Blog 5: Vatican Says Papyrus Referring to Jesus' Wife Is Probably Fake

The Vatican has raised doubts on a recently released of a text basically states that the Jesus alludes to having a wife. The Vatican believes it is a fake and considers it “problematic and controversial.” An editorial that was published on Friday in the Vatican newspaper stated that evidence existed to dismiss the papyrus as an “inept forgery.” Scholars that discuss the papyrus text end up in an intense discussion. Harvard scholar, Karen L. King, presented it as a fragment of a fourth-century gospel at an international conference of Coptic scholars this month in Rome. She didn’t say he was married; she just said questions his celibacy and marital status. Now the authenticity of the papyrus is being questioned. She arranged to have a chemical composition of the ink to be tested but it was hard for her to schedule a testing. The test should be able to approximate the date for when the ink was used. The suspicions that the papyrus was forged grew when Francis Watson, a scholar at Durham University in England, posted a paper online arguing that the text was cobbled together from phrases in the Gospel of Thomas. Experts say that kind of cobbling doesn’t prove it was forged because things like that show up in authentic ancient texts as well. Dr. Alberto Camplani said he was suspicious of the papyrus because it had been found on the antiquarian market and not through a dig. He believes that objects of such value demands for numerous precautions to establish its reliability and to exclude the possibility that it could be forgery.

                This is could definitely become a social problem because there are a lot of people who take the marital status of Jesus seriously and once it was out in the press it caused a lot of issues between Christians. There are a lot of people who already are conscious of what’s going on and are curious of what’s real and what’s not. It is also possible that it could extend to a global problem because religions that are closely knit to Christianity. It might cause other religions to look more into the topic because they too might think that Jesus did not marry or stay celibate. There is also a difference in beliefs in this situation.  Although it is within the Christian community the fact that some Christians believe one thing and others believe something else could cause controversy in a community. There is no telling how soon they can find out if the papyrus is real or not so until then it is quite obvious that there will be sn intense argument over what’s right and what’s wrong. There was also the issue of whether Dr. King should have given the information out to the press because they didn't know if it was real or not. That within itself is a controversy. I don’t see this situation getting worked out anytime soon because of the testing but maybe it will.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/29/world/europe/vatican-says-papyrus-referring-to-jesus-wife-is-probably-fake.html

Blog 5: Affirmative action, rights cases await U.S. Supreme Court

Analysis

The U.S. Supreme Court has a couple of issues that they have to address very soon.  This is the first time the court is together since the courts “decision to upheld nearly all of President Barack Obama's healthcare law”.  One of the cases that the Supreme Court has to hear is “Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin.”  This court case will be held on October 10 and will deal with the issue of “using race in undergraduate admissions to increase diversity is still acceptable under the U.S. Constitution.”  The court is also going to be looking at the court case, “Kiobel and Fisher, which deals with the controversy of and the possibility the court will visit the issues of gay marriage and voting rights.”  The Supreme Court has “already has accepted close to 40 cases for the new term, filling roughly half of its usual docket.”  On the matter of Same-Sex Marriage the court had to review 12 previous cases like this one and whether it is legal or not.  “Several address the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act, which requires the government to deny benefits such as Social Security payments to gay and lesbian couples. Even if they live in states that allow same-sex marriage.”  The Supreme Court is suppose to say if they accept these cases or rejects them by the end of June. 

Critique

            The United States Supreme Court is finally back from their summer break and has many issues that they have to address including, Same-Sex Marriage, and if race is should be a deciding factor in the case of undergraduate admissions.  In the case of Kiobel and Fisher, which deals with gay marriage and if it should be legal or illegal.  This will be a big case in American history.  The court has already reviewed nearly a dozen cases dealing with same sex marriage and what the results were.  So it should be interesting to see what the court decides on the matter.  The court has to also look at if the Constitution defends the right of gay marriage, along with other issues.  The court also has to look at the issue arising about if having a diversity quota is legal or not.  Even if one of the students was so much better than the other but if the college had to fill up their diversity, the smarter student would obviously not get into the school.  This problem has occurred before and is a normal part of the applying to college now.  Schools are looking to put diversity in their schools but are it legal to do this.  That’s what the Supreme Court has to find out, and they should have an answer by the end of June for both those cases and others.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/28/us-usa-court-idUSBRE88R08820120928?feedType=RSS&feedName=domesticNews