. John Smith and wife".
I am at a loss. I cannot debate the sound logic that says because the Bible doesn't say something, it becomes grounds for human intervention and addition (if you are familiar with the verse that warns of adding to or subtracting from it, it ain't pretty). I happen to believe that the Bible is the inspired, complete, inerrant Word of God. It's perfection is the essence of it's divine origin. To disprove one word of it would be to disprove it's entirety.
Jeff - The Bible is not definitive on whether Jesus had a wife either way, it is vague on the subject throughout the gospels of Matthew, John, Mark and Luke and the rest of the New Testament. As a Bible believing Christian like you, I certainly don't hold it outside of the realm of possibility. Furthermore, Jesus having a wife adds or subtracts nothing from Christianity theologically, I don't think from a faith perspective it's particularly important.....but from a historic one, it's huge. Who knows? Not me, not you, only God....and neither of us are Him. Do not be like the Pharisees and Teachers of the Law that Jesus repeatedly rebuked for relying on a legalistic perspective.
The notion itself is a stretch. The Bible follows Jesus' life in great detail from the wedding at Cana through his death and resurrection. It includes great details of his relationships with His disciples, His mother, and His siblings. To expect that much information on those close to him at the expense of any mention at all of a spouse is illogical when considered in the context of how much time the Bible devotes to the institution of marriage and spousal relationships.
Jeff, what's your take on the alternate endings in Mark 16? Which one of them is inspired, complete and inerrant? This is pretty important since this chapter is all about Jesus' resurrection.
Roman Catholics include entire books that are not in my Bible. Which Bible is inerrant, the Protestant Bible or the Catholic one? And who gets to decide this question? And which existing version meets your standard, Greek, Latin, English, or Korean translations? And which of the English translations do you find most represents the inerrant word? King James, Revised Standard, NIV, etc.? All of these translations have the heavy hand of the translator evident in them, so how to decide, how to know which is closest to the mind of God? Or must we all become conversant in ancient Greek to be able to apprehend the true word of God?
I'm not trying to criticize you or anyone else, I'm just trying to grasp your thinking.
And, just in case anyone thinks that I am advocating acceptance of some new doctrine or addition to the Canon, the papyrus fragment - as far as I am concerned - is simply an interesting discovery worth discussing, as we are doing here.
From a theological standpoint the Church (the people, not the building) is the BRIDE of Christ. That's the biggest argument for Jesus not having had an earthly wife, because he was/is betrothed to the Church. From a historical standpoint what this fragments shows is that there were some people who lived after the time that Jesus walked the earth who 'believed' that he was married. Just because they believed it and wrote it down, doesn't make it true.
Those 6 negative vote are exactly why I feel the way I do about religion. "If you don't agree with my religion and you're not in my club, you're an outcast." Voicing any opinion contrary to the majority's will be met with prejudice and hypocrisy.
Justin is right, of course Santa has a wife, I've seen her in cartoons a thousand times. Silly me!
Look at it this way - at least 6 people took the time to read your post!. Zero votes would make you wonder ...
At one point I had seven positive votes for one of my comments on this thread, the most I think I've ever had in the Batavian. I have to tell you the results are pretty much the same: I didn't get a pay raise, my snow-blower still needs replacing, and taxes are due.
I wonder what the author of that papyrus fragment would think upon learning that it is still being read 1500 years later with such interest. Reminds me of the sci-fi classic "A Cantlicle for Leibowitz", in which after the nuclear holocaust an old grocery shopping list is found in the remains of a fall-out shelter, and the list becomes a "holy grail" to what remains of the Catholic Church. So Leibowitz, undoubtably a Jew, becomes a mighty saint because of the list he wrote, that mentions milk and eggs, etc. It is amusing to see the post-nuclear church scholars exegete that scrap of paper to the nth degree looking for deep theological truths.
Well, considering that I
Well, considering that I don't believe in Jesus or God or Allah or any other religious deity, no. Asking me if Jesus had a wife is like asking me if Santa or the Easter bunny had/has a wife.
Santa, yes, Mrs.
Santa, yes, Mrs. Claus....duh!
Easter Bunny....not sure.
Personally, I would like to know if the tooth fairy is hitched.
Justin, the Tooth Fairy is
Justin, the Tooth Fairy is single, but will only remain that way until gay marriage is legal.
Last month, on a visit to
Last month, on a visit to NYC, I took in the Highlights Tour at the J. Pierpont Morgan Library and Museum. The tour was titled '5000 Years of Writing'.
I anticipated being given a glimpse of the papyrus fragments held in the Morgan collection. Unfortunately, we were unable to view them, as our guide explained, that they had to be kept under the strictest environmental, atmospheric and light controlled conditions or they would simply disintegrate.
Now, as I look at the photo in the cited article, showing a woman holding a papyrus fragment, encased in glass, as she sits in front of a sunlit window in what appears to be an ordinary office...it just makes no sense.
of course any great man had
of course any great man had to have a woman beside him
Of course Jesus had a wife;
Of course Jesus had a wife; Mary Magdalene. She was with child and fleed, with Jesus's Mother Mary to the South of France after the Cruxifiction. She was the Holy Grail that was much sought after by the 12th Century Crusaders. The remenants of Jesus DNA survives today in the area of England under the surname Sinclair.
Well, it may be very
Well, it may be very significant to some. The entire nature of the Roman Catholic priesthood - males only - is founded on the belief that Jesus' celibacy was the model for the priesthood. My own church has settled the issue in favor of women's ordination some time ago, so perhaps a moot point with us.
The source for this story cautions against reading too much into this. However she is an academic expert in Coptic papyrus, so it is certainly worth examining more closely.
Reasons to be cautious:
(1) It's a TINY fragment, missing the top, bottom and sides, so there is not a complete quotation. But the fragment has a portion of a phrase from Jesus that begins "My wife ...". I suppose it could actually read "My wife? Hey I'm not married!" A fragment is just that, a fragment.
(2) This is a translation written a long time after Jesus. It may have been an oral tradition that floated around for 200 years before someone thought to write it down. And you know what happens with oral tradition - just think of the last time you heard some third-hand gossip!
(3) Or this is a translation of a translation. Jesus spoke Aramaic, a dialect of Hebrew. We know this because some of the stories in the Bible leave his Aramaic words intact. "Ephpatha", for one, and also the words the dying Jesus spoke on the Cross. Think of the difference between Latin and Italian. Hebrew was spoken on religious occasions, but in everyday speech people used Aramaic. However, the oldest papyrus fragments and scrolls that have been found are all written in Greek. And then this fragment is in southern Coptic, so yet another translation. Every layer of translation introduces the translators' conscious or unconscious biases. And then, of course, the modern English Bible is yet another translation. Anyone know, by the way, the date of the oldest complete New testament that has been found? I'll give you a hint, it wasn't the day after the resurrection! It was a long time after!
(4) There is also a lot of geographic distance between Israel and southern Egypt, coupled with the distance between languages, and the distance in years.
(5) There are LOTS of papyrus records of Jesus and his disciples, the majority of which were not included in the New Testament. Some of these are very interesting, some of them seem off the wall. Many of these scrolls refer to themselves as "Gospels". One that has especially intrigued scholars is the Gospel of Thomas that overlaps some of the known sayings of Jesus, but also introduces some distinctly Gnostic thinking. It appears that a lot of writings were produced in those early times, some of them aiming to be faithful to the oral tradition, some of them adding unconscious shifts, some of them deliberately shifting the story to meet the needs of the church in the author's time. It was a particular group of men who made the executive decision of what constituted a Gospel or Epistle admissable to the Canon. It may be that the least we can say about this fragment is that someone somewhere remembered a story of Jesus talking about his wife, or that someone was sure he must have had something to say about his wife in light of a contemporary controversy involving wives. .
(6) There were lots of people named "Jesus" back then, a form of "Joshua". There's even a burial box that has been discovered in recent years for a "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus". The Indiana Jones in me wants to say "aha, proof!", but maybe all three of these names were very common.
Reasons to consider this important:
(1) Experts have authenticated the paper fiber and ink, so this is not a modern forgery.
(2) Suggests that archaeological findings can add new information to what we thought we knew. And there may be more discoveries to come. As with all of these things it can take years and years to link various bits and pieces of the past to even begin to form a hypothesis.
(3) Maybe Dan Brown, author of the DaVinci Code is right that the role of women has been deliberately purged from early Christian history? This discovery might begin to shape a corrective view of women in the early church.
(4) Of interest to anyone discussing Biblical "inerrancy" (the belief that the Bible in its final form was dictated by God) is that the earliest scrolls exhibit a lot of variations in the text. The discovery of this fragment adds to that complexity. Some of these are obvious copying errors, but others suggest a strong editorial hand that wants to "fix" a problem in the narrative. So if God authored the Bible in a direct way, why are there so many variations of the story. For example, one of the earliest versions of Mark's Gospel ends with verse 8 in Chapter 16 but now nearly every Bible adds verses 9-20. Which version is from God? And who gets to make the decision? Me, you, the Pope, a council of academics, or some self-appointed guardians of the true faith?
It is a fascinating story, whether you reject it as hogwash, or a rare insight into the past.
I wonder, tp how many of the
I wonder, tp how many of the negative votes knew you were telling the plot to The Davinci Code? Great book.
Why is it that this question
Why is it that this question can be posed in our mainstream media with whimsical fancy, humorous anecdote, or even hostile disregard when the notion is patently offensive to MANY mainline fundamental Christians? There seems to be no worry that it may offend a large number of faithful followers of Jesus, yet to mention (with actual credible evidence) that Muhammad was betrothed to a 9 yr. old Aisha and consummated that marriage when he was in his 50's and she between 10 and 12 yrs. old is to wrongly inflame the delicate sensibilities of the worlds peaceful religion and therefore inexcusable to even consider.
Why would this offend you? ,A
Why would this offend you? ,A historical fragment that suggest Jesus had a wife, where the researcher clearly states comes from after the time of Christ and is more of what his followers believed, is found and shared.
How is asking the opinion of the populace if you think it could possibly happen the same as a person who openly hates Muslims making a film claiming their God was a pedophile?
Really, Jeff?
First Phil , the notion of a
First Phil , the notion of a married Jesus undermines the veracity of Scripture and therefore would reasonably be considered an affront to the faith. Second, it is not the film that is the source of Mohammed's sexual relations with a preteen, it is a credible, historical assertion that too many modern historians choose to ignore Third it is an absurd double standard that one can say ANYTHING about Christianity without fear of reprisal and under the guise of either art or free speech, but Islam is off limits to anything that might be construed as offensive.
I understand that the concept
I understand that the concept of Jesus having a wife would be considered an outrageous claim in some quarters of the Christian Church, especially if at this early stage in the investigation someone asserts the existence of a wife as an indisputable fact. Finding a scrap of papyrus with intriguing content is about 99% removed from any assertion of fact by anyone. Best leave that to Dan Brown for now. But the scrap of papyrus is what it is, assuming at this point it is not a forgery. It may be talking about the Jesus at the center of Christian faith, or some other Jesus; it may be talking about his wife, or perhaps the incomplete phrase has a different meaning entirely. But it can not set aside just because some find it's potential implications disturbing. It has been discovered. The question now is what to make of it. The question is no longer "should it be presented to the world?". That has now happened.
By the way, many have conjectured that Mary, the mother of Jesus was quite young at the time of Jesus' birth. It would have been common in those times for clan leaders to marry off daughters at a young age. The deal might have been struck when the girl was quite young (betrothal) and then the actual marriage would happen when the girl reached puberty. In the history of the entire world marriage for love rarely occurs - it is usually arranged in order to secure clan advantages. And the one person who has no say in the matter is the girl. Our own marriage ceremonies in the present day, when performed in a traditional way still reflect some of this, when the officiant asks the father to "give" the woman in marriage. Believe me, it is very unlikely that Joseph proposed to Mary with a ring after going out on a series of dates. It is more likely that a clan leader saw that a childless Joseph needed a wife, or more importantly a male heir, and a deal was made involving a dowry of goats or sheep. Joseph and Mary might not even have known each other.
It has been further conjectured that Joseph was old - though the chief evidence for this seems flimsy: - he wasn't around at the time when Jesus was an adult. But that could be explained by factors other than old age. Maybe he hit his thumb with a hammer, and then the infection killed him young?
All of what I have said about Mary and Joseph is mostly conjecture. But the practice of marriage in those times generally fits this model. Muhammad lived 600 years or so later, but I will go out on a limb and suggest that the traditions for marriage were roughly the same: clan leaders arranging marriages of young girls to secure clan advantage, and sometimes this involved older men.
Where does the Bible say that
Where does the Bible say that Jesus was unmarried? I'm not at all saying Jesus was married, but the Bible doesn't say he wasn't. So I'm not sure what Scripture veracity you are referring to. Jesus had twelve disciples and none of their wives are mentioned. Were they all unmarried too? One concession to Jeff's point is that Simon Peter's Mother-in-law is healed in one story, so Peter at least was married, but no mention of Peter's wife.
In the 19th century records of a church in our county it is very interesting to see how invisible women were. They are never appointed church leaders, of course, and when they are mentioned at all they are rarely mentioned by name, only as "Mrs. John Smith", or "Mr. John Smith and wife".
I am at a loss. I cannot
I am at a loss. I cannot debate the sound logic that says because the Bible doesn't say something, it becomes grounds for human intervention and addition (if you are familiar with the verse that warns of adding to or subtracting from it, it ain't pretty). I happen to believe that the Bible is the inspired, complete, inerrant Word of God. It's perfection is the essence of it's divine origin. To disprove one word of it would be to disprove it's entirety.
Jeff - The Bible is not
Jeff - The Bible is not definitive on whether Jesus had a wife either way, it is vague on the subject throughout the gospels of Matthew, John, Mark and Luke and the rest of the New Testament. As a Bible believing Christian like you, I certainly don't hold it outside of the realm of possibility. Furthermore, Jesus having a wife adds or subtracts nothing from Christianity theologically, I don't think from a faith perspective it's particularly important.....but from a historic one, it's huge. Who knows? Not me, not you, only God....and neither of us are Him. Do not be like the Pharisees and Teachers of the Law that Jesus repeatedly rebuked for relying on a legalistic perspective.
The notion itself is a
The notion itself is a stretch. The Bible follows Jesus' life in great detail from the wedding at Cana through his death and resurrection. It includes great details of his relationships with His disciples, His mother, and His siblings. To expect that much information on those close to him at the expense of any mention at all of a spouse is illogical when considered in the context of how much time the Bible devotes to the institution of marriage and spousal relationships.
Jeff, what's your take on the
Jeff, what's your take on the alternate endings in Mark 16? Which one of them is inspired, complete and inerrant? This is pretty important since this chapter is all about Jesus' resurrection.
Roman Catholics include entire books that are not in my Bible. Which Bible is inerrant, the Protestant Bible or the Catholic one? And who gets to decide this question? And which existing version meets your standard, Greek, Latin, English, or Korean translations? And which of the English translations do you find most represents the inerrant word? King James, Revised Standard, NIV, etc.? All of these translations have the heavy hand of the translator evident in them, so how to decide, how to know which is closest to the mind of God? Or must we all become conversant in ancient Greek to be able to apprehend the true word of God?
I'm not trying to criticize you or anyone else, I'm just trying to grasp your thinking.
And, just in case anyone thinks that I am advocating acceptance of some new doctrine or addition to the Canon, the papyrus fragment - as far as I am concerned - is simply an interesting discovery worth discussing, as we are doing here.
Jesus = Faith, Hope and
Jesus = Faith, Hope and Love
Religion = Agenda laden, politically driven, legalistic man made garbage.
Jesus>Religion
[Video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IAhDGYlpqY]
From a theological standpoint
From a theological standpoint the Church (the people, not the building) is the BRIDE of Christ. That's the biggest argument for Jesus not having had an earthly wife, because he was/is betrothed to the Church. From a historical standpoint what this fragments shows is that there were some people who lived after the time that Jesus walked the earth who 'believed' that he was married. Just because they believed it and wrote it down, doesn't make it true.
(No subject)
[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVIHG8R5224&feature=related]
no
no
Those 6 negative vote are
Those 6 negative vote are exactly why I feel the way I do about religion. "If you don't agree with my religion and you're not in my club, you're an outcast." Voicing any opinion contrary to the majority's will be met with prejudice and hypocrisy.
Justin is right, of course Santa has a wife, I've seen her in cartoons a thousand times. Silly me!
Look at it this way - at
Look at it this way - at least 6 people took the time to read your post!. Zero votes would make you wonder ...
At one point I had seven positive votes for one of my comments on this thread, the most I think I've ever had in the Batavian. I have to tell you the results are pretty much the same: I didn't get a pay raise, my snow-blower still needs replacing, and taxes are due.
I wonder what the author of that papyrus fragment would think upon learning that it is still being read 1500 years later with such interest. Reminds me of the sci-fi classic "A Cantlicle for Leibowitz", in which after the nuclear holocaust an old grocery shopping list is found in the remains of a fall-out shelter, and the list becomes a "holy grail" to what remains of the Catholic Church. So Leibowitz, undoubtably a Jew, becomes a mighty saint because of the list he wrote, that mentions milk and eggs, etc. It is amusing to see the post-nuclear church scholars exegete that scrap of paper to the nth degree looking for deep theological truths.