2014's 'Easter psyche'

                             Jesus had a wife.  Or maybe not.
                            Whatever.  It makes a good story, which is why it is this year's "Easter psyche."
                            "Easter psyche" is splashy coverage of a trend, controversial book, scandal or archaeological "discovery" that aims to debunk something about Jesus or his followers.  Usually, its aim is to contradict the basis of the faith as Christians prepare for the holiest day on their liturgical calendar.
                            The "Easter psyche" appears each spring, and its unique fragrance pervades the holiday week like dead skunk on a suburban highway.
                            The modern secular tradition of skunking Easter began on Good Friday, April 8, 1966, when Time magazine published its most famous cover, "Is God Dead?"  (Time's conclusion: Depends on whom you ask.)
                           This trend continued, ramping up in the early 1990s as the tradition was refined, as outlets completed to created the most buzz-worthy psyche story.
                           Some highlights :
                           On Holy Thursday 1991, Larry King, then hosting a prime-time interview show on CNN, looked into the camera and asked viewers: "Was Saint Paul a repressed homosexual?  Mother Mary not a virgin?"
                           The next year, wide press coverage was given during Lent to ex-priest John Dominic Crossan's book claiming the Jesus was nothing more than a kindly man with nice ideas, and that his body was not resurrected but probably eaten by wild dogs.
                           On Easter Sunday 2001, the Discovery Channel broadcast a three-hour British documentary "Jesus: The Complete Story," which presented Jesus as historical, not divine, and suggested he conspired with Judas to turn himself over to the authorities who put him to death.
                           In 2003, Discovery was back with another Easter Sunday special, "James, Brother of Jesus" claiming that James, not Jesus, was the real leader of the Church.
                           During Lent 2007, "Titanic" director James Cameron produced "The Lost Tomb of Jesus" documentary, which claimed to have discovered Jesus' family burial chamber in East Jerusalem, called the Talpiot Tomb.  Amos Kloner, the renowned archaeologist who actually led the Israel Antiquities Authority's excavation of the tomb in 1980, said the Cameron documentary's claims are "nonsense."
                           And then there was Newsweek's Easter 2009 cover by editor Jon Meacham, a reprise of Time's "Is God Dead?" cover ------ "The Decline and Fall of Christian America."
                           In 2010, there was wall-to-wall Holy Week coverage by the networks of the Catholic clergy sex scandal.  On April 3, Holy Saturday to Christians, NBC News reporter Dan Harris said: "This is the holiest weekend in the Christian calendar ....... but Easter is providing no respite whatsoever from what may be the gravest outrage in the modern history of the Catholic Church."
                          Harris returned the next day to psyche: "On this Easter Sunday an extraordinary effort to defend the pope amid growing public outrage over pedophile priests........."
                          Last year, Newsweek's Easter cover bore the words "Forget the Church, Follow Jesus" by the gay marriage activist and writer Andrew Sullivan.
                          This year's Easter psyche came last week, when experts concluded that a scrap of papyrus purporting to show Jesus had a wife probably dates to about 741 AD, and is not a modern forgery as some scholars believe.
                         The scrap was first presented to the public in September 2012 by its discoverer, Harvard Divinity School historian Karen L. King.  It contains words in Coptic, "Jesus said to them, "My wife.....'"  That's where the sentence ends, conveniently.
                         According to The New York Times, even Professor King is reluctant to say Jesus had a wife.
                        Jesus did not have a wife.  Would it matter if he did?
                        No.  If you do not understand why, maybe you have read too much John Dominic Crossan, Jon Meacham, Andrew Sullivan, et al, or have watched too many hokey television documentaries.