I must say that I am fascinated by fascination about jesus's possible wife. This little piece of parchment that was unveiled by Dr. Karen King (who I must say I think is great - I never took a class with her, but the few conversation I had with her left me impressed). A part of Dr. Kings skill as an academic is that academics are careful to say was is the limits of what they know. In this case this text doesn't prove or disprove whether Jesus had a wife, it only shows that it was a point of active discussion about four hundred years later.
So why are we fascinated by this still? Lets be clear, if it turned out that Jesus was married the only doctrines that this would affect is around the accuracy of Scripture and the Christian Tradition. Lets face it, there is much better evidence then this to pull this into question any claims of infallibility for either of these. I guess it would also reshape claims for celibacy based on Jesus' example - but for us protestants, this was settled about 500 years ago.
On the other hand it would strengthen another doctrine, one of the central doctrine of Christology, namely that Jesus was both fully human and fully divine. Lets face it, Jesus would have had sexual desires, otherwise he wasn't fully human. Also much of judaism at the time would have expected a good Rabbi like Jesus to be married. It would only be as Christianity moved into more gnostic inclined circles that being married would have become an issue. In my mind Jesus not being married would have been a greater challenge during Jesus's life then him being married. Thus there would have been little reason to cover it up.
So why are we obsessed by this? Perhaps the real reason is our own ambiguity about religion an sexuality. We want a celibate God to free us from the ambiguous and powerful pull of sexuality, but we also want a sexual God that affirms or at least interests the same desires.
Perhaps there is something more interesting going on. After all didn't God have a son?
Do we not describe God as a lover?
Has God not only created life, but continues to create and nurture life?
Does not scripture describe the Church as God's bride?
Mmmm . . . I doubt that Jesus was married, but I think God might as well be .