Faith Digest: Jesus’ wife?

Did Jesus have a wife? A Harvard Divinity School professor claims a newly revealed fragment of papyrus offers fresh evidence some early Christians may have believed Jesus was married. Four words written in Coptic on a fourth-century codex quote Jesus referring to "my wife," said Karen King, a scholar of early Christianity. King calls the receipt-sized slip of paper "The Gospel of Jesus' Wife." She believes the fragment originally was written in Greek and later translated into Coptic, an Egyptian language, but she acknowledges "nothing is known about the circumstances of its discovery"—an admission that has raised red flags for other scholars. The fragment says, "Jesus said to them, 'My wife …,'" according to King. The rest of the sentence is cut off. King did not rule out the possibility Jesus was speaking metaphorically. Christian Scripture calls the church "the bride of Christ." The small fragment contains very little context, King admitted.

Grand Canyon University wins free campus. A Christian university in Arizona has won one of the education world's most sought-after prizes—a free, historic, freshly renovated campus in the rolling hills of western Massachusetts. Phoenix-based Grand Canyon University plans to open an extension campus in Northfield, Mass., on a 217-acre site formerly owned by Northfield Mount Hermon School. The private secondary school sold the campus in 2009 to Hobby Lobby, a craft store chain owned by the billionaire Green family of Oklahoma. The Greens invested $5 million in upgrades with the intent to give it to a Christian institution. Grand Canyon University has 7,000 traditional students on campus in Phoenix, plus another 40,000 online. The Arizona Southern Baptist Convention opened Grand Canyon College in 1948. The school, renamed Grand Canyon University in 1989, cut its ties with the convention in 2000.

Americans poor at estimating religious adherents. The typical American underestimates how many Protestants there are in the United States and vastly overestimates the number of religious minorities such as Mormons, Muslims, and atheist/agnostics, according to a new study. Grey Matter Research and Consulting asked 747 U.S. adults to guess what proportion of the American population belongs to each of eight major religious groups—Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Mormon, Muslim, atheist/agnostic, believe in God or a higher power but have no particular religious preference, and any other religious group.The average response was that 24 percent of Americans are Catholic, 20 percent are Protestant, 19 percent are unaffiliated, 8 percent are Jewish, 9 percent are atheist or agnostic, 7 percent are Muslim, 7 percent are Mormon and 5 percent identify with all other religious groups. Respondents were correct on Catholics—24 percent of the country is Catholic. But according to the 2008 U.S. Religious Landscape Survey from the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, 51 percent are Protestant, 12 percent are unaffiliated, 2 percent are Jewish, 4 percent are Atheist/Agnostic, less than 1 percent are Muslim, 2 percent are Mormon and 4 percent identify with all other religious groups.

–Compiled from Religion News Service