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ABC Special Explores if Jesus Had Wife
Atlanta Journal-Constitution ^ | 10.30.03 | DAVID BAUDER

Posted on 10/30/2003 7:46:04 PM PST by mhking

NEW YORK — ABC News correspondent Elizabeth Vargas concedes her network is stepping into a theological minefield with its one-hour exploration of whether Jesus Christ had a wife.

The ABC News special, "Jesus, Mary and DaVinci," is scheduled to air Monday at 8 p.m. ET.

"You can't talk about this subject without intriguing people or offending people," Vargas said Thursday. "We're trying to do it as respectfully as we can."

ABC screened the special for some reporters and religious leaders on Thursday. The program is based on the best-selling novel, "The DaVinci Code," which claims to be partly grounded on historical fact.

The book asserts that Mary Magdalene was Jesus' wife — not a prostitute, as in some teachings — and that she fled Jerusalem with his child following his crucifixion.

The story was kept alive for centuries by a secret society that included the painter Leonardo DaVinci, who supposedly inserted clues about it in his art, the book claimed.

The ABC special outlines the theories and speaks to several theologians who either discount the story or assert that it is possible.

The show unravels like a mystery perpetuated by secondhand gossip. Vargas said ABC found no proof that Jesus had a wife, but couldn't completely discount it, either.

Vargas, who was raised a Roman Catholic, said her own parents said to her, "Oh, my goodness, what are you doing?" when they found out she was working on the story.

She said she was never aware of the power struggles and political intrigue that went into how her faith is taught today.

"For me, it's made religion more real and, ironically, much more interesting — which is what we're hoping to do for our viewers," she said.

It drew some immediate criticism, particularly from a representative of the Catholic League, who said ABC News relied too heavily on the opinion of Father Richard McBrien of Notre Dame, who believes Mary Magdalene's importance has been historically understated and that it's possible she was his wife.

"I think it was not sufficiently balanced," said Joseph DeFeo, policy analyst for the Catholic League. "The majority of the people who spoke believed in either the plausibility or the outright truth of (book author) Dan Brown's claims. The facts themselves scream out that this is a crackpot theory."

The show even drew criticism from Nikki Stephanopoulos, mother of ABC News correspondent George and the communications director for the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America. She the special might offend people who believe that women have a more prominent role in the church.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: arielsabar; catholiclist; epigraphyandlanguage; faithandphilosophy; godsgravesglyphs; gospelofjesuswife; harvard; hewasarabbi; jamescameron; jesuswife; karenking; letshavejerusalem; mariame; mariamne; marymagdalene; rabbismarry; religion; sectarianturmoil; simchajacobovici; talpiot; veritas; weddingatcana
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To: mhking; narses; ~Pandora; BlackVeil; Rennes Templar

Et In Arcadia
Ego

bump

121 posted on 10/30/2003 11:54:40 PM PST by Dajjal
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To: Wolfhound777
Mrs. Satan is a senator from NY.

LOL! And she hyphates her name last name, and goes by the title of Ms.

122 posted on 10/31/2003 12:21:27 AM PST by yankeedame ("Oh, I can take it but I'd much rather dish it out.")
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To: narses
. . . Catholic League, who said ABC News relied too heavily on the opinion of Father Richard McBrien of Notre Dame, who believes Mary Magdalene's importance has been historically understated and that it's possible she was his wife

McBrien again??!!! Why doesn't that man just shut up and go home?

123 posted on 10/31/2003 1:11:55 AM PST by maryz
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To: Howlin
The next thing you know, we will be told that the Meringiven blood line managed to make it to America, all the way to Little Rock....
124 posted on 10/31/2003 2:02:28 AM PST by Miss Marple
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To: mhking
Can you say "Sweeps Stunts?"
125 posted on 10/31/2003 2:08:44 AM PST by Prince Charles
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To: Rockitz
It'll backfire if so. The Passion outclasses drivel like this by several orders of magnitude.
126 posted on 10/31/2003 2:13:43 AM PST by HiTech RedNeck
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To: mhking
It drew some immediate criticism, particularly from a representative of the Catholic League, who said ABC News relied too heavily on the opinion of Father Richard McBrien of Notre Dame, who believes Mary Magdalene's importance has been historically understated and that it's possible she was his wife.

Why doesn't the Pope come here and personally kick "Father" McBrien out of the pulpit? I am not a Catholic myself, but it seems to me that with Christians like this who needs atheists?

127 posted on 10/31/2003 2:16:20 AM PST by HiTech RedNeck
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To: billbears
And one wonders how these people are going to at least try to explain their actions to the Almighty

OR--how are they going to explain not even saying a word about allowing this nation given to us by the Almighty to be turned over to a judicial oligarchy--because this wasn't Politically Correct

128 posted on 10/31/2003 4:06:46 AM PST by Ff--150 (we have been fed with milk, not meat)
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To: Salvation
Jesus did not have a wife per se. But the church is the bride of Christ. This is clear from the New Testament. But this is not acceptable to the Jesus Seminar types, so they had to take the approach of attempting to prove a negative (...not enough evidence to dismiss the claim...). Typical liberal garbage from those who deny the existence of any God.
129 posted on 10/31/2003 4:37:43 AM PST by 17th Miss Regt
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To: Wolfhound777
She is Satan!
130 posted on 10/31/2003 4:41:10 AM PST by Fred Hayek
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To: cars for sale
Amen
131 posted on 10/31/2003 4:43:14 AM PST by weave09
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To: All
ABC will most likely screw this up with PC clap trap, but it is an interesting story.

If somebody just came up with this theory now, no. However, there is evidence, that the Merovingian line believed they were the descendents of Mary Magdalene and Christ. As wrong as they most likely were, it is a historical fact, and it is interesting.

I find the history of the Rosenberg's interesting, even though they were on the wrong side of history. I am going to withold judgement on this one, until the report airs.

If it is done respectfully, and balanced in the sense that it shows how much of a minority this position is, while at the same time, dealing with the history of those who believed this to be true, it could be compelling viewing. The Knights Templar were most likely kooks. It doesn't make them uninteresting though. There was alot of strange stuff being believed. I find the history of the late middle ages to be intriguing. You had witches, alchemists, and secret societies. What's boring there? You can study this, without taking it to be Gospel truth.

132 posted on 10/31/2003 4:48:01 AM PST by dogbyte12
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To: mhking
every holiday season, we have to read stuff like this in Newsweek and Time and mainstream papers...

Ignore it and it will go away. These things are crackpot ideas that started hundreds if not thousands of years after Jesus died.

Mary Magdalen's being an "apostle" started two hundred years after Christ died, and was only in the gnostic "gospels". Jenkins points out that these writings were typical of second and third century gnostic writings, but had no information that was consistent with either first century history in Judea or with philosophical trends of the first century. Yet even these "gnostic" gospels didn't make Magdalen a wife...

The idea is that Jesus was a liar, and really didn't die on the cross (they took him off when he fainted, and took him to the local ICU to revive him...as if Romans, who crucified 20 000 people along the Apian way didn't know how to kill people. Josephus tells of taking two friends off a cross, and one died...but they weren't scourged first. Scourging led to quick death in the suspect,and had a high mortality by itself due to shock)

And of course, this allows the "british israel" people decide they should rule the world since they were descended from Jesus...from nobility, since Jesus was a son of a Roman soldier...

Ignoring that when an emporer wanted to talk to one of Jesus' relatives, they brought him some of his brothers's grandkids, and the emporer was disgusted that they were peasents...

133 posted on 10/31/2003 5:09:05 AM PST by LadyDoc (liberals only love politcially correct poor people.)
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To: cars for sale
Not only does God's word not matter--but on the contrary, what DOES matter is the "enlightened 21st Century mind."

There's a whole lotta problems caused by the evolutionary theory--and the myth that just because we are the latest issue of homo sapiens makes us the best and brightest is the worst result.

134 posted on 10/31/2003 5:10:39 AM PST by ninenot (Democrats make mistakes. RINOs don't correct them.--Chesterton (adapted by Ninenot))
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To: VOA
What written work in the history of civilization hasn't been "partly grounded on historical fact"?

Howard Dean's platform. Pure fiction.

135 posted on 10/31/2003 5:12:50 AM PST by ninenot (Democrats make mistakes. RINOs don't correct them.--Chesterton (adapted by Ninenot))
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To: Dog Gone
If Jesus had a wife, it wouldn't have damaged the theology of Christianity in the least.

I dunno about that.

One could argue that the virtue of continence was exemplified by Christ's perfection of the virtue.

That's an interesting discussion...

136 posted on 10/31/2003 5:17:27 AM PST by ninenot (Democrats make mistakes. RINOs don't correct them.--Chesterton (adapted by Ninenot))
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To: mhking
Just waiting for the next ABC special proving that Jesus was gay.
137 posted on 10/31/2003 5:19:16 AM PST by rintense
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To: ChemistCat
If He married on earth it's not our BUSINESS. He was without sin, and went to His death a completely innocent sacrifice for sin.

this is true. But the REAL implication behind the show is that the gospels are wrong, because they didn't mention his marriage.

Marriage was normal among rabbis, so there is no reason for gospel writers, especially scientifically oriented people like Luke, to leave such a fact out of the gospels.

But the PC imply that the gospels had a political agenda: i.e. to oppress women.

The gnostic sects had women priests...and gospels. So the argument now is that these early writings are more "true" than the bible.

Jenkins points out the agenda

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0195135091/ref=pd_sim_books_3/102-3465719-0004166?v=glance&s=books

Hidden Gospels: How the Search for Jesus Lost Its Way

From Publishers Weekly

In addition to attempting to find postmodern, multiple, nontraditional interpretations of traditional biblical texts, the renowned Jesus Seminar has published texts from outside the traditional canon, heralding them as new discoveries that suggest reinterpretation of traditional Christian theology and practice.

In this book, Jenkins counters the interpretations of Jesus Seminar scholars, concisely and evenhandedly introducing their theories and presenting historical and textual evidence to contradict them. He questions their "discoveries" of texts that have been known to biblical scholars for at least two hundred years, challenges their dating of texts in order to impart them greater weight and traces many of their purportedly new interpretations to age-old traditions ("heresies" to the early Church) such as Gnosticism.

He ascribes to the seminar scholars "inverted fundamentalism," claiming that these critics, ironically, assign great authority to historically questionable noncanonical texts, such as The Gospel of Thomas, while simultaneously challenging the authority and validity of the long-established canon. He attributes this bias to both a postmodern search for meaning and a lay audience hungry for religious truth, while noting that only new interpretations advance academic careers and attract media attention.

In short, he argues that the Jesus Seminar offers nothing new under the sun. Jenkins closes out this forceful critique by noting "we can only hope" that when new biblical texts surface, they might be "evaluated on their merits, and not solely for their value in cultural battles."

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

138 posted on 10/31/2003 5:23:18 AM PST by LadyDoc (liberals only love politcially correct poor people.)
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To: rintense
Just waiting for the next ABC special proving that Jesus was gay.

It's probably coming. Every once in a while, somebody tries to make the case that the Apostle John was gay, and that this somehow relates to why he was Christ's favorite. The case always falls apart when they dig down to the original texts, but it doesn't stop people from trying.
139 posted on 10/31/2003 5:26:18 AM PST by beezdotcom
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To: Political Junkie Too
Moses?

Aha! I think you've got it! Something along the lines of the Moses Project, a branch of the Jesus Project, has found through the use of 'modern' scholarship, that the 400 years of eledged salvery was actually a clever Zionist plot to loot Egypt! HA! There ya go! Moses turnes out to be the father of the Irish Travelers! O the possibilities. Quick! Somebody hand me pencil, I've gotta right this stuff down!

140 posted on 10/31/2003 5:35:31 AM PST by tbpiper
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