I see that another story is breaking across the news about the discovery of ancient manuscript evidence that Jesus had a wife. Setting aside, of course, a couple of minor points such as it being dated two or three centuries too late to be compelling documentary evidence and one would have expected other, more contemporary documents such as the canonical gospels, to have picked up on this not insignificant fact.

The experts may well be right when they believe this not to be a forgery but as Professor Karen King, the academic who has revealed the fragment, points out, “It is not evidence, for us, historically, that Jesus had a wife. It’s quite clear evidence, in fact, that some Christians, probably in the second half of the 2nd century, thought that Jesus had a wife.” Ah, the joys of reading past the attention-grabbing headline! In other words, we can also rest secure in the knowledge that the moon probably is not made of cheese even though some people may have sincerely believed that and committed that belief to paper.

A hat tip to Pete Ward, who dug up this witty filling in of the gaps (and also a further proposal from the same source).