<p>The Vatican said an ancient papyrus fragment which a Harvard scholar says contains the first recorded mention that Jesus may have had a wife is a fake.</p><br /><p>Joining a highly charged academic debate over the authenticity of the text, which was written in ancient Egyptian Coptic, the newspaper published a lengthy analysis on the authenticity of the ancient papyrus.</p><br /><p>The fragment was recently unveiled by Harvard Professor Karen King as a text from the 4th century at a congress of Coptic Studies in Rome.<br /><br />Her study divided the academic community, with some hailing it as a landmark discovery while others rapidly expressed their doubts.</p><br /><p>Manuscript experts who heard King's presentation quickly took to their blogs to express doubts, noting that the letters were clumsy, perhaps the script of someone unused to writing Coptic.</p><br /><p>The idea that Jesus was married resurfaces regularly in popular culture, notably with the 2003 publication of Dan Brown's best-seller "The Da Vinci Code," which angered the Vatican because, among other things, it was based on the idea that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and had children.</p><br /><p>Christian tradition has long held that Jesus was not married and the Catholic Church, by far the largest in Christendom, says women cannot become priests because Christ chose only men.</p>
