According to Dr. Geza Vermes of Oxford University, "There is complete silence in the Gospels concerning the marital status of Jesus . . . Such a state of affairs is sufficiently unusual in ancient Jewry to prompt further enquiry."

The Gospels state that many of the disciples - Peter, for example - were married. Accoridng to Judaic custom at the time it was not only usual, but almost mandatory, that a man be married. And at no point does Jesus himself condone celibacy. On the contrary, in the Gospel of Matthew he declares, "Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female . . .For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?" During the late first century a Jewish writer even compared deliberate celibacy with murder, and he does not seem to be alone in this attitude.

If Jesus was not married this fact would have been glaringly conspicuous. It would have drawn attention to itself and used to characterize and identify him. If this were the case surely at least one of the Gospel accounts would have made reference to such a deviation from custom. The absence of any such reference strongly suggests that Jesus conformed to the conventinos of his time and culture - that he was married.

In the Fourth Gospel, there is an episode related to marriage that may, in fact, have been Jesus' own. This is, of course, the wedding at Cana. According to the Fourth Gospel, Jesus is specifically "called" to the wedding - which is curious, for he has not yet embarked on his ministry. More curious is that his mother "just happens," as it were, to be present. Also, during the wedding when the wine has run out Mary orders Jesus to replenish it. Jesus delcines to do so, and instead Mary instructs the servants to do whatever Jesus tells them to do - to which the servants promptly comply as if they were familiar with taking orders from Jesus and Mary.

Despite Jesus' attmepts to ignore his mother, Mary prevails and Jesus performs his first major miracle. The transmutation of water into wine. So far as the Gospels are concerned Jesus has not displayed his powers before then, and there is no reason for Mary to assume that he has them. But even if there were why should such unique and holy gifts be used for such a banal purpose? More important, why should two "guests" at a wedding take it upon themselves the reponsibility of catering - a responsibility, by custom, reserved for the host? Unless of course the wedding at Cana is Jesus' own wedding. In that case it would indeed be his responsibility to replenish the wine.

There is further evidence that the wedding at Cana was Jesus' own. Immediately after the miracle the master of ceremonies tastes the new wine. "The governor of the feast called the bridegroom, And saith unto him, Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine; and when men have well drunk, then that which is worse: but thou has kept the good wine until now." (John 2:9-10). These words would clearly seemd to be addressed to Jesus. According to the Gospels, however, they are addressed to the "bridegroom." An obvious conclusion is that Jesus and the "bridegroom" are one and the same.

Opinions?

that sounds really familiar. have you posted it before?

I think it is highly likely that Jesus was married. He was called Rabbi. Rabbi's back in biblical times were all married. Why not Jesus? I don't know why organized religion gets so upset about the possibility of Jesus being married. Maybe because married = sex. Organized religion is so anal about sex. Hey, that doesn't sound good! Anywhoo, you know what I mean...

well, the bible makes no mention of Jesus being married. Ya know, if he were, they could have at least added a "oh, and then he got married... moving on"

Certain secret and marvelous passages which were related to that wedding were intentionally eliminated from the original text by the scribes and doctors of the Law.

Certainly, it is lamentable that the Hebraic Holy Bible had been so cruelly mutilated, adulterated, deformed by hypocritical Pharisees.

Fortunately, they did not touch the apocryphal texts!

I think it is very possible that the Wedding at Cana was Jesus' wedding. I think, given the traditions and beliefs of the time, it is more likely that he was married than that he wasn't.

They may well have. We now know how much was left out of the collection of works we now call the Bible. And we all know what happened at Nicea.

gosh..............well i will ask that one when i reach heaven.but ibelieve JEsus is single.........with his big ministry he can't handle having a family........

Go for it dude.

Mary Magdelon's gospel was burned and cut out... And that one could have very well held their marriage...

Bingo. That was the point I was trying to make earlier, only you said it better.

The secret Gospel you guys are talking about was the "secret" Gospel of Mark. I believe it was discovered in 1974, but the church refused to recognize it.

So if Jesus was married, do you think he had a child...or many children?

Well as the story went, and I don't mean it was directly made up in that Da Vinci book, the author did get this from somewhere...

Mary went north after Jesus was dead. She settled into france. Whether or not she had a boy or a girl... *shrugs*

There are some theories out there about the child of Jesus. I don't have time now (class in 30 minutes), but I'll post a few of them later today.

Just think, I have a smidgen of French blood and if all that about Mary and Jesus is true, after all these centuries that bloodline would have defused throughout France and I could be related to Jesus.....Kind of Ironic, a Deist related to Jesus

No, and I suggest you watch movie titled 'The Last Temptation of Christ' which goes through all the crap some people now claimed happened.

It shows what WOULD have happened if it happened they way some are claiming.

I have French blood on my mother's side (and am part Jewish, part Irish, etc). I can tell you I'm not a descendant of Jesus because He had none. Nor did Mary have any other children.

Joseph had children from a previous marriage. THEY are the 'brothers and sisters' of Jesus, but not by blood.

yes.. because we all know movies tell the exact truth. One everything. That movie was speculation at best...

No, it's not truth, but it throws in everyone's face what it is they are claiming, and why it wasn't that way. It shows how if Jesus had married...anyway, watch the movie.

Actually, your aren't because he NEVER EXISTED in the first place!

It's still not evidance or proof of why he couldn't have had a wife. It's speculation and circular logic... Watching the movie still won't prove the point.

Yes, He did. Like I've just finished saying, even the Jews accept He existed, they just don't accept Him as a Messiah.

In order for Him to have married, He would have had to come off the cross, because He wasn't married beforehand, and live. If He lived, He would not have fulfilled prophecy, and no soul would then enter Heaven. He didn't want to die, He asked God if there was another way, but His answer was, there wasn't. Again, even the Jews accept that He died on the cross. It was their pharisee's that had Him put to death. Romans don't just let people go after they've been sentenced to death.

Give one secular contemporary piece of evidence that he existed. There is plenty of evidence for other prophets, Sons of God and Charlatans that were contemporary with him. So I await your evidence! No the Jews didn't even know about him until the growth of Christianity forced them to consider his existence. Even they have no evidence of his existence, even tho they have tried to find him in their records.

Funny, they talk of Him, saying He DID exist, but they claim He was, to them a 'false prophet'.

Yes, and they talk about golems and say that they did exist, but that doesn't mean that there ever was a golem. I just read CD's little posting and is really evident that you don't know the rules of evidence or for that matter, what you are talking about!

Actually there are writings predating the Gospels that provide evidence for Jesus surviving the Crucifixion. Also, the way the Crucifixion is described in the Bible is very suspicious and according to histoy, near impossible.

I don't think Jesus ever got married...

He came for one reason, he knew this...


LBD

And if He already knew the outcome why would He marry!

*gets her Irish up*

I reject your reality and substitute my own. Science + beer = good!
Well here I totaly agree with you. Cheers

I dream of the day I can have a guinness in an irish pub...

Dreams are but Goals with wings, I hope that one come true for you

According to Barbara Teirrings deciphering of the Dead Sea Scrolls Jesus was married -Twice!

Firstly to Mary Magdalene, they had many children (10 or 12?) then they divorced because of differences over religion. He then married a woman called Lydia.

Jesus son (also called Jesus) is actually mentioned in the bible. Haven;t got the quote to hand but will try to find it.

In 'Jesus-last of the Pharoahs' by Ellis, it also suggests that he actually married his sister! Good book to read.

As promised here is a theory of Jesus' child:

There is no explicit evidence from the Gospels that says Jesus actually did have children. But rabbis were expected, as a matter of course, to have children; and if Jesus was a rabbi it would be most unusual for him to rmeain childless. There is an elusive individual who figures into the Gospels as Barabbas, or, to be more precise Jesus Barabbas - as he is identified in one early manuscript of the Gosepl of Matthew.

Modern scholars are unsure of the derivation and meaning of "Barabbas." "Jesus Barabbas" may be a corruption of "Jesus bar Rabbi" -- "Jesus, son of the rabbi." If Jesus had a son named after himself, that son would indeed be "Jesus bar Rabbi." There is one other possibility as well. "Jesus Barabbas" may derive from "Jesus Bar Abba"; and since "Abba" is "father" in Hebrew, "Barabba" would then mean "son of the father" -- a fairly pointless designation unless the "father" is in some way special.

Further, Barabbas is linked to the Zealots - a militant nationalist revolutionary group who were fomenting social upheaval at the time. According to Luke Barabbas was involved in a recent "disturbance," "sedition," or "riote" in the city. History makes no mention of turmoil at the time. The Gospels, however, do. According to the Gospels there had been a civic disturbance in Jerusalem only a few days before - When Jesus and his followers overturned the moneylenders tables at the Temple. Was this the disturbance in which Barabbas was involved and for which he was imprisoned? It certainly seems likely. If this is the case, then Barabbas must have been part of Jesus' entourage.

According to modern scholars the "custom" of releasing prisoners on the Passover did not exist. But even if it did, the choice of Barabbas over Jesus would make no sense. If Barabbas were indeed a common criminal, why would the people choose to have his life spared? And if he were indeed a revolutionary, it is hardly likely that Pilate would have released so potentially dangerous a character rather than a harmless visionary.

Perhaps Barabbas was Jesus' son? Perhaps Jesus was a legitimate king? One must imagine an oppressed populace faced with the destruction of their spiritual and political ruler. In such circumstances would not the dynasty be more important than the individual? Would not the preservation of the bloodline be paramount? If the line survived there would at least be hope for the future.

And, of course, there may well have been other children too. Children could have been conceived at any point up to within a day or so of the Crucifixion. Or, possibly after.

The Nag Hammadi scrolls and the Gnostic Gospels also point to the existence of offspring of Jesus.

if you are saying the council of nicea in any way decided the biblical canon, i would like it very much if you were to go here: http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum...showtopic=34001 and present your case for it.


um... the dead sea scrolls dont talk about jesus. most of them were produced well before jesus' lifetime.

hi guys-i am not even close to being a Christian, although I have certainly read the n.t. The first time I seriously was xposed was in high school. I always assumed that mary magdalene was his girlfriend. If it was obvious to me, a rank outsider, I think it might just be true. The whole wedding thing has been done to death in books. "the passover plot"is the bomb about this. It was also obvious that, whoever the real jesus was, he was executed as a political rebel by the romans. How many of you guys grew up having "friends" tell you that YOU killed jesus? I did, and we weren't raised with any religion, and I never understood it, then i read the n.t. What jesus says and xianity are polar opposites. It's amazing what paul did with it. Horrible! But j/c/ had brothers at least one sister, and the catholic church to this day maintains that mary died a virgin! Just because they want to, i guess.peace out...

The Dead Sea Scrolls (aka the Nag Hammadi Scrolls) date from the late fourth or early fifth century - about A.D. 400. That's about 364 years after Jesus' lifetime since He died in A.D. 36. Further the scrolls are copies of material that was transcribed far before A.D. 400 as far as A.D. 150 which predates many of the Gospels in the Bible. Also, they do indeed talk about Jesus. In one codex of the Nag Hammadi scrolls - the Second Treatsie of the Great Seth - Jesus talks about escaping his death on the Cross by an ingenious substitution. They also describe an ongoing feud between Peter and the Magdelene.

I have only found one other reference to Jesus. It was written by the historian of the time, a man named Josephus. He says, "There was a man, if he can be called a man.." I can't remember what else was said, but it wasn't much. I do have the book and can look it up if you are interested.

Where on earth did you get that information?????

hold on there.
the Nag Hammadi texts are very different from the dead sea scrolls. the dead sea scrolls were found in caves on the shore of the dead sea in 1947, continuing on into the 1950s. they contain jewish documents, including fragments of all but one of the books of the OT.
the Nag Hammadi texts were found in 1945 near a village of the same name in Egypt. nothing in them predates the NT gospels, unless you hold to the Jesus Seminar's dating of Thomas.
See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nag_Hammadi
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_sea_scrolls

Yea, you're right. Sorry, I had my scrolls mixed up! Nag Hammadi scrolls were dug up in 1945 by a peasant in Egypt. But, yes, at least one of them do outdate the four standard Gospels of teh New testament.

Thanks for correcting me.

But, anyway - back to the topic. It isn't impossible that Barabbas was Jesus' son. Jesus was born in 6 B.C. and died in A.D. 36 - meaning he was no older than 42. If he was married at the age of 16 or 17 - as was the custom during the time - he certainly could have had a child before he was Crucified, and if the Crucifixion was, in fact, a staged event with a substitute - he could have had children anywhere up until his death!

@ ThatOneGuy: I think that you should credit the source of your theory about the Nazarene's child and Barabbas. Especially since you lifted it, word-for-word, from the book "Holy Blood/Holy Grail'. Don't you agree?

Now why not tell us why you put stock in this theory. In your OWN words.

I've credited my theory in almost every post I've made in this forum, it slipped my mind in this one. My Bad. Yes, I did get this from Holy Blood, Holy Grail. Word for word? No.

They helped me put it into words better than I coul, it would have taken me about 93566 hours to type everyhting I know and wanted to share, but Baigent, Leigh, and Lincoln condensed it for me.

Why I put stock in this theory? The historical context Jesus was in, the Judaic law regarding Rabbis, the wedding at Cana, they all point to Jesus being married. With regard to his son, an existence of a bloodline would explain a lot of things throughout history including the Pope's pact with Clovis, the assissination and attempt to erase Dagobert II from history, the reason teh Meroviginan kings were held in such high regard. Everything fits, even in the Gospels.

I've read the Dead Sea Scrolls (or most of it) and I have no idea which gospels you're talking about. There are many gospels, supposedly of Jesus being married etc, all of which are Gnostic. The word 'Gnostic' (which is where this Nag Hammandi' comes from, I HAVE read that) next to any gospel spells changed after the fatc story to me. Gnosticism was around before Jesus, branching off the original texts of Judaism, claiming God was evil and that 'God' is within you.

Yes, Jesus followed Judaism, but He also changed Judaism.



Most people know Jesus' brother's and sisters were in fact step sisters from Joseph's prior marriage, and not blood related.

I am asking for your source.

I willing to go out on a limb here and guess that it will be the book of enoch.
Just a hunch, mind you.

LOL HOOO Doggies, y'all might be a Yankee, but ah like yore style pardner! Greetings from deep in the heart of Texas! - Mako

Will this website shed any light on the Jesus enigma?

http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/index.html