Posted on 11/20/2014 2:41:48 PM PST by SeekAndFind
Another day, another stunning blockbuster report that … Jesus was married! And to Mary Magdalene!
The latest version of this meme comes from Simcha Jacobovici, an author and filmmaker who is famous for promoting stunning theories about Jesus that on further review often turn out to be dubious.
Jacobovici’s new claim that he has decoded an old text that reveals Jesus and the Magdalene were married and had two kids (and she was a “co-deity” with her husband) came out this month and has also been widely dismissed.
But as happened earlier this year with the so-called “Gospel of Jesus’s Wife” — a suspect papyrus that receives a further debunking in the latest edition of the Atlantic — people find Jesus’ sex life endlessly fascinating, and plausible.
Why is that? Here are five reasons.
1. Biblical archaeology has primed people for surprises
There is nothing new under the sun, the Book of Ecclesiastes says, yet amazing discoveries in recent decades seem to tell a different story. Excavations in the Holy Land have yielded remarkable artifacts that provide unexpected insights into Bible history. But the emergence of ancient papyrus texts from the sands of Egypt really upended scriptural studies — and many common assumptions about Christianity.
The discovery at Nag Hammadi in 1945 of a cache of old texts, some of them “gospels” of the so-called Gnostic school — an early branch of Christianity — may be the most famous. Many of these texts, which were only popularized in the 1980s, present an alternate version of Christianity that seems to exalt the role of women, and even suggests that Jesus was intimate with a woman, probably Mary Magdalene.
Given that background, it’s no surprise any new blockbuster claim is assumed to be credible.
2. Everyone wants a Jesus in his/her own image
Biblical scholarship in the past two centuries has fed periodic “quests” for the historical Jesus, the “real” Jesus.
But as the theologian and humanitarian Albert Schweitzer noted more than a century ago, we wind up creating a Jesus in our own image.
And so it continues today, as modern Christians see Jesus as a successful businessman, a proto-Marxist, a political zealot, a vegetarian, or maybe a gay man. Or, more commonly, married with children — an Ozzie and Harriet savior for an America that aspires to a secure middle-class life, a messiah who is also a best friend.
3. Every nice Jewish boy gets married. Right?
If Jesus isn’t the guy next door, there is a growing recognition by modern Christians that he was a first-century Jewish man. But that recognition also brings along an assumption — or maybe a stereotype — that all Jewish men get married and have a bunch of kids, or want to.
That wasn’t necessarily the case in Jesus’ day, as Vanderbilt University Bible scholar Amy-Jill Levine, among others, has noted. There are in fact accounts of monastic-like communities of celibate Jews, such as the Essenes, that may have drawn adherents like John the Baptist or even Jesus. They were praised by the contemporary chronicler Philo of Alexandria for an “enviable system of life” that was hailed by kings and ordinary people alike.
4. People love conspiracies more than facts
Many wonder if there wasn’t something else going on — a cover-up, perhaps? Poverty is one thing. But chastity?
From the Kennedy assassination to the moon landing, any claim becomes suspect in an era marked by a deep mistrust of institutions — and there are plenty of revelations to foster such doubts — NSA, anyone? Institutional religion is hardly exempt from this trend. (Hello, clergy sex abuse scandal?)
“The Da Vinci Code,” with its tale of an age-old Catholic brotherhood willing to do anything to protect the secret about the marriage of Jesus and Mary Magdalene, may be a thrilling novel. But you just KNOW it could be true.
5. Boys rule. Girls … ?
The emergence of women’s rights has been one of the signature developments of modern life. But it has also proved to be an enormous challenge to male-dominated religions, and Christianity has been pretty much run by men since the beginning.
Or was it?
As women stake a claim to authority in churches, many want to bolster that argument by reclaiming the historic role of women in early Christianity. Mary Magdalene, long known as the “Apostle to the Apostles” for her central role in supporting Jesus’ ministry and announcing his resurrection, is a key figure in that effort.
The chief problem with hailing the Magdalene as “Mrs. Jesus” is that this hypothesis may be undermining the very goals women’s advocates want to advance. Making her the vicar’s wife, as it were, standing by her man and performing her wifely duties, is not necessarily the image feminist Christians want to highlight.
Nor does it reflect the record in the New Testament Gospels and the early Christian tradition.
There are some real nuts out there.
#6. It destroys people’s faith.
His mom was Jewish and what Jewish mom wouldn’t want her boy to get married? Have kids so she could have grand kids ... make Simchas Torah Crackers, Purim Cake .....
I don’t see any particular reason to get one’s shorts in a knot one way or the other. I’d prefer to meet him in the hereafter and see for myself.
I agree! He makes Him a normal man and not the Savior that He is.
Nope. The message of the gospel is entirely separate from marriage. Christ used marriage as a reference on numerous occasions and preached on the sanctity of marriage, so it is not a faith-breaking event.
I do not believe that He was married but were He to have been, it would not move my faith in Him one iota. Any that would have issue with it should address the substance on which their faith was built.
Are Muslims behind this marriage myth? After all,
Moe Hammid “married” a nine year old child and “legitimized his pedophelia by writing it into the Koran as being OK.
The Late Sam Kinison basically pointed out why Jesus couldn’t have been married.
‘Cause no wife would buy this story in a hundred years.
First of all, he leaves on Friday afternoon with twelve other guys…
He’s gone for three days, no message, no way to get in touch with her…
He comes home Monday afternoon looking like he hasn’t slept…
He looks like he’s partied out, man.
And Mrs. Jesus is just waiting going, UMM, OK, I guess it’s day three of this Ah, great.
Well, I’m glad you could find your way home, Savior.
Where’s your twelve friends who won’t get a job? Huh? Where they at?
Yeah, disciples my ..... they’re losers.
Every one of them is using you and you’re not smart enough to know it.
Anybody says I believe we put them up and feed them; I’m sick of it. Where you been?
Jesus is going, I don’t need this. Not after what I’ve been through this weekend.
Oh…
No, honey, I’ll tell you where I’ve been.
Come here…come here…
Come here, I’ll tell you where I’ve been.
First of all not that, not that it ruined you’re weekend any but I was DEAD!!!
Do you understand, I WAS DEAD!!!
While you were sitting here, I’m in a grave outside of town. I’m fighting death, hell, decomposure, I’m about to come into spiritual form and go into the Kingdom of God, I go wait a second. I better go back because she doesn’t know where I’ve been.
So now I’ve gotta fight the angel of death, get my soul back, crawl out of the grave, come home to this because I missed you, HONEY!!!
RE: Moe Hammid “married” a nine year old child and “legitimized his pedophelia by writing it into the Koran as being OK.
His marriage to Aisha was not recored in the Koran but the Hadith.
Yup.
I agree. There are some real nuts out there.
One of the keys to continuity of both faith and family is strong family.
There is absolutely no reason why he could not have participated in what he preached other than others re-writing history to make him heavenly pure and erasing any evidence of family. Jesus was a man.
Perhaps the gay community wants to use this as evidence of his gayness and why they should be endorsed. Someone from the circle of fools will grab onto an idea like this.
Actually, that is probably the birth of the priests and little boys abuse scandals. They can’t have women.... just saying.
Jesus may or may not have been married.
But his mother was.
First of all, nobody is arguing that this “has to be” the family tomb of Jesus. The person who wrote the article knows that but set up a straw man anyway.
The combination of names in the tomb is quite unusual, and it would fit with the names in Jesus’s family. So that is at least a suggestion that this may be the tomb.
I read the book. (Fascinating, whatever you think of its theories.) Nobody is claiming that Jesus didn’t exist. To make that claim would undermine the entire thesis, wouldn’t it? Yet the author of this “article” claims that this is what is being claimed.
The Nag Hammadi Gospels do not play into the theory at all, as this author knows. And he is likely wrong about their dates. But we know well that the Bible we have has been substantially edited and altered along the way.
They adduce evidence from the very beginning of the book, contrary to this writer’s claims.
There is much more. But I want to keep this post short enough that it will actually get read.
The “Jesus tomb” argument presented in the book has weaknesses, but so does the refutation. There are certainly indications that it may be “the tomb.”
Again, an unmarried 30-ish Jewish man in that place and time would have been remarked upon and noted. Does that prove the theory that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married and had kids? No, but it does tend to buttress it. There are little things that hint at it through various writings.
And if it is true, it has no real effect on who Jesus was (or wasn’t) and what he taught. I do not understnad why it so upsets people.
“Everyone wants a Jesus in his/her own image”
Like how many “church leaders” say Jesus would approve of homosexual marriage?
No matter where move hammid recorded and approved his pedophelia, it is disgusting
“Nope...I do not believe that He was married but were He to have been, it would not move my faith in Him one iota.”
Others may not have a faith which is as apparently strong and settled faith as yours.
I do not believe that He was married but were He to have been, it would not move my faith in Him one iota. Any that would have issue with it should address the substance on which their faith was built.
Very well said and I completely agree. I would also add that if Jesus was married, that would be the truth. Any faith that collapsed upon hearing the truth would therefore have been faith based upon a lie. Thus, while perhaps such a revelation should be done gently, it nevertheless should be done - by definition. Otherwise those "protecting the faith" are in fact hiding the truth that Jesus lived with His own life. And Jesus addressed such people when He said "I know you not."
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