Posted on 12/19/2007 7:03:18 PM PST by Richard Poe
| by Richard Lawrence Poe Monday, December 17, 2007 |
Permanent Link Past Columns |
AT CHRISTMASTIME, Nativity scenes help bring the family of Jesus to life. However, they present only a small portion of his family. Scripture informs us that Jesus grew up in a large, sprawling clan, with many relatives. What became of that clan? Some branches may have survived. It is possible that some people living today might be related to Jesus.
Dan Brown’s blockbuster novel The Da Vinci Code contends that Jesus wed Mary Magdalene and fathered a royal dynasty of France. The book sparked interest in Jesus’ bloodline. Unfortunately, Brown's wild speculations and burning hostility toward the Church tainted the subject with an odor of crankery.
The fictional bloodline of Jesus ballyhooed in Brown’s novel should not be confused with Jesus' real bloodline.
Ancient writings make clear that Jesus hailed from an old and honored family. The first sixteen verses of the Gospel of Matthew set forth a genealogy depicting Joseph, the father of Jesus, as the twenty-fourth great grandson of King David.
Early Christians plainly viewed Jesus as an heir of David, a legitimate claimant to the throne of Israel.
Of course, they also viewed Jesus as the son of God, not of Joseph. This complicates the picture, but an adopted prince is a prince nonetheless.
Mary, the mother of Jesus, also came from a prominent family. Luke 1:5 tells us that Mary’s cousin Elizabeth was a Levite, descended from a long line of Israelite priests.
Mary's parents Joachim and Anna (or Hannah) were a wealthy and pious couple favored by God, according to the Gospel of James. Though never included in the Bible, the Gospel of James has received respectful study from generations of Christian scholars.
Despite his illustrious pedigree, Jesus worked as a humble carpenter. This should not surprise us. In his day, the sons of Herod ruled Judea, serving as puppets of Rome. The House of David was out of power, out of favor, and, in Jesus' case, out of pocket as well.
The New Testament names other relatives of Jesus. "Standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary, the wife of Cleophas...", states John 19:25.
It may seem odd that two sisters would share the same name, but these two Marys were probably cousins, not sisters.
Poor translation is to blame. The oldest known manuscripts of the New Testament are written in Greek. However, these Greek documents apparently drew on earlier sources composed in Aramaic, the language Jesus spoke.
Neither Aramaic nor Hebrew has any word for cousin. In these ancient tongues, the only precise way to identify a cousin was to use a clumsy formula such as "the son of my uncle". Consequently, Hebrew and Aramaic scribes often referred to cousins and other relatives as "brother" or "sister".
For example, in Genesis 29:15, Laban calls Jacob, his nephew, "brother". Genesis 14:12-14 refers to Lot as the "brother" of his uncle Abraham.
Four men are called "brothers of the Lord" in the Gospels; James, Simon, Jude and Joseph. Mark 6:3 also mentions “sisters” of Jesus. These "brothers" and "sisters" were most likely cousins of Jesus.
Two of them -- James and Joseph -- are probably the sons of "Mary, wife of Cleophas" whose names appear in Matthew 27:56. This same Mary also had a daughter named Salome, according to Mark 15:40.
At least a dozen blood relatives of Jesus can be identified by name. Could any of these have living descendants today?
Written records provide only fragmentary clues. Other research methods are available, however.
One such approach was featured on a March 27, 2006 episode of the History Channel's archaeology series Digging for the Truth.
Former host Josh Bernstein put the Da Vinci Code to the test by comparing DNA from the bones of a French Merovingian queen with DNA from a community claiming kinship with ancient Galileans. Not surprisingly, the samples showed no match. However, Bernstein made a more important discovery.
He found that members of Jerusalem’s Syriac Orthodox Church claim descent from the family of Jesus. This ancient community still speaks and worships in Aramaic. Its origins are obscure.
“These families can be traced all the way back to Jesus Christ?”, Bernstein asked the church's Archbishop Severios Malki Murad.
“Of course”, he replied. “We are from the same family”.
Such claims may or may not withstand scientific scrutiny. But they are worth exploring.
By comparing oral history, DNA and whatever scraps of written records survive, we may yet succeed in locating the nearest living relatives of Jesus.
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Richard Lawrence Poe is a contributing editor to Newsmax, an award-winning journalist and a New York Times bestselling author. His latest book is The Shadow Party: How George Soros, Hillary Clinton and Sixties Radicals Siezed Control of the Democratic Party, co-written with David Horowitz. |
Please let me know if you want ON or OFF of my Traditional Roman Catholic ping list.
Ping!
Jesus Schwartz? Goldstein? Are there any clues as to the last name?
Murdoch. Jesus Murdoch.
It’s kind of interesting, but of absolutely NO theological significance whatsoever.
This strikes me as being more of the goofy, unsubstantiated “Holy Blood, Holy Grail” nonsense. No thanks, I left the keys to my UFO on Zeta Reticuli, pecifically so I could get away from intergalactic nonsense.
Jesus blood line: God-Jesus. (please not the period at the end of the blood line.
The nearest relative to Jesus?? Many of us here are adopted sons! (Rom 8:15)
WE ARE FAMILY! :)
This is true. However unless I missed it the article isn't talking about Jesus's children, it is talking about siblings he would be related to either through his mother (half-brothers and sisters) or cousins also through his mother's bloodline and heritage.
The God-Jesus bloodline of course ends at Jesus as he had no children, however the Joseph-Mary bloodline probably continued on.
As stated before though by Arthur McGowan, "It’s kind of interesting, but of absolutely NO theological significance whatsoever."
It does point out the holes in the theories that some have raised about Mary, the Theotokos, having other children, which even the Early Church recognized as false.
No doubt it may be interesting to investigate, but other posters are correct in saying it doesn’t have any real theological significance. Any brothers and sisters would have been HALF brothers because they were fathered by Joseph.
If you want to see the living brothers and sisters of Christ, look at the places his followers gather. There will be many there and you can actually talk to them...
We are all related to Jesus, since God is our Father.
Which is why I'm a strong advocate of cloning Jesus.
From the Wiki article on the Aramaic Primacy that was linked:
“George Lamsa’s translation of the Peshitta New Testament from Syriac into English brought the Aramaic Primacy issue to the West. However, his translation is poorly regarded by most academics in the field.[1] With the rise of the Internet, Aramaic primacists began to pool arguments in favor of their case. Prominent advocates include Paul Younan, Andrew Gabriel Roth, Raphael Lataster, James Trimm, and Steven Caruso; none of whom are associated with mainstream academia in this field, and work mainly through the medium of the Internet.”
Erg. Poorly regarded by most academics in the field. None of whom are associated with mainstream academia. Work mainly through the INTERNET. I think you should be hearing klaxons going off.
The first mistake is the use of Wikipedia. The second is using a Wiki that isn’t necessarily all that supportive of the theory.
So what we have here is that most of academia in the field believes that the NT was written in Greek.
Again, from your source:
“Mainstream and modern scholars have generally had a strong agreement that the New Testament was written in Greek. They acknowledge that many individual sayings of Jesus as found in the Gospels are translations from oral Aramaic, but hold that the Gospels’ text in its current form was composed in Greek, and so were the other New Testament writings. Scholars of all stripes have had to acknowledge the presence in the Gospel of Mark of scattered, but only occasional, Aramaic expressions, transliterated and then translated.”
If this is the case, then there is a problem with the Marian Doctrines. If the Gospels were originally written in Greek, where ‘brothers’ and ‘sisters’ of Jesus are mentioned throughout the Gospels, as you have quoted, the terms would mean just that.
There is little or no indication that those mentioned had a close personal relationship that could be used as a basis to call Jesus ‘brother’ or ‘sister’, while not using the same terms for the Apostles, esp. John, or the women that followed Jesus.
We have no indication of an Aramaic primacy. I can see where one would come in real handy for the Roman Catholic Church...
GRPL Sola Scriptura vs. Ecclesia Ping!
Anyone else have comments?
All believing Christians receive the blood of Christ in the miracle of the Eucharist during mass. Accept Jesus as the Son of God, live according to God’s word and you will live forever in Heaven.
This is VERY different than what was claimed by conspiracy theorists and The di Vinci Code, both of which claimed that Jesus fathered children through Mary Magdalene. Problem is, there is no proof from Roman historians of that ever happening, nor does the Bible and several rejected books that didn't make it into the final Bible we know today.
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