Was Jesus married?

The Huffington Post is persisting in cluttering up my facebook newsfeed with tidbits designed to tantalize people into tearing out their hair over the marital status of Jesus.

I am finding it difficult to get as over-excited as they would seem to like: haven’t we been here before? Still, I am sufficiently engaged to give some sort of an inexpert opinion as to the significance of what has happened this past week with the introduction of a “new” piece of papyrus which appears to give credence to the idea that Jesus was a married man.

To recap: on Tuesday, a Harvard Divinity School professor, Karen King, introduced the world to a fragment of papyrus dating from the early few centuries following the life of Jesus which contained the words, “Jesus said to them, ‘My wife …'”

(http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/18/living/fragment-suggests-jesus-was-married/index.html?iref=allsearch)

It’s worth noting that she, in the same presentation, argued that this does…