Μὴ γίνεσθε ἑτεροζυγοῦντες ἀπίστοις

Recently I was approached by a friend who wanted my take on Paul’s comment that Christians should not be “unequally yoked with unbelievers” (2 Cor. 6:14). This particular friend is in an interfaith marriage and had been challenged by someone who took Paul’s comment as a prohibition against such marriages.

Μὴ γίνεσθε ἑτεροζυγοῦντες ἀπίστοις· τίς γὰρ μετοχὴ δικαιοσύνῃ καὶ ἀνομίᾳ, ἢ τίς κοινωνία φωτὶ πρὸς σκότος;

I’ve spent some time looking at the way this verse has been used and reading the relevant section of 2 Corinthians carefully. Here are a few observations on what I have found:

1. The passage in question (2 Corinthians 6) does not address marriage at all. It is about the work of the gospel, the work of early Christians in spreading the “good news” (to use Paul’s favorite term for it elsewhere). If this one verse refers to marriage, it seems quite out-of-place here.

2. The phrase “unequally yoked” translates the Greek word ἑτεροζυγοῦντες—a compound of the two words ἕτερος and ζυγέω. A problem with interpreting this as a reference to interfaith marriage is that the verb ζυγέω is not used elsewhere to refer to marriage. It refers to wearing a device that allows two animals (or slaves) to work together, not to form a family together. If Paul used the term figuratively to refer to marriage, he used it in a very odd way.

A much more reasonable interpretation of the verb would be something like, “Don’t partner with unbelievers [in the work of spreading the gospel].” In fact, in the very next clause Paul asks, “What partnership (μετοχὴ) [is there] between righteousness and lawlessness?” (τίς γὰρ μετοχὴ δικαιοσύνῃ καὶ ἀνομίᾳ).

Note that I’m not arguing a theological point here. I can’t speak for Paul about his view of interfaith marriage. I just notice that this particular verse does not appear to be about marriage at all, but about partnership in the work of the gospel.

There’s a separate issue that can be raised in reference to this same statement in 2 Corinthians 6:14, and that has to do with the word ἀπίστοις. Most published English translations render ἀπίστοις as unbelievers. While this adjective does seem to have that sense in a number of other contexts, it is important to realize that it is a combination of the privative α- and the adjective πιστός (faithful) and can also describe a lack of faithfulness rather than a lack of belief.

Of course translating ἀπίστοις  as unfaithful would significantly change the meaning of the passage. Rather than arguing that the Corinthians not work with unbelievers in the spread of the gospel, Paul would be arguing that they should not work with those who are unfaithful. This could very well include his opponents within the Corinthian church! Why would he have to counsel them not to work with unbelievers in the spread of the gospel anyway? Why would unbelievers want to be involved in that work?

If we read ἀπίστοις as unfaithful, we would see Paul as counseling the Corinthians not to work with unfaithful Christians. Doing so could damage their witness. He prefers that they work with those who are faithful (πιστός) like him.

Coptic fragment presenting Jesus as saying "my wife"?

The following video from Harvard professor Karen L. King has received a huge amount of discussion online over the last few weeks.

Is the fragment directly relevant to the discussion of Hellenistic Greek? No. It is written in Coptic, and there is no credible evidence that it is a translation of an earlier Greek original. While Dr. King assumes the fragment to be a translation, I have found no evidence to support this assumption.

Do I think the Coptic fragment is authentic? I’m skeptical. The provenance of the fragment is unknown. This is a serious problem for any attempt to argue for authenticity.

Dr. King’s assertion that the fragment is evidence of a previously unknown Gospel is highly questionable. It rests on assumptions that I see as difficult to support. If authentic, the fragment was once part of a larger document of some kind. Was that document a Gospel? Perhaps. But it could also have been a letter or a work of religious fiction.

Dr. King has been clear that the fragment does not provide evidence that Jesus was married. If it is authentic, it provides evidence only of what a later group of Christians thought about whether he was married, not evidence of the historical reliability of their thinking. By assuming the fragment to be a translation of an earlier Greek original, though, Dr. King is able to assert that the view it represents on Jesus marital status dates to an earlier period than I believe the evidence actually supports.

While I think it is unlikely that the fragment is actually authentic, that does not mean that I reject the idea that Jesus could have been married.

The question of Jesus marital status did not arise until at least a hundred years after his death, at a time when the early church was struggling with whether Christians should marry, or at the least with whether clergy should marry. The canonical gospels are entirely silent on the issue. [O.K., so here’s the only possible tiny connection between this post and the Greek texts!] They say neither that he was or that he wasn’t married. They never mention a wife, but neither do they assert that he didn’t have one. The assertion that he was single throughout his life is based on theology, not the Greek texts.

If responses appear to this post, I will try to steer them toward discussion of the relevant Greek texts and meanings of particular Greek words and phrases.