History can be quite inconvenient...

History can be quite inconvenient...  Researchers continually uncover new facts about human history, usually in the form of writings of one sort or another.  Most of the time these are simply interesting, and lead to a more complete understanding of past events.  The further back in history one goes, the more dramatic the revisions tend to be – simply because our knowledge of the past gets murkier the further back we look.

Sometimes, however, these revisions have implications or reverberations in current times.  That's the case with a recently translated Coptic script, which says in part:

Jesus said to them, “My wife...” 

The idea of Jesus having a wife is counter to the teachings of every Christian sect that I'm aware of.  It raises the possibility that there exist descendants of Jesus – an uncomfortable thought for most Christians.  It also directly contradicts the Christian orthodoxy that Jesus devoted himself entirely to his mission of inaugurating the Kingdom of God in every element of his life: his teachings, his death, and his resurrection.  A married Jesus isn't compatible with that notion.

There's a lot of debate – both technical and theological – about this script.   The web is full of the back-and-forth about it, and I doubt it will subside anytime soon.  All of which made me wonder what the ancient scribe would have thought if he could somehow have known what a flap his writing caused a dozen centuries later...